My 9 1/2 year old homeschooled son always wanted to spell words correctly and whenever he had to write something, he avoided using words that he wasn't sure how to spell. This is one reason he decided to try out for a spelling bee. He knew that it would require focusing on words and vocabulary for a while. I told him if he learned the more than 3,000 words on the list, he would probably know how to spell well enough that he would only have to occasionally look up words and we would take spelling off of our list of things that he needed to learn.
Today we will do nothing but spelling since the spelling bee is tomorrow. It is funny how much I learn with my son. There are words on his list that I didn't even know the definition of. So I would recommend doing a spelling bee if you think he would like that kind of thing. Since my son started practicing for it, he really started paying attention to how words were spelled, even on his video games, especially Yu-Gi-Oh.
A few years ago he enjoyed the Vocabulary Cartoon books and saw some SAT words he remembered from these books, like the word ubiquitous, on his spelling bee list and he remembered how to spell it.
The strange thing is, he will remember how to spell what I think are really hard words and if he makes a mistake, it will be on what I think is an easier word.
He liked doing Every Day Edits on educationworld.com and looking for spelling errors. He also liked using an electronic dictionary to look up words.
