When does Spelling get better?

[Mom4Him]

We've been following HOD's plans for spelling from the beginning, but have some struggling spellers. My fourth graders are decent. I can at least figure out the words they're attempting to spell. But, my third grader's spelling is so, so difficult to read. Once I know what she's trying to spell I can kind of see a little of what she may have been thinking in spelling the word that way, but again - it is so hard to read anything she writes. (It doesn't help that she hasn't caught on to capitalization and punctuation yet either.) She did both spelling lists very well and is more than half way through the first dictation level - which she is doing really well with. She is in Preparing and does all the copy-work for the most part quite well. I notice it the most when she does the writing assignment, answers to science questions, and written history narration each week. Even spelling out words for her on the board and pointing out the words in the book so she can copy the correct spelling doesn't seem to help.

Does this get better? When? How?

I've got six kids altogether, so I can't always be sitting with her every time she's writing something out. And even if I am, I feel my "little spelling hints" just interrupt her thought process.
Thanks for your help!
Jessica

[MomtoJGJE]

Spelling got dramatically better for my oldest around 10... I'm still waiting for it to click with my second who just turned 10.

[psreit]

My 11 yo daughter has dyslexia and her spelling is very poor, which is typical for dyslexics. Thankfully, she has good phonemic awareness, but she wants to spell words according to how they sound. That works with some, but not with many others. So, unless she knows the spelling rules, which are taught in a phonics program, the only thing that will help her spelling is memorization. I am going through a program with her to try to teach her some of the rules, but I am not expecting her to remember a lot of them. I also got it to help her learn to break apart longer words. She has some processing difficulties, so she has trouble storing all of that information. Honestly, I think I would too. I don't think I learned to spell by remembering all the rules. Anyway, even though my daughter has a long way to go in spelling accurately, I am seeing bits of improvement just from reading and doing copywork. There is no certain age where children learn to spell well. It takes patience from us parents with children who have difficulty with spelling, because it requires more of our time when the child is doing some writing and we need to constantly be giving helps. So, just keep doing what your doing.....reading, copywork, spelling/dictation. Don't know when, but in time you will see improvement.

[crlacey]

My dyslexic daughter started doing better about spelling when we let her start typing her work. Since the computer will underline the incorrect word, it helped her see it as wrong right away. Then the computer offers suggestions. Of course, sometimes she picks the wrong word. She started doing computer work at age 10 and now at age 11 she's much better! She went from a 3rd grade level to a 6th grade level over the course of a year.

[Nealewill]

My son just recently made some leaps and strides in his spelling. Here are some things I noticed and some things I did with him. Hopefully something helps.

When she does her copywork, does she segment the word while copying it or just pick a string of letters to write not necessarily picking based off of the syllable structure. For example, if my son was going to spell backyard, he would not segment it and say "ba...cky...ard". If I were to sound this out, I would say "Back...yard" and spell those independently. I had to work with him to say "back" and then "yard" to spell it. Even something like "Sat...ur...day". He might write "Sa...tu...rd...ay". Well, those letter strings he came up with never would have led him to the word in sounding it out and putting it down on paper. So, I have him segment the word while he spells it.

Also, do you make her read it back to you sounding out each letter? I did that a ton this year. My son would write "sig" instead of "sing". It has take a while to train him up be his getting much better. And if she reads it back to you but she doesn't see it, I would then proceed to read it out loud as they wrote it pointing out how you see it. It may sound mean but they might not be able to "see" it the way you do. I then ask why it doesn't say that word they wanted to write and then they can fix it.

It seems like this type of thing happened to my oldest when she was 8 going on 9 and she finally got spelling at this time. I would say for my oldest, she finally had punctuation down by the time she completed Preparing. My son will be 9 this summer and he is getting better with punctuation. My youngest though is so different - she spells great and her punctuation is usually included most of the time.

I personally wouldn't stress about it. The one thing I would do though, especially since you have so many kids, I might take a month or two half speed with the child that is struggling. I would do this to invest these traits into her and hopefully help so that you won't have to do this again in the future. It seems like the times my kids grow the most in an area that they are struggling in is the times when I take a break from pushing everything else and I put my time and focus in these few areas. My son has probably had the most struggle with pretty much everything he touches. So I do understand how it can be frustrating to feel like you are taking backwards steps. But every time I invest in him, I have always been so happy with the results that I have decided the extra time was well worth the extra spent and have no regrets about it either.

[mrsrandolph]

I feel your pain. Part of post removed per board rules by board moderator.

[Mom4Him]

Thank you everyone!
At this point she hasn't really shown any signs of dyslexia or any vision problems... just a creative way of spelling.
I know it takes different skills (& probably much more time) for kids to get better at spelling during everyday writing activities.

How should spelling look within written narrations and/or within the creative writing assignments?
(If I stop her to correct her spelling, she looses her thought process, and in the end the quality of writing is poorer than when I just let her write.)

How about when answering the Science questions?
(This should be an Independent box, and I really don't feel like I can stand over her shoulder watching for spelling when I don't think that's the point of the box.)

I really appreciate your insight and encouragement!!

[Nealewill]

I had read somewhere that students can still narrate to you, you write it down and then they copy the answers.

If it were me, and she spells simple words correctly, I would just let her write everything and then go back through it later and help her fix it. Other than that, I wouldn't stress about it. My oldest still spells some words incorrectly that I feel like she should know how to spell. It is what it is LOL. I don't stress about it. She writes her stuff down and then when she is finished with whatever she wrote, we go over and she fixes it then.

[my3sons]

Wyatt was not a good speller as a child. He had speech therapy for several years, and he just couldn't hear the sounds well enough to spell well in his own writing. For Wyatt, I moved to doing dictation daily in all of the guides. This extra dictation helped him grow in his spelling skills. I used the Written Narrations Skills: Teacher's List #4 options 1-4 to help improve his spelling. From what you've shared, I'd begin with Option 3, which is spell orally any words the students ask you to spell for them while they are writing. As able, you can move to Options 1 and 2, which are better habits than Options 3 and 4. When editing already completed written work, I always use #9, which is to edit for spelling by underlining the incorrect spelling in pencil and writing the correct spelling of the word in the margin of the paper for our dc to correct. I sometimes do this with a sticky note in the older guides, jotting the proper spelling or the punctuation mark that needs to be added next to the line that has the error in it. Having dc read their written narrations/written work aloud with pencil in hand, so they can begin to watch for things to correct and be an active part in the editing process helps so much, especially as students get older. I still have Wyatt read his written narrations aloud to me with his pencil in hand. He edits as he reads himself, and by the end, there are usually only a few things for me to help him correct. The biggest way to help improve a poor speller is to have them fix everything so that everything is spelled properly when it is all said and done. The tricky part is not to interfere with the thinking process and flow of writing a good narration. Improvement in spelling doesn't happen quickly. It is a slow burn, as Carrie has said. Moving through all of the levels of dictation slowly and consistently with Wyatt, doing dictation daily rather than 3 x a week, using the options mentioned in the Written Narration Skills: Teacher's List to correct spelling, correcting all spelling in all written work each day, consistently doing copy work as planned in the guides, fixing errors right away (as opposed to hours later or the next day), and having Wyatt read aloud his written work with pencil in hand to fix his spelling himself if he could catch it - all worked to help make him a strong speller today. But, keep in mind he is now in 10th grade! All I can say is, it works, so keep pressing on!!!

In Christ,
Julie

[christyg]

Julie posted:

"For Wyatt, I moved to doing dictation daily in all of the guides."

By saying you did this daily, does this mean that you did it 4 days a week (like the upper guides are planned), or 5 days a week?

We have been doing spelling for 3 years with my daughter (11) and 1 year with my son (9). She has done great with it and scored 98th percentile on her standardized test in spelling. She has consistently done this from the beginning. Maybe she's a natural speller? Well, my son scored 31st percentile on his. This was his first testing. He did well in the other reading/language sections. I was surprised because he has done well with dictation this year. So, not sure if he just goofed on his test or what. Started thinking about doing something different with him for spelling this year, but just really want to give dictation more time. So, I found this post and thought that Julie had a great idea about doing it daily this school year. If his test scores in spelling shoot up next year, I can always take it back down to 3 days per week.

Christy

[LovingJesus]

My oldest is one of those who read very early & struggled greatly with spelling.

Dictation is actually what moved his spelling forward at last, or it was the fact he turned 11, or both!

Like Julie, I have him do dictation daily. During co-op season that is 4 days a week, and right now it is 5 days a week. He has not had any learning or vision issues. He just reads quickly, and it took dictation to slow him down enough to pay attention to the individual words.

One thing I still do is I tell all 3 of them when they write for a narration or R&S or in any writing to ask me if they aren't sure of how to spell a word. Then I give them the correct spelling. I have thought it important for them to practice correct spelling so they see how words are spelled. They are in the habit of asking, and I don't mind at all so they can learn. They still sometimes misspell of course, but I have found this method has helped them learn various words.

[my3sons]

We did dictation with Wyatt every day we did school. I answer this way as we have done some weeks with 5 days of plans a week, and some weeks with 4 days of plans a week. So, whenever we were doing a day's worth of plans, we did dictation. It took about 5 minutes and was worth every one. Another thing I have done that helped was to edit his work 100% for spelling always. So, anything he misspelled had to be fixed. I have done this several ways. I have underlined the misspelled words and then properly spelled them for him on a markerboard. Or, I have properly spelled them in the margin of the paper if the work was on notebook paper. Or, I have stuck sticky notes along the left side of the HOD Student Notebook and next to the line that required the change properly written the words. The sooner I could do this, the better. The mind is like a camera. If a student misspells 'friend' by spelling it 'frend' 20 times, a habit has been born, and it will take many more times than 20 to get the mind to recognize 'friend' as 'looking right.' The same is true for math. If a student adds 4 and 8 a bunch of times and gets 11, it will take many more times to get the mind to recognize it really equals 12. I need to add that incredible help dictation gives toward improving spelling is that of the slow and steady kind, and patience must be exercised as a student works toward improvement. Simply doing dictation and not allowing work to go unedited, as well as always doing all that is in the HOD plans for LA from year to year, slowly and steadily turned my poor speller into a greatly improved speller - not a perfect speller, but a careful speller who works hard to spell things properly, and who works equally hard to edit his own work right away and fix things that 'don't look right.' HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[Little Women]

Just so you know, there is a type of dyslexia called "stealth dyslexia" which does not affect reading very much. But the primary symptom of this is difficulty with spelling. (Even with regular dyslexia, I have read experts say that if they could give only one test for it, they would use a spelling test instead of a reading one.) It's not uncommon for people to find that programs intended for dyslexics, like All About Spelling, are very helpful with this type of child.

[christyg]

Thanks so much, ladies, for the advice! I am definitely going to start trying these ideas.

Blessings,
Christy

[jjn3beans]

I agree with the slow and steady approach with dyslexia. My dh is dyslexic, and while DD12 has not been diagnosed, we believe she is. Anyhow, we use AAS with her, and while she hasn't made huge jumps, I can definitely tell that her spelling is gradually improving. It is very slow, but more and more she is getting words off her weekly list. AAS using dictation, and I believe this is what helped her a lot. I can't say enough good things about dictation!