My son & spelling....HELP

[Daisy]

My daughter is a good speller or at least it comes easier for her. My 7yo son is not so fortunate.

We finished up the Unit 2 Bigger spelling words today. I gave him the words in a quasi-test format.

He got two wrong. BUT he struggled through the entire thing. For example he writes THEN as

tehn

thne

and finally

then

It is like he knows the letters in the word but can't get them in the right order until they "look" right. No sounding out. I tell him to sound out HELP and I get...

hlpe

hepl

hlep

AGHGHG. If I sound out each and every letter with him, he can do it or if he just keeps rearranging them like a puzzle he'll eventually get it because it will "look" right.

How to deal with this. BTW, the kiddo can read on a 4th grade level but can't write (ON HIS OWN) worth anything. He looks at copywork one letter at a time and then loses his spot and then has to find it again and then finally write the next letter. You get my point. He can do copywork and it doesn't take him TOO long when he stops wiggling, dropping his pencil, noticing the fly on the window, etc.

So what do I do with these spelling lists? More oral practice? More written practice? Any ideas?

[water2wine]

Daisy I know Carrie or someone else is going to have better advice but one thing I do with my dd that works is to take the words and write on the board a silly sentence with the words. Has to be silly. Then I have her write the silly sentence on a card. I go over all the sounds the letters make together like th and how they tag along together and like with h-e-l-p I might say it in a funny way and say can you hear the letters helping in the word help then I would over dramatize every sound in order and ask her to sound it out with me. She then writes the sentence 5 times and studies it when she is ready I dictate it to her. It may take a week or a couple of days depending on the sentence. The sentences have spelling words or rules but they always have to be silly is the thing. It just gets her attention and the over dramatizing the sounds and trying to make as many connections with order and the sounding out as I can helps her with the order. She is not an advanced reader like your son but she does struggle with the letter placement and copywork is an issue for her too. For copywork I will sometimes take a card and cover up all the words but the one she is copying and then also dramatize the sounding out of the word before she copies it, kind of double duty.

I am no expert and I promise you that you are a better teacher than I but just wanted to share this wacky stuff I do that actually seems to help.

[kiloyd]

No advice ,but I am interested in respsonses.

[4froggies]

Have you ever heard of Dianne Craft? She has come to our convention two years in a row and is SO great! I have used her strategies for spelling, and it made a huge difference in how quickly my dd learned her spelling words. (She's VERY visual!.. Using color, for example for the misspelled letters, has worked so well) Here's a link to her website. Scroll down to "Spelling".

http://www.diannecraft.com/tutor3.htm

[Tree House Academy]

Did he finish a good phonics program? If not, I would almost suggest going back and doing a remedial phonics run. He sounds like my older son. He will spell does "dose" and today he asked me to spell "could" for him. He doesn't "get" phonics because he was taught to read by sight words in public school and I did nothing to change that. At the time, I didn't know any better. He, too, can read on a higher level (he is 10 and can easily read and understand 7th and 8th grade books), but can't spell or write to save his life. Okay...in his defense, he is getting better at writing. Spelling, well, my 6 year old spells better than my 10 year old.

[maddykate]

Hi Daisy,

There is a website called www.bartonreading.com that answered alot of questions for me regarding my dd11 reading ability. She can read, but struggles with many things, including spelling simple words that she should know easily by this age. I watched the presentation given by Susan Barton and it really helped me get a better understanding of what could possibly be going on with dd.

Anyway, hope you get some more useful information and just thought I would throw that info out there, in case it is something that could help you too.

Sincerely,
Maddykate

[Daisy]

I did phonics with him but it never had a written component to it. I'm not sure but that may have made a difference. We are going to work more on the spelling words. This week I've written them out on 3x5 cards and color-coded the phonetic breakdowns. Blends in one color, vowels in another, etc. I also found a worksheet generator that will do the shaped boxes around the words. I'm thinking maybe that will add enough visual clues to help him remember.

Again, great reader but yes, he is very much a sight reader. Always has been, even though I used a phonics program with him. He has a great memory though so somehow I've got to move him from just memorizing the letters to memorizing the entire word for spelling?? And I do think a review of phonics that directly impact spelling would benefit him (such as blends & their sounds,oy, ew, etc.).

[water2wine]

Daisy that sounds great. I wanted to mention I do have my dd keep a index card binder on the phonograms and we make a new one every time we hit a glitch. I have her look them over and do them for copy work . I am though talking about my child with CP and she is no where near fluent in reading like your son. Can you share the worksheet generator you found?

[Daisy]

Sure. All the links we used this week are on my blog. I'm doing a weekly post about the links for each unit that we use in Bigger and CTC.

http://daisyhomeschoolblog.blogspot.com ... rning.html

[water2wine]

Thank you!

[Carrie]

Daisy,

I'm late to this thread, but I thought I'd chime in with a couple of links that may help as you sort through the methodology and thinking behind dictation and the CM-style spelling that is used within our guides:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1985

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3176

I would give the same advice that you'll find in these threads I linked above. From the example that you shared, I can see that your little guy is beginning to try visualizing the words to see them on his "mental blackboard". This is such an important step in learning to spell correctly. So, he is heading in the right direction. This type of spelling methodology is not a quick fix, but you will see steady progress as the year progresses. If you have other questions, ask away!

Blessings,
Carrie