Help with my horrible 6th grade speller!

[andreamichele13]

I am confused as to what to do with my ds12. Next year will be our 1st year using HOD and he will be starting with RTR. Am I wrong, or is there no spelling that goes along with this? He is a HORRIBLE speller, and I really think he needs a little extra help, but don't know what would be complementary to HOD. He is a great writer and reader, but he just cannot spell! I'm thinking I need to purchase a separate spelling curriculum for him, but don't want to add too much time to our day. Please help! What would you suggest?

Thank you!
Andrea

[chillin'inandover]

HOD uses dictation in each of the guides starting with Beyond. In Beyond it is a spelling list rather than dictation. My ds was/is a horrible speller but has improved through the years. He is in level 3 dictation as a young 4th grader (July birthday). We are required to annually test our homeschooled children beginning when they are 7 so he has only done 2 years of testing. The first year he barely made the required cut off indicating that his skills are adequate and don't need a change of plans. The 2nd year he doubled the score on his spelling-advanced 1+grade levels . All other areas of testing were advanced 6+ grade levels. I have used other programs with older children but only HOD for ds and I have enjoyed the successful simplicity of the dictation in the guides. Ds is in CTC and has done all the other guides. He takes about 5 minutes a day-3x/wk for dictation and he doesn't have any trouble with each days work. His spelling has improved but the trouble he has is with memory and trying to get his thoughts on paper and spelling it correctly so when he goes over his work he notices the error and corrects the spelling. We have not used any other spelling programs with HOD dictation and it is not recommended-short and simple gets the job done. The dictation is in the appendix of each guide with 3 levels in each guide so CTC has level 3, 4, and 5. The dictation teaches proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar in 2-3 sentences per day. This is not the HOD grammar program so hopefully I have not confused you. I have enjoyed this approach, it is easy to teach, easy to complete, and fun!

[andreamichele13]

Thank you!!! Yes, that does help me!!! I will just stick to what HOD provides, and see if he improves! Hopefully this approach will be better for him than a "list" every week that he just memorizes! I don't find that approach very effective, but that's just me.

Andrea

[my3sons]

Andrea - I just want to encourage you that my oldest ds struggled with spelling early on too. He actually had speech therapy for several years, and spelling was difficult. The combination of dictation and copywork over the years with HOD has turned him around! He went from struggling with spelling to rarely misspelling a word. It really has been amazing! I want to stress that this was a slow burn though - it took real time, as in years. I'd encourage you to do dictation every day you do school, though it is in the plans 3 days a week, for Wyatt, we do it 4 days a week. When I was new to dictation, I wanted to read up on it and find out more. In case you are interested in this as well, here are some wonderful links to threads about dictation on the board...

Carrie explains CM Dictation:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5661
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5186
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=925

Encouraging Dictation:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4877
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5558

Praise for long-term effects of dictation:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5645&p=41374#p41374

HTH!
In Christ,
Julie

[andreamichele13]

Julie,

Thank you so much for your help. I'm definitely going to read all those links! I'm convinced he can become stronger in this area. I think some of it is that it doesn't come naturally to him, and the other part is that....well, sometimes kids get lazy when they write and just don't think about how to spell words the right way!

Andrea