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Weak speller and dictation

Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:05 pm
by Mom2Monkeys
I'm on my phone so no laughing when auto correct makes a play on my "weak speller" post...k? LOL

DD is a rising 6th grader. Started teaching her to read at 4 only to find sshe already knew how. I slacked on phonics bc she was reading well beyond.phonics books. (Narnia at 6 yrs!) We didn't really do phonics bc of this and still she can sound.out words well snd isn't a sight reader. Her spelling was fine at first but then didn't she got older and her spelling ....did not. 2nd grade she started HOD and at first we kept doing spelling programs which she aced even two grade levels ahead. it just didn't.cross over to other work. we switched to just dictation ajd.finally saw improvement. she was on geade level by 4th grade and some of 5th but then plateaued. she hasn't improved any since. I'm wondering if I should go back ajd somehow teach these phonics skills or if we should do a rules based spelling.program but tweak it to be less list based somehow?? And do we keep on.doing.dictation while filling this gap?

She is still misspelling a lot of words but does very well with dictation. she has a great memory and it's actually to her disadvantage with dictation. I'm wondering if I should skip ahead in.dictation to a level she can't memorize so she has to just listen and think, or just do the spelling/phonics lessons.....or something else??
Right now she could do dictation without me :/ She studies it then ill read the first part and she can finish it all without me reading the rest. I tell her to wait but if she remembers it, what's the point? Maybe we are just too low a level?
FYI, it affects her copywork too bc she thinks she knows.how to spell and looks.over what seems easy and misspells that but gets hard.words correct. same with punctuation. she has major attention problems and that's part.of.it. (can't afford her meds right now which we avoided for years but they really do help her tremendously...)

Re: Weak speller and dictation

Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:37 am
by Mom2Monkeys
bump :D

Re: Weak speller and dictation

Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 4:44 pm
by mom23
Oh, boy. We've had that at our house, too! It's been so very hard to find a correct placement in dictation, and I still don't think I've really found it. I'm anxious to see what others say!!

The thing I'm trying right now is to place her at a high enough level of dictation that she cannot spell every word correctly. Then work with her on her study of the passage. She naturally "studies" to memorize the passage, but I point out tricky words to spell, and placement of punctuation marks. Then when I read it, I only say 2 or 3 words at a time, and strictly make her repeat them before she writes them down. I'm finding that when I say a full thought or phrase, her brain wants to finish it and she keeps writing. When I keep the dictation short it helps her focus more on the spelling of those two words rather than seeing the thing as a complete thought. Once in a while, she'll keep going, but I know when she's been writing longer than 2 words should take her, and I make her stop and go back to where I am in the passage. I'm hoping that eventually we'll be able to say more words at a time and still keep her focus on the details of spelling, rather than the flow of the words. I guess she needs to know that there are different goals when we're writing for dictation or copywork, than when we're writing creatively. Hmm. I haven't actually pointed that out to my daughter! Maybe that will help us...and you?? Hopefully :)

Re: Weak speller and dictation

Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:15 pm
by Mom2Monkeys
mom23 wrote:Oh, boy. We've had that at our house, too! It's been so very hard to find a correct placement in dictation, and I still don't think I've really found it. I'm anxious to see what others say!!

The thing I'm trying right now is to place her at a high enough level of dictation that she cannot spell every word correctly. Then work with her on her study of the passage. She naturally "studies" to memorize the passage, but I point out tricky words to spell, and placement of punctuation marks. Then when I read it, I only say 2 or 3 words at a time, and strictly make her repeat them before she writes them down. I'm finding that when I say a full thought or phrase, her brain wants to finish it and she keeps writing. When I keep the dictation short it helps her focus more on the spelling of those two words rather than seeing the thing as a complete thought. Once in a while, she'll keep going, but I know when she's been writing longer than 2 words should take her, and I make her stop and go back to where I am in the passage. I'm hoping that eventually we'll be able to say more words at a time and still keep her focus on the details of spelling, rather than the flow of the words. I guess she needs to know that there are different goals when we're writing for dictation or copywork, than when we're writing creatively. Hmm. I haven't actually pointed that out to my daughter! Maybe that will help us...and you?? Hopefully :)
That's a great idea! I may have to try that and then build her back up to using dictation as it should be done...I don't want to lose the benefit of learning to spell in context, but right now, she isn't learning to spell! LOL :D :?