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I'm doing Beyond with my ds. He is having problems with his spelling. We are on week 12 right now and he was doing pretty well with them for the first , but the last few weeks he has really struggled. This week he knew we were doing the U-E combo and I would have them do as the guide said, but he still would spell them more phonetically sounding. Any advice?

May I ask, is he doing List 1 or List 2? Also, just to be sure, are you doing the daily spelling plans with him including the activities in the LA box? Sometimes those activities have been missed accidentally by others as they assumed it was just a pretest/posttest spelling program, and those hands-on activities and writing activities are really so very helpful in cementing spelling. Thanks!

In Christ,
Julie

Assuming you are doing the things Julie asked about......this may be an encouragement (or at least give you hope).

My dd(now 9), had a really hard time. We would do every.single.activity. Exactly as it was written--yet she never mastered the words in each unit. I was frustrated, and we would repeat the units for a couple of weeks, and she still never seemed to get the words. Honestly, I would have changed to a spelling program if I had thought I had the time to implement it. But I didn't. So we kept trudging through, and in my mind I thought, "once I get through (difficult season), we will research a spelling program and catch up". I had done Beyond/Bigger spelling lists and dictation with my older dd and had success, so I figured it's just not working for this particular dd. We just kept trudging through, but quit repeating units. I just resigned myself to thinking we'd just get through.

By the end of the year, I suddenly realized how much she had improved . I had not seen it in the day to day, but when (difficult season) had calmed, I realized that we did not need to go an a spelling program hunt. She had just needed more time----not more time on the words necessarily, just more time. She is now nearing the end of the list 2 words and rarely misses any by the end of the unit. And, more importantly, her independent writing has great spelling (not perfect by any means, but waaaayyyy better than what I would have thought a year ago).

So, hang in there! There is hope
Angie

Amy,

I want to encourage you as well. The lists do get harder as the units pass by, and kiddos may miss words even toward the end of each week. In the early units of list 1 and list 2, the words are pretty much able to be spelled phonetically, so kiddos can actually sound them out and get them right. As the units progress though, this becomes less and less true. This means that kiddos will then have to start paying better attention to the words and have to really try to internalize the spelling of them. This takes the skills of visualizing the word in one's mind, capturing that image, and reproducing it on paper the same way. These are much harder skills than simply sounding out a word and writing it.

So, don't despair. Your child is just in the beginning of building these skills. He may flounder for awhile, but it is a progression. My oldest was a natural memorizer and my second is a natural speller, however my third little guy had some hearing challenges and really struggled with speech early on and later spelling. He is by no means a natural speller or writer! He missed multiple words weekly in List 1 and List 2. Yet, we pushed on through the units.

He is now in Preparing Hearts and doing studied dictation. I am surprised by how much progress he has made. He will always have to work at it, but he is getting much better. What's more, he spells quite well overall in his written work. So, I would encourage you to stay the course and keep doing the activities in the guide. When you look back, you will definitely see progress. It just doesn't happen overnight.

Blessings,
Carrie

Thank you ladies for this post and the encouragement. My ds has a problem with not 'getting' the spelling.
I plan to just keep pressing on - and working with him.

I just wanted to encourage you that my oldest ds, Wyatt, is not a natural speller and struggled with spelling early on. He now is in MTMM Dictation Level 7, and he is doing so well! He also misspells only a word here or there in his written work for school, such as written narrations. I credit his unbelievable improvement to the incremental progression of spelling list 1, spelling list 2, and dictation levels 2 on up, year after year, along with the carefully planned copywork from year to year. So, hooray! Improvement is coming slowly but surely, trust me!!! During his years of doing the spelling lists, it really helped to stress the method of truly looking at the index card (with one word only written in big black marker on it), closing his eyes and 'seeing it' in his mind, opening his eyes and looking at the index card again, and then writing it on a white marker board with black marker. Then, if he missed it, immediately erasing it to get that incorrect 'picture' out of his head, studying the same index card again, closing his eyes and 'seeing' it in his mind again, opening his eyes and looking at the index card again, turning the index card over, and then writing it on a white marker board. Repeatedly doing this trained him to carefully study a word and to begin to use that amazing method of asking yourself "does it look right?". Keep on pressing on - and don't draw it out - it will come! HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Thank you ladies so much for your responses. DS has been doing mostly list 2. I usually will orally quiz him on list 1 and he usually can do those fine. We have had a couple weeks off due to sickness etc. and we started back on Unit 13 which is review and I am amazed he actually could do the words he was having a problem with without many errors We do the activities like the book has and I was thinking we might switch over to list 1 when we get to the point of him not being able to do those. I guess we will just keep plodding along and I will stop worrying

I'm in the midst of reading this book called Uncovering The Logic of the English Language, I got from the Allume conference.
It might be a good read for "mom" to help answer little ones questions.

I'm still floored/blown away by this rule English words do not end in i, u, v, or j. (Japanese, or words from other languages might)

What I'm so excited about tho is that I can now explain to my inquiring daughter why HAVE is pronounced with a short A but has the silent e on the end. Because hav is how it is phonetically spelled. This kind of stuff is things she thinks about. All the time! In fact the word have and come tick her off. I can't wait to see what the book says about come.

I've read to page 71 and I'm finding myself "self correcting" not right clicking the red line, because my brain is saying "Every syllable must have a vowel, so that word must end in e." Then thinking hey where did that come from...

Thinking back I'm so grateful HOD word lists are taught the way the Author suggests and similar words grouped together in families.