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Hi Ladies!

Well it is that time of year for us to "test" ! My Ds finished his and I usually don't worry too much about them but his spelling is pretty low! I see him struggle a bit with it with in the guide and make him fix his errors but wondering if we should do some basic spelling list over the summer? Do you think it would help being this far in school? He has done all the guides from Beyond (spelling lists) to RevtoRev. We do dictation also. I wonder if I am over thinking this. I struggled so in school with all of it and I am a horrible speller. I just have to look it up. I just hate to see him struggle. My middle dd struggles also but our oldest can spell circles around us !

Any thoughts?

Stacey,

Unfortunately, spelling is a natural ability pretty deeply tied to visualizing words. The good news is that studied dictation is very focused upon seeing a word spelled correctly and doing the work to get the correct image of a word in and the incorrect image out.

I would be inclined to suggest that you move toward doing studied dictation daily with your son who is struggling with spelling. You could do it this summer as one of your only subjects. You will see improvement, but steady practice daily will make that happen. Steady practice even in high school reaps big rewards. You could do a different spelling program, but being a recipient of that in your school days you can see that spelling programs aren't all they are cracked up to be!

I would lean toward steady practice in dictation and helping him proofread his written work as a means of focusing on the issues. If you don't have time to proofread his written work, you could have your strong speller help proofread. Underline in pencil anything that is not spelled correctly. Then, write the correct spelling in pencil in the margin. Have the child who is working on spelling, erase the incorrect word. Then, have him copy the correctly spelled word from the margin. Last, erase the word in the margin, leaving only the correctly spelled word in its proper place in the written work. I know there may be many words in the margin at first. Over time, this strategy combined with studied dictation does help. It just takes a long time to see fruit!!

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks for the reply! I agree with everything. I think doing dictation this summer is a great idea. I will plan on doing that and math. I have been doing exactly what you were saying about underlining the incorrect word and writing the correct word. So I will keep doing that.

I think sometimes he is thinking so fast and just leaves out letters........or he is not doing any proofreading himself. LOL

thanks again!

We did dictation daily with my son who had some struggles with spelling, and slowly but surely he improved! He actually rarely misspells anything these days, but he has become good at editing before we meet, so I don't see all of the corrected errors. He's in high school, so this is the result of years of dictation and editing. It works! Just wanted to encourage you with our story.

In Christ,
Julie

Thanks, Julie!

I told him that we will do dictation more often and he got those big eyes..........REALLY!? Not his favorite.

But he finally recovered. I think it will be good for him.