Tree House Academy wrote:...He does well with this and is not missing many words through the week. (Should I still drop back to list 1 though????)...
Oh no then - he sounds accurately placed! I don't think I'd drop back to list 1, as he is doing just as he should with List 2.
We did List 2 only with my middle ds, and he was doing the same as your ds. I just want to encourage you that with your ds being the age he is, I think that he is doing very well - even considering he misspells things in notes, lists, etc. of his own right now. One thing I noticed with both of our dc, once their copywork picked up, and they were truly able to do it all, their spelling within their own writing improved. Both of my dc started with doing just a small portion of the poetry copywork at first, but then grew into doing an entire poem a week. By the time they were doing the entire poem of copywork, their spelling within their own writing improved greatly. In fact, I took so much notice of that, that I had both of my dc do the poetry copywork in Bigger Hearts every week too (it is an option at that point). I do feel like that continued to improve their spelling, along with the markerboard writing Carrie suggests throughout the plans, which makes other subjects somewhat a form of dictation (as the child dictates to us) and copywork (as they copy from the marker board) too.
We did this for DITHOR Student Book, for example. I also put a sticky note under the timeline captions noted in the Bigger Hearts plans, so my dc can copy right from there too. I do the same for headings of notebooking assignments. Copying from the guide seems to help them learn to copy from books, etc. I figure this is just one more way they can learn to see it correctly, and therefore recognize more and more when it "looks right".
Of course, this is all more in Bigger Hearts, but in preparation for that, the poetry copywork of Beyond is a big precursor.
Even after my oldest ds had turned the corner and was writing quite well in his own writing, I do remember him making a grocery shopping list for his hunting trip that was atrocious.
We had a talk about how good spelling is something to pay attention to all of the time, because the mind is like a camera, etc. - so when making a grocery list, as you add the thing to the list you are just out of, take a minute to check out how to spell the name of it on the package before you throw the empty one (I remember "marshmelos" distinctly
). We joked that since I was the grocery shopper, if I couldn't figure out what it was, I'd just add in a replacement that looked like that word, since spelling wasn't so important (I remember suggesting I might, for example, get "maraschino" cherries for his s'mores).
I notice him copying from the empty packages/boxes of things more often now.
Just to give you a gauge of my oldest ds's spelling - in his written narration of 10-12 sentences now, he misses around 3 words, and usually misses a few commas or apostrophes. I really followed the spelling tips for written narration spelling editing with him too. He grew into learning to use the history/science books for reference when spelling difficult words. Usually I just underline the error and have him try to figure it out. Sometimes he fixes it right away (like with the word "Romans", which he has unfortunately spelled "Romens" too often), and other times, it takes some searching for him to figure it out. He is not a perfect speller, but he is doing extremely well with it now. I think your dc will too, with the CM way of doing things, but it may take awhile, probably more time for your older ds and probably less time for your youngest. I am finding this myself. I didn't really understand CM when I started homeschooling, so I feel like probably my last ds will get the best homeschooling experience that is most CM authentic - I just keep understanding it more, which is to their benefit.
In Christ,
Julie
