Should I do anything more to help dd7 with spelling?

[farmfamily]

My dd7 completed spelling list 1 last year in Beyond and this year is doing spelling list 2 in Bigger. She has consistently had trouble with the spelling, and she also had some difficulty learning to read, although in the last 6 months or so her reading ability has improved dramatically (She can now read comfortably books 2/3 of the way through the ERs list). Her spelling is only very slightly improved. I would say that in Beyond she missed on average about 4 words on the final test. Sometimes she missed more than that, and I don't recall that she ever got them all right. I noticed that frequently on the first day of spelling when you are supposed to study the card, turn it over and spell it, she would spell them wrong. Sometimes she didn't even notice it was wrong when she checked them herself. Now I sit with her and we talk about the sounds in the words, underline the spellings of the sounds, and I correct her right away if she gets it wrong when she tries to spell it without looking.

I am thankful that twice so far in Bigger she has managed to get all the words right on the final "spelling test" of the unit. That has seemed like a major improvement! But on the other hand the lists seem fairly easy and several of the units she has missed 3 or 4 on the final test, and she still sometimes misses them on the first day. Also, this week has been a review week and she has really struggled with trying to practice 20 words at a time and it seems like they are all brand new to her.

Examples of recent mistakes:

chop spelled "hcop" - she says "that looks wrong!" and changes it to "hcope"
which spelled "with" (when I asked her to read it to check it, she could see it spelled "with" but couldn't think what to do to fix it.)
little is "littl"
once (a killer for her) is "whuns"

At least she is putting vowels in her words. That was a problem last year.

So ladies, have others had this trouble, and with patience and continuing the same spelling lists followed by dictation will it get better? I am a believer in dictation which is working fabulously for my oldest.

Could she be dyslexic? Her father and several other family members are.

I own All About Spelling level 1 which I used with my oldest. I pulled it out recently to look at it again. Honestly, it was a miserable experience with my older daughter, who seems to be something of a natural speller and didn't need the help. But perhaps it could help my second born? On the other hand, I really don't want to add extra work to our day, since we are too busy already. I am already adding in Abecedarian Reading for her, to which I credit her improvements in reading. Abecedarian also has a new spelling program which may tie in with the reading program better then AAS - but I'm hoping I don't need to add any curriculum!

Sorry this is so long.

[pjdobro]

I'm not well versed enough in dyslexia to know if that might be a problem. You could probably find some online assessments to help you assess that further and then have her tested if you feel that might be an issue. Just looking at the samples you shared, I would say she doesn't understand the sound "ch" makes or at least how that translates into spelling. I like that she spelled "once" phonetically. That means she is thinking about the sounds and trying to sound things out. I also like that she is seeing that something is wrong when she misspelled "chop" and tried to fix it and was able to read "with" correctly. I think those are all positive signs that the method is working. She is understanding phonics and realizing when something doesn't look right. Those are big keys to becoming a good speller. It might be more of a slow burn with her but since you have seen improvement, I think you are on the right track.

I have a natural speller and a naturally poor speller. Interestingly enough my poor speller had a speech delay/problem and was also slow to read. He struggled with the spelling words and even if he did get them correct on spelling tests, he would typically misspell them in his writing. We kept plugging along and every week when we had new words I would review the phonics rule that went with the list and point out the sight words. Then we moved into dictation. Everyday I would go over the more difficult words emphasizing the phonics if that was appropriate or pointing out the special word if it didn't follow the rules. It has taken quite a while for him, but he is becoming a much better speller now spelling several years above grade level. It was really slow going for him. I think it took a lot of repetition on the phonics rules as well as seeing the words many times before it really sank in. I noticed a huge improvement in his spelling when his reading took off. The more reading he has done, the better speller he has become. I think that is because he has seen the words correctly in print more times. I considered adding in more spelling work even considering AAS, but we were already busy with what we were doing, and I hated to add more work. I continued to read on here, just give dictation time to work. So I trusted and it has worked! It wasn't fast, but I saw a slow steady improvement over the years.

I think you are seeing improvement in your dd's spelling from last year to this year. The techniques and spelling work in Beyond and Bigger set the stage for dictation to follow. I think I would just keep on following the plan emphasizing the visualizing technique that is taught and reviewing any phonics that you need to along the way. As she continues to improve in reading and you continue with the spelling lessons, I think you'll see an improvement in her spelling. It might be slow, but as long as you are seeing progress I would stay the course and not worry.

[MelInKansas]

My oldest took to spelling very easily and my 2nd is now struggling a bit more. Just incidentally, my husband is a bit dyslexic, he's never been diagnosed with it but he struggles with switching letters around. So she got 5 of the words wrong on day 4 of the first week of Beyond with spelling list 1. I decided that means she didn't get it so we needed to keep working on those words. Also someone on here suggested to me a "see, say, write" kind of method for the first day, or she said she does it for 3 days and then test the 4th day. Look at the word, say the word, spell the word out loud, and then write it down. My DD is more verbal so that has seemed to help also, and it doesn't take much more time.

So we did 6 days on list 1, and 6 days on list 2, thereby doing 2 spelling lists in 3 weeks. She got them all right on the 6th day test.

[TrueGRIT]

Examples of recent mistakes:

chop spelled "hcop" - she says "that looks wrong!" and changes it to "hcope"
which spelled "with" (when I asked her to read it to check it, she could see it spelled "with" but couldn't think what to do to fix it.)
little is "littl"
once (a killer for her) is "whuns"

Could she be dyslexic? Her father and several other family members are

With it being in her family there is a chance she is dyslexic.
You are on the right track with reading - so glad there has been improvement!

I haven't yet found a way to help my ds with spelling. His reading went up 2 grade levels in the past year, but with spelling it just hasn't 'clicked'. With him I use dictation because seeing the words he can write them with very little mistakes. He just doesn't remember them much later. We continue on when he gets it right (2nd try), and I find a way to review. Eventually he learns a how to spell a word here and there. When he gives a note to his friends they just overlook the misspellings . . .

[farmfamily]

Thank you all for your thoughts. pjdobro - thank you for your encouragement. I am definitely seeing some improvement. Today in her grammar lesson she didn't want me to help with spelling and she wrote "The childrin ran." which I thought was pretty good. We did some extra practice spelling the sh/ch/th sounds today, which have been a weak point, but she did really well with it.

I do think she may be mildly dyslexic, but she certainly doesn't have many of the common signs of dyslexia when I read about them online. She was the only one of my kids who didn't have a speech delay, and she is probably the most organized person in our family! She has no trouble with writing, other than her spelling difficulties. Since she has learned to read a little better she actually loves to read and can often be seen reading a book for fun (though I know when she reads silently she just skips over a lot of the difficult words). What she really struggled with in reading was remembering sounds for the vowels and vowel teams (ou, au, ar, or, and so on)- even though we have gone over them in three different phonics programs and drilled them with flashcards. She started having trouble with the vowel sounds in LHTH.

My husband (who is dyslexic), thinks that we don't need to put a label on it, but just give her more practice with spelling. I think perhaps I would like to give her a little extra practice, perhaps as MelinKansas suggests, to help her to do better on the tests. I think she might feel better about her spelling if she didn't miss so many. I am still unsure about exactly what to do.

I still welcome other input - especially from any of you who have kids who have been poor spellers, but now spell well!

[moedertje]

My second son had some issues with the middle of spelling list 1 and I spend some serious time in prayer seeking how to help him. Just a few short days after I read on the board that it helped one Mom to have her child circle the special sounds in the words. I did that with him on day 1 and it helped tremendously, he began to pass his tests without many mistakes, if any. He did great with list 2 and moved on to doing great in dictation. His problem might be a little different, because he has lisp and and says some words rather different. I also have a foreign accent and he is auditory! So with that dual challenge, we were able to overcome the difficulty.

I pray that The Lord will give you His wisdom and bring the practical solution that bests suits your daughters learning style!
Success

[Carrie]

farmfamily,

I know I am chiming in late here, but I wanted to pop-in and mention a few things that may be of help as you ponder your child's situation. Spelling in the early years is often quite tied to a child's reading, because kiddos at the early stages of spelling are often sounding their spelling words out as they write them. So, in the early years, as your child's reading progresses, the spelling will lag a bit behind that reading progress in coming along too. This is pretty much what you're seeing now, as your child's reading is coming along and the spelling is now progressing a bit more too. That is not to say that in the long haul spelling and reading progress are always linked as that is not necessarily true, as the spelling words get longer and harder.

Another thing to keep in mind is that for kiddos to whom spelling does not come naturally more drill is not really what they need. Regular practice in capturing the correct mental image of a word is the skill that truly needs to be developed in order for the mind to know whether a word that has been written is written correctly. This is the skill that is being developed in Beyond and Bigger. It is also one of the reasons why the other writing the child is doing during that season of learning is kept to copywork or copying from a correctly written model, because we don't want the mind capturing the incorrect image (and having a child inventively spell many words results in the incorrect spelling beginning to "look right" in the mind's eye.) So, to prevent this same thing from happening during spelling lessons be sure to immediately erase any incorrectly spelled word and have the child copy the correct spelling over top of the erased word instead. Think of spelling time as mental training rather than seeking memorization of specific words. In that way, every error is an opportunity to swoop in and retrain the mind. Be vigilant as you do the spelling lessons. As soon as an incorrect letter is written in the spelling of a word, erase it away and redirect to the correct image (showing the index card with the correct spelling upon it). Be sure to use a dark colored marker on a white index card too when writing the spelling words (as directed in the guide), which helps the mind capture the image of the word even more clearly. Over time you will see continued progress.

Dictation builds on the foundation of mental picturing that is practiced in the spelling lists in Beyond and Bigger. It is where kiddos actually start to pay more attention to spelling in the context of sentences. It is the moment where they realize spelling is about writing a string of words correctly. It is mental imaging taken to the next level. This is often where kiddos start doing a bit better in spelling, if they had a hard time in the word lists that they did before beginning dictation. This is because in dictation they are putting to use the mental imaging and beginning proofreading and auditory skills they practiced in Beyond and Bigger and are applying them. Through studied dictation kiddos learn to transfer the skills of capturing a correct mental image of a string of words, auditorily hearing the sentence and repeating it back correctly, writing the words in the correct sequence (including all punctuation and capitalization), and proofreading and correcting their work to make sure the right mental image remains (rather than the wrong one). Over time, these skills transfer to kiddos' proofreading their own written work in other subjects. You can see this is all a part of spelling, but it is a process that takes years to internalize.

This is why I encourage you to keep on going, patiently guiding and diligently correcting. You will see progress as the years pass. Just make sure not to put the focus on word memorization but rather place the focus on the ultimate long-term goal of writing correctly and proofreading in daily work.

My own third little guy struggled with the spelling lists in Beyond and Bigger too. He improved as he headed into dictation, even though he is by no means a natural speller. Now that he is in CTC he is really starting to show some carryover and improvement in his daily written work. He is learning to refer back to his reading material to copy the correct spelling of words within his written narrations. This is another moment where capturing the correct mental image of words (i.e. names and places) and transferring them to paper in this written narrations comes in handy. I share this to encourage you that over time with these methods, even kiddos who struggle with spelling will make gains in the area where it really counts.

Blessings,
Carrie