I am in the Chicago airport as our flight has been delayed again (we already stayed overnight here because the previous one was delayed

), so I was trying to catch up on the HOD board.

I can feel your concern about your ds's spelling. I felt that way about my oldest son's spelling as well. As you know, he was born very prematurely and struggled with speech delays. Spelling was not a natural skill for him. We began doing dictation every day, and that seemed to help him slowly and steadily improve. As far as correcting editing in written narrations, PHFHG does have excellent tips in the Appendix that I did follow. I don't have access to them right now, but as I utilized the suggestions, I remember weighing in my mind the point of frustration for Wyatt when editing, and being mindful of the balance of not pushing too much yet having high enough expectations. That balance is hard to maintain, and I see the thoughts and insights that often accompany the attempt to maintain that balance in the responses in this thread.
Dc begin with 1-3 sentences assigned for written narrations at the start of PHFHG. I often underlined the words Wyatt misspelled, as 1-3 sentences didn't include an overwhelming amount of corrections. If the word was an event or a person's name from history, I would have him open his history book he just read from and find it in there to copy. This immediately cut down on spelling errors, as he began to reference the history book if needed for spelling help while writing his written narration. I didn't mind him copying single words such as names or events, as it is not plagerism, and it was no different than me writing it for him to copy on a markerboard.

Next, I'd have him look at the word and try jotting on markerboard or scratch paper to see if he could come up with 'what looked right.' Again, I watched for frustration and tried to maintain that balance of accountability and frustration.

After about less than a minute of trying to spell it right on his own, I wrote it for him correctly spelled on the markerboard, and we moved on to another subject. As he has gotten older, I see him starting with using his history/science/etc. texts to help him spell words such as new vocabulary terms, people's names, events, etc., moving to jotting it in his HOD Student Notebook in pencil, reading it out loud and trying to fix it as he reads according to what he thinks 'looks right,' and/or putting it in his IPod webster dictionary to see if it's spelled right. Finally, as he reads it aloud to me, he reads it with pencil in hand and often fixes any few errors he still may have on his own as he reads it to me, and finally if there are any errors left, I jot them on a sticky note or a markerboard for him to fix as he's reading (if he didn't fix it already on his own).
WHEW! I managed to make this sound long and drawn out and complicated, when in all actuality this entire process happens pretty quickly!

We have a team approach to editing, and by the end a well-edited, pretty well-written 1-3 sentences in PHFHG are the result.

I just thought I'd share the progress I've seen through the years, and encourage you Nealewill that your little one will make progress too. Slow and steady, quality over quantity, teamwork over you're in this alone, and consistent patient correction win this race.
In Christ,
Julie