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When do you start formal spelling with a late reader?


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DD turned 8 in June & is considered a 3rd grader.  

I would guess her reading level to be in the high-1st grade range...and her spelling to be low-first grade.

 

I have a few different spelling options available here (R&S, Apples & Pears, CLE spelling via Language Arts)...but to be honest, I don't see the point in starting spelling when the act of reading is still so laborious.  Spelling feels like another (less effective?) exercise in reading practice.  FWIW, the reading program we are using does include: word sorting, dictation, and other techniques used in spelling programs.  I'm considering dropping spelling and using that time for extra reading practice.  Or perhaps teaching her to spell some high frequency sight words (b/c she tends to do well with those, as opposed to phonetically sounding words out).

 

What do you do with your late/struggling readers?  Do you make spelling a priority or do you wait for them to get to a certain reading level?

 

Just for a sample, DD wants to write a story and here is what she started the other night before bed (unassisted):

 

beefor I start the sore I'm gana tell you

 

(before I start the story I'm gonna tell you)

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I'm not sure how you're teaching her to read, but is the method appropriate to dyslexia?  Sure sounds like you want one that is.  For compositions, narration, storytelling, Bravewriter type writing, whatever, you might let her dictate into an iPad or iPhone and then give her single sentences from it to do as copy work.  Select a sentence that most closely matches things she has been learning to read.

 

Most of your OG programs integrate spelling in some way and what you're doing does.  I wouldn't do anything beyond that till the reading is going better.

 

Btw, I'm not meaning to be out of the blue if you weren't yet thinking dyslexia.  I remember when my dd was 10 and I asked how long kids needed large print books.  The lady in the group who was an optometrist BC (before children) looks at me really funny and goes, um, take her to an optometrist.  LOL 

 

So whatever, not sure if that's in your thought process, but it sure is a valid question.  

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Oh, I definitely suspect she's either dyslexic or has some other reading disability.  We've been through Dancing Bears A, but have switched to High Noon Reading Intervention this year.  

 

We're doing CLE's Language Arts this year also, because I felt it was time for her learn some grammar "stuff" (abc order, punctuation, noun/verb, etc... and she likes CLE's pencil-drawn pictures and gentle spiral.)  We don't do CLE's spelling, just the grammar and penmanship.

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Oh, I definitely suspect she's either dyslexic or has some other reading disability.  We've been through Dancing Bears A, but have switched to High Noon Reading Intervention this year.  

 

We're doing CLE's Language Arts this year also, because I felt it was time for her learn some grammar "stuff" (abc order, punctuation, noun/verb, etc... and she likes CLE's pencil-drawn pictures and gentle spiral.)  We don't do CLE's spelling, just the grammar and penmanship.

Interesting!  I'll have to keep it in mind for my little boy!  :)

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My child who is at risk for dyslexia due to her other LD's got sent home from her special ed K class with a homework packet that mentioned starting spelling homework a bit later on in the year. To me this makes zero sense unless she's reading by then. She can do "spelling" if I really scaffold it by breaking down the sounds in a word for her and asking her what letter makes each particular sound. That is an appropriate exercise for the stage she's in, but just dictating her the whole word and asking her to write it would result in a bunch of random letters.

 

I have All About Spelling and plan to try it with her afterschool to reinforce the phonics, but I don't see any point in starting it until she's reading.

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Even with my non-LD kids, I didn't bother about spelling until they were fluent readers (like 3rd grade-ish) Phonics is about the relationship between symbols and sounds, so any phonics based program (and they pretty much all are these days) will include some spelling instruction, even if it's not specifically identified as spelling.

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I'm going to disagree some with PP. For many dyslexic kids it is an OG approach that combines spelling/phonics that gives them the info they need to move into reading. We didn't delay spelling at all and I'm so glad we didn't. Both my dyslexics needed the OG rules and sensory experiences to help crack the code of language. Fwiw, fluency is a LONG time coming with dyslexics. If I waited until they were reading completely fluently on their own with out tech assistance, who knows how long I'd be waiting to do spelling.

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All I can say is what worked for us.  DD spent 7 years trying to learn to read and spell through the school system.  It was a site word based system for both but with some limited phonics exposure.  She learned almost nothing and spent all 7 years studying 10 times harder than nearly any student there, 7 days a week, even during summer break.  Nothing really stuck.  It was demoralizing, wasteful and exhausting for both of us.  Spelling, especially, was a colossal waste of our time.  If I had had a choice back then I would have ditched spelling altogether.  It seemed like such a huge squandering of our energies for almost no gain.

 

However, when we started homeschooling 2 years ago, we started over.  She started using an OG based system that incorporated reading AND spelling designed specifically for a typical dyslexic (I say typical because some kids diagnosed as dyslexic do not do well with an OG based program), and she turned both reading AND spelling around...but she was also older, which probably was also a factor.  

 

In fact, she just took another spelling test today, was not allowed to look at the words on the list ahead of time, did not rote memorize the sequence of the letters, but had been exposed enough to the rules behind the spelling of those words that those rules are now internalized.  She didn't have to think about the rules.  She spelled every word correctly without studying and could read every word correctly, including some that she had never seen before.  The two skills, reading and spelling, are intertwined for her.  The parts of both are what are making the bigger process of reading/writing (input/output) possible.

 

 

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Sometimes I wish I'd tried the HighNoon spelling program along with HN reading. We did not, and it seems a bit late to go back (though maybe I will have to). DS used HN reading (including word sorts etc. which I think were helpful to reading, but made no impact on spelling that I could see) and has been reading fluently since age 9-10.  He is now working on Spelling Power at age 12, and it seems to be coming along reasonably well.

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For my daughter, spelling one word gave her as much practice as reading 8 to 10 words and helped both her phonics and spelling abilities. My son learned about the same from reading or spelling one word but spelling was actually easier for him than reading early on. Now that he is reading better and the spelling includes more exceptions, spelling is more difficult.

 

By age 8, I would include at least a few minutes a day of spelling to help reinforce the phonics, and you might find it even more helpful than you expect.

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LOE Foundations uses spelling and the writing of phonograms as a means of mapping a sound to its letter and phonograms to words. Almost immediately, the student is spelling through dictation, either by writing or using letter and phonogram cards/tiles. As the student learns to form letters with a pencil, shaving cream, or tiles, they are supposed to be saying all of the sounds of the particular word too. When I dictate a word to DD, there is a way we segment sounds of the word using my fingers first. The process provides a seeing, hearing, and kinesthetic element for DD as she writes and learns to spell. I also use the same finger method when she reads and sounds out a word that she doesn't know.

Basically, spelling and dictation are a part of our phonics program.  Not all students need the approach, but I prefer it with DD. DS spelled with Wilson from the beginning. I wish I had understood the Wilson process as I see he could have benefited more if Wilson methods were applied across all curriculum.

 

ETA: OP, I think spelling is important when incorporated with the reading intruction so maybe follow the reading program's recommendations.

 

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