Spelling with speech problems

[4KookieKids]

My 6 yo has a fair bit of distortions in his speech, and sees a speech therapist for it regularly. How can I help him learn to spell when he can't even say a word correctly to sound it out?

FWIW, we're doing Spalding to teach him reading, and it's working beautifully (and we'd tried at least three other popular phonics programs before that and suffice it to say it was misery), so I really don't want to switch programs. But Spalding is all about spelling... His "r"s and ending "l"s are the worst (he tried spelling "girl" as "girlelr" and that's pretty close to how he says it, except the r is completely distorted and sounds at best like a muddled "w"), so he's constantly trying to write "r" for "er" and "er" for "r" and that sort of thing. Is this something I need to wait for speech to develop on and just get by as best I can in the mean time?

[merry gardens]

Hmm. R ' s and L ' s require more tongue curling and lifting, plus they strongly affect vowels. They can develop later, but it's not uncommon for people with dyslexia to also have a history of speech problems. Yet not all speech problems indicate there will be a problem with reading and/or spelling. I suggest you approach this with the understanding to keep your eyes open for dyslexia and look at approaches used for dyslexia, even if it turns out to just a speech problem.

 

One program used by myself and several others for dyslexia remediation is called Barton Reading and Spelling. It holds off on many of the vowel sounds and r influenced vowels. It might be worth looking at--or at least worth thinking about holding off on spelling words with some of those sounds until your child is further along in his speech therapy. Generally speaking, learning g moves from talking to writing (that's even the name of a writing book/teacher's manual or approaching language based special needs.) Some of the common words that are hard to avoid in early readers, like "girl" and "her", can be taught as sight words until his speech catches up, (and even then, they're semi-sight words to know which spelling for /er/.) You may want to used controlled readers so that the readers he uses does ask him to read or spell sounds he hasn't yet learned. That 's how we approached reading with the first several levels of Barton. And when you look at Barton or other special ed programs for reading, instead of comparing it to the cost of standard reading and spelling programs, compare them to the cost of his speech therapy and they will seem like a bargain. ;)

[Crimson Wife]

I think I'd try to take the child through Lindamood-Bell LiPS prior to continuing with Spalding. LiPS will target both the speech and the phonemic awareness skills. Barton is good, but not all kids are able to pass the Barton readiness test. Susan Barton recommends LiPS for those children.