Ipsey Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 My 8-year-old, who is in public school, Can Not Spell. It's agonizing. He wrote out his spelling list today, missing 50% of the words clipbord housplant blusht over and over he wrote them wrong. Now, I know phonetically there's nothing wrong with "blusht" and. . .yanno, it's not terrible, it at least makes sense how he gets there, but he does it OVER AND OVER. We've spent nearly a year reviewing "they" and he still writes it "thay". Even on this week's spelling test. I make him break the words into syllables, look at the first syllable, say the letters aloud several times, and then write them, and then go to the next syllable. But, unless I stand over him, he won't do it, and he'll miss every word, unless I'm there cracking the whip! What strategies do you have for spelling? We write them in a number of ways and do various activities. I'm just at my wit's end! Help, oh please! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurelia Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 Apples & Pears seems to help students who struggle with spelling. He may need to simply build up his visual memory or learn the rules. All About Spelling is good at teaching the rules, if that's where his weakness lies. If he struggles with that, I suggest A&P. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 I second the Apples and Pears suggestion. It's not devoid of the rules but it doesn't teach them in an inflexible way and, as Aurelia mentioned, works on building up the visual memory of words. Honestly, if a program were magical, A&P would be it. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlebug42 Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 For practice of the words he is learning, you could try spellingcity.com. You can type in the list that you want to use and they can play games with it. My daughters love it and it breaks up the monotony of list after list of words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SorrelZG Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 Studied dictation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cricket Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 Studied dictation? I was going to suggest this. We started studied dictation this year. We are in week four now so we will need more time to see if it works. Here's hoping! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 SWR (spelling to write and read). If you are really worried and your son is not working with other things, SWR is the most complete and intensive spelling program out there. It solved my DS's spelling woes in 2 years, which I consider a miracle. Because of an auditory processing problem, he had mapped the wrong letter to english sounds, and his spelling could not have been worse. SWR took me 1 intense week to read thoroughly and understand how to teach (which I absolutely loved because it explained so many spelling oddities that I had always wondered about). And now I prep 10 minutes on Sunday and teach spelling 15 minutes 5 days a week. Ruth in NZ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mytwomonkeys Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 you've gotten good advice:). i just wanted to add something that may or may not benefit you. my daughter also spelled "they" as "thay" all.the.time. what finally helped her was explaining the word "the" always hides inside the beginning of: they, them, there, their, and these. for whatever reason, this helped both of my children a great deal. it took a few reminders in the beginning, but she caught on quickly & it is now helping out my son as well. hth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgehogs4 Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 All About Spelling has transformed my ds's spelling from "can't spell his way out of a paper bag" to thinking about how words are put together and actually spelling them correctly most of the time, and if he gets it wrong, he at least put forth a sincere effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ipsey Posted September 28, 2011 Author Share Posted September 28, 2011 Thanks so much, everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracy Posted September 29, 2011 Share Posted September 29, 2011 SWR (spelling to write and read). If you are really worried and your son is not working with other things, SWR is the most complete and intensive spelling program out there. SWR does have some great ways to help kids remember. 1. 70 phonograms, 2. 28 spelling rules, 3. Fingergrams where the child says each sound of the word and the parent puts up the number of fingers for the number of letters each sound contains. (This helps the child to remember, for example, that the word "blushed" has 5 sounds but 7 letters.) and 4. markings to highlight multi-letter phonograms, rules and those times that words don't appear to follow the rules, and 5. Think-to-spell (like when we spell Wednesday, we all say Wed-nes-day, you do that with all words whose pronunciation has changed but the spelling has stayed the same). It is an intense program, and it takes a lot of time to get up to speed. But it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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