Spelling - Please help me help my daughter

[Melabella]

I apologize in advance that this is so long.

 

My dd is 12 and "unofficially" dyslexic. I've never had her officially tested, but she has all of the characteristics. She was tested for the Wilson program and the tutor who has a masters in Education with a Reading Specialist credential did believe my dd is dyslexic. She can read and comprehend well. She tested post high school in all reading categories on her last Stanford test.

 

The problem is that she cannot spell. I pulled her from ps after 2nd grade. When she took the Stanford in 3rd grade, she scored at the beginning 1st grade in spelling. We did Sequential Spelling 1 and 2 over 4th and 5th grades. At the end of 5th, her Standford spelling scored at 5th grade 6th month - just a few months behind! She still seemed very behind to me though.

 

For 6th grade, our co-op had a teacher offering the Wilson program. As I mentioned, she was tested and the tutor placed her in the program in level B. She sailed through the course. Made 95 or better on all assignments, quizzes, and tests. The tutor advised me not to do any other spelling program, that Wilson would be sufficient. At the end of the year, her Stanford spelling score was 5th grade 1 month. She regressed?? I did not have her continue with the second half of the Wilson course this year because it obviously didn't help.

 

Now this year. Since Sequential Spelling had worked well for her in the past, I thought we'd try that again. I gave her the placement test, and, according to it, she needs to start back at the beginning of book 1? Maybe it hadn't worked so well!!! I am at a loss.

 

Many of her misspelled words are not spelled phonetically. However, we have tried many phonics programs and she has no trouble at all. She cannot distinguish vowel sounds. Other letter sounds give her trouble as well (g and j, t and d). She still doesn't fully understand rhyming. She has a hard time recognizing smaller words within larger words.

 

Here are a few examples or recent mispellings (her spelling - acutal word):

pumink - pumpkin

coninet - continent

conit - also continent (same paragrah as error above)

insitly - instantly

mealted - melted

tempenter - temperature

rasbeirrie - raspberry

though - thought (always mispells this despite many corrections)

collasped - collapsed

wereing - wearing

quinities - quantities

meatle - metal

mealts - metals (same paragraph as error above)

Gology - Geology

pross - process

Rassia - Russia

compan - company

moring - morning

advent - event

knewl - knuckle

 

Words missed on the Dolch Basic Sight Word List:

pretty, well, who, does, goes, write, always, three, buy, those, which, clean, upon, laugh

 

Programs we have used:

Sequential Spelling 1 and 2 - she liked

AAS level 1 - she hated it; too easy

Reading Reflex - for phonics work; too easy

Wilson - Level B 1 - 6; too easy

Megawords - 1 through 3; too complicated just to use for spelling

Evan Moor spelling and phonics

 

I appreciate you reading this far and any ideas or advice you may have. I am just at a loss as to how to help her.

Edited October 1, 2011 by Melabella

[GingerPoppy]

Personally, I'd scrap the programs for a little while and just get some basic, necessary concepts down.

 

First, I would do a lot of purely sound-based work with the short vowels. For kids who struggle with these, I make up little characters who make the vowel sound... for example, the "a" is a little girl who screams when she sees a mouse, and the sound she makes is /aaaaaaa/. (I draw the little girl shaped like an "a", or you could put an "a" on a stick girl's t-shirt.) If you need ideas for the other vowels, Jolly Phonics has them, or feel free to ask.

 

When she is getting comfortable with the short vowel sounds, put the five vowels (ignore the y for now) on separate index cards. When you say the short sound, she should pull down the correct card.

 

Then start working on segmenting. Start with 1-syllable words that have 3 sounds (e.g. dog). You say the word. She must ORALLY segment it into its 3 distinct sounds (d - o - g). Move up to 4-sound and 5-sound words, still in a single syllable word. Practice this often, until she is very proficient. Be sure that you are segmenting individual sounds, not letters. (e.g. toy has only 2 sounds... t - oy). Practice lots with words like scrape (s - c - r - ay - p) and other words with blends. Don't forget words with blends at the end like clamp (c - l - a - m - p).

 

When she is solid on all of this, I would use a chunking strategy on her multisyllable words. Say the word is "continent". Have her chunk the word orally into syllables: "con - tin - ent". Have her count how many "chunks" (syllables). She should then draw 3 short lines on the paper. Ask: "What is the first chunk you heard?" She should say, "con". Have her write "con" on the first line, using the sound segmenting strategies worked on earlier. Then repeat for the next two lines and next two chunks.

 

Continue to use a chunking strategy with lines until she is doing it automatically.

 

The next step after that is to start teaching the many different ways that each sound can be made--like the two ways to make /oy/ and the 5 main ways to make long /a/ and so on. I'd go back into a spelling program that specifically teaches all of these, such as AAS or Reading Reflex.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited October 1, 2011 by GingerPoppy

[Melabella]

Thank you for your reply. Isn't that phonics? I know it is weird, but she has no trouble going through a phonics program. She learned to read with a direct instruction (Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons) method, did a phonics program at home (don't remember the name), Wilson with a tutor, etc. She knows all of the rules and sounds then, but she can't apply them when spelling.

[GingerPoppy]

Well, I'd say more phonemic awareness than phonics. Phonemic awareness is often the missing component in a phonics program. It has to do with the way sounds are manipulated in our heads and orally, rather than just following rules.

 

The exercises I wrote about in the above post were specifically chosen because I looked carefully at your list of how she spelled certain words. Based on that, I can see where there are knowledge/skill gaps. She clearly can't hear/identify the short vowel sounds. She clearly can't segment properly in her head, because many of the sounds are missing or out of order. She also doesn't seem to understand syllabication in a practical sense. Yes, it's hard to diagnose the exact problem over the internet, but based on years and years of being a reading tutor, those are my first recommendations.

 

Depending on how thoroughly you know the subject (reading/phonics/phonemic awareness/spelling), it might be very helpful for you to study up on it or go through a program yourself. Reading Reflex is pretty good at explaining the concepts (although I don't love their tone or their stories). But it gives a good grounding.

 

I sincerely hope this can help in some way.

[curlylocks]

Personally, I'd scrap the programs for a little while and just get some basic, necessary concepts down.

 

First, I would do a lot of purely sound-based work with the short vowels. For kids who struggle with these, I make up little characters who make the vowel sound... for example, the "a" is a little girl who screams when she sees a mouse, and the sound she makes is /aaaaaaa/. (I draw the little girl shaped like an "a", or you could put an "a" on a stick girl's t-shirt.) If you need ideas for the other vowels, Jolly Phonics has them, or feel free to ask.

 

When she is getting comfortable with the short vowel sounds, put the five vowels (ignore the y for now) on separate index cards. When you say the short sound, she should pull down the correct card.

 

Then start working on segmenting. Start with 1-syllable words that have 3 sounds (e.g. dog). You say the word. She must ORALLY segment it into its 3 distinct sounds (d - o - g). Move up to 4-sound and 5-sound words, still in a single syllable word. Practice this often, until she is very proficient. Be sure that you are segmenting individual sounds, not letters. (e.g. toy has only 2 sounds... t - oy). Practice lots with words like scrape (s - c - r - ay - p) and other words with blends. Don't forget words with blends at the end like clamp (c - l - a - m - p).

 

When she is solid on all of this, I would use a chunking strategy on her multisyllable words. Say the word is "continent". Have her chunk the word orally into syllables: "con - tin - ent". Have her count how many "chunks" (syllables). She should then draw 3 short lines on the paper. Ask: "What is the first chunk you heard?" She should say, "con". Have her write "con" on the first line, using the sound segmenting strategies worked on earlier. Then repeat for the next two lines and next two chunks.

 

Continue to use a chunking strategy with lines until she is doing it automatically.

 

The next step after that is to start teaching the many different ways that each sound can be made--like the two ways to make /oy/ and the 5 main ways to make long /a/ and so on. I'd go back into a spelling program that specifically teaches all of these, such as AAS or Reading Reflex.

 

Hope this helps.

 

:iagree: -- this is exactly what I was going to suggest.

 

FWIW, AAS Level 1 was easy for my son, but Level 2 and 3 get harder. ;)

[PeterPan]

Your problem is you could have an incorrect diagnosis. At this point she's mispelling phonetically regular words, which means she either isn't hearing them correctly (auditory processing) or still doesn't have good sound to written correlation. She may also have visual issues, but I would be highly concerned that after a year of phonogram-based instruction (is Wilson phonogram-based?) she STILL can't sound out and write correctly PHONETICALLY REGULAR WORDS.

 

You have to find the glitch before you can treat it. I'd back way up and check things.

[GingerPoppy]

One more possible insight... it seems to me that she's approaching spelling from the visual side, instead of the sound side. Of course, spelling is a balance of both. But I think she's learned to rely heavily on letters that she has seen a given word, and simply getting those letters she remembers down in some order, any order. I think that's why you see the correct letter 'i' in Russia and the 'kn' in knuckle. Refocus her to the sound side of spelling, and let the visual side be a helper. It's hard work to focus purely on "what do I hear", not what have I seen. In my experience, older students fight this. But it's essential. She needs lots of practice with phonetically regular words. Best of luck. :)

[Melabella]

Thank you all for your input. I agree it is difficult to diagnose via internet. Her phonemic awareness skills were tested twice (public school and private Wilson tutor). She passed both tests with flying colors. We went all the way through Reading Reflex and other pure phonics programs. She excelled - no problem.

 

When she asks how to spell a word, I encourage her to sound it out. Sometimes I will sound it out for her slowly and with emphasis, but she still adds letters that aren't even remotely close.

 

Perhaps I will look into an auditory processing evaluation.

[PeterPan]

I would put money into an eval before I'd do any more therapy or curriculum. Have you read "When the Brain Can't Hear"? It should be available through your library.

[Ottakee]

have you tried Apples and Pears spelling? It seems to help many kids with nothing else was working.

[Melabella]

Oh Elizabeth, what type of evaluation do you recommend? Auditory Processing? I will check out that book.

[ElizabethB]

It does sound like some kind of phonemic awareness or hearing problem.

 

Here is a good website I link to use for my students with some kind of underlying speech problems:

 

http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#

 

I also think you could benefit from watching together Understanding Linguistics, especially the lectures 2 to 5.

 

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=2270

 

You might also want to try watching my phonics lessons with her and seeing how she does with them, I have a lot of spelling rules and nonsense words and syllable division in there that might be helpful. But, I would work on the phonemic awareness first, if she can't hear the differences between vowel sounds, that would need to be fixed first before the lessons would be beneficial.

 

She may also be helped by my sound spelling chart, it applies math to spelling. (Once she can hear the sounds.)

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/Phonics%20Lsns/Resources/letter%20sound%20spell%20new%202011.pdf

[gracyomalley]

Sounds very much like my severely dyslexic/bright son!!! Testing this year at late high school for all reading/vocab skills, but kindergarten level spelling!

 

Bright kids with dyslexia do great with phonics programs...but they don't apply them to spelling...because they don't "hear" the words/sounds phonemically...

 

My sons tutor taught him a whole different approach to spelling...not phonetic, but with a bunch of rules...ds 11 still thinks he "can't spell", and he's basically right, but if he is very systematic about it, he can apply those rules. If he tries to use phonics, he almost always messes up!..

 

I have settled on using his strengths to help his spelling...we switched to SpellingPower, because its memory based (he has an excellent memory), multisensory, and goes back to the basics. As he works through it we review whatever the rules are that the program teaches, plus the ones his LD tutor emphasized.

 

What I am finding is that he CAN do it, but has to approach it differently than I would....

 

Although he did fantastic with every phonics program out there (memorizing rules), he doesn't read that way....he can apply phonics and de-coding skills to reading (again, learned different approaches), but only does that when what his "brain" read doesn't make sense. He's slow, and still misses some dolce words, but can read and comprehend at a high school level...so I guess he's compensating. I think spelling will be the same...

 

My advice would be to get an official diagnosis IF it will allow her needed testing accomodations, otherwise, pick a spelling program, preferably one she likes, can do daily, and which is memory based, and stick with it. Correct spelling in some work daily, but allow some free writing. Allow typing and spell check/on line dictionary/thesaurus so that she can start to produce a product that reflects her ideas and not just her spelling. But don't expect a "quick fix".

 

Good luck!

Erin

[LaughingCat]

While it does sound as if there might be an Auditory processing issue - I still want to second Apples and Pears. The way it's presented seems like it would fit a more visually focused child. Lots of visual repetition rather than rule memorization/retrieval. Plus its a different approach than the phonic based programs that you've already tried.

[VinNY]

Lindamood Bell's LiPS program is designed to help students with this problem. I spent 2 summers ago using the program with my dtr. I bought the at-home kit and worked on the 1st 14 chapters. The pages Elizabeth attached are exercises that LiPs uses to teach sounds of vowels and consonants. In addition, the exercises from Dr. Jerome Rosner's book Helping Children overcome learning difficulties were great for my dtr to improve in this area. They only took 5 minutes a day. After this we were finally able to start with Apples and Bears Bk A. She will never be a great speller, but we are making some progress.

 

The Writing Road to Reading helps students chunk sounds also. I hope to get my dtr into that by middle school.