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My son is very, very dyslexic. I really believe part of his brain is underdeveloped or damaged. We are over the hump in reading and he is doing well, but spelling continues to be something that we just can't get much traction on.

 

ETA: he's ten, average/above average intelligence, but spells at about a 1st grade level.

 

We used AAS for about a year, and quit mid-way through level 2. The work on phonograms and phonemic awareness was great, but the rule-based approach was not working for him - he was able to recite spelling rules, but not refer to them in his spelling (I think this may be a memory issue - he wasn't able to access where it was stored, maybe). He got very anxious about spelling which just made it worse. We were stuck for a couple months and I decided to try something else.

 

Then we used Sequential Spelling. We got to lesson 40, took a break, and re-started, then quit after it was apparent that he was just hopefully guessing. Again, he was very anxious. I tried lots of extra strategies like making my own colored tiles for word families and spelling them on the magnet board, but I realized the only words (beyond easy CVC and blends) that he could write were ones he had learned by spelling out loud. (I should have paid more attention to that).

 

Then we moved on to Apples and Pears, starting at the beginning. This went pretty well (overall) - still a lot of anxiety, and a good hour of work to complete a lesson a day, but he was making good progress. Once we got into book C, things started to fall apart. We could no longer spend an hour a day on a spelling lesson, so we cut it down to a page a day. At that rate, the spiral was too long and he wasn't retaining the patterns. Also (does anyone else notice this?) he would do OK on the lessons and then completely bomb the periodic spelling tests because they used the hardest words, many of which hadn't been used in a while.

 

I put aside A&P and he has been doing a crappy workbook until I figure out what to do next. I need help! I need ideas of what might work for him. This is what I want:

 

1) Downloadable. It takes about a month to receive anything by mail here and I don't want to wait that long.

 

2) I prefer a system or method where I can go at our own pace, reviewing certain words as needed. Not a list of spelling words to be done each week and then dropped.

 

3) Something that introduces words according to spelling pattern. I don't want something that gives a list of words that all have a different spelling for the same sound (earth, hurt, birthday, etc.) but rather reinforces the words that use a particular pattern (earth, early, earnest).

 

4) Nothing built on word searches and scrambles. Those are just confusing for a bad speller.

 

(Honestly, aside from the downloadable factor, this pretty much describes AAS. Sigh. Now that he's older, he may do better, and I could spend more time on reciting spelling out loud. I already sold levels 1 & 2, and he'd probably place in level 2 which is where we left off about 2 years ago.)

 

Any ideas?

Edited by ondreeuh
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Spelling Plus with Spelling Dictation.

 

There is an online list of the words somewhere while you are waiting for the book. It focuses on the 1,000 most frequent words, so you're not wasting your effort. They are grouped by sound. Some of the later lessons have 2 different sounds for the same spelling, but you could break them in half if that is confusing. The early lessons just teach one pattern. (They also teach rules, but you can just use the pattern if the rules don't help.)

 

You could use Laurie's overteaching method with them, it's the same basic list of words but has good ideas for review, Spelling Plus does not have built in review.

 

The author, Susan Anthony, lives in Alaska! She gives seminars according to her website, although she is in Anchorage and you sound more remote.

 

Here is the online list while you're waiting for the books:

 

http://www.susancanthony.com/pdfhandouts/Spellinghandout.pdf

 

And, some sample pages from her website, the words are nicely arranged by pattern in a different area in the book than the daily lessons if you want to teach them completely by pattern:

 

http://www.susancanthony.com/pdfsamplepages/SPSamp.pdf

Edited by ElizabethB
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I'd read mixed reviews about Spelling Plus, but I will check it out again.

 

I actually responded to that overteaching spelling post, intending to use that method. I don't remember what happened - just never got it off the ground, I think. I do think it's what I'm looking for.

 

Where I live is remote, but the biggest issue is laziness. We get mail up to 3x a week when the weather is good, but the person who works in the post office (and is scheduled to have it open an hour a day, 3 days a week) only shows up when she feels like it. I have packages I've been trying to mail all week. I'm going to have to print my own shipping labels and take them to the charter flight that comes on Sunday so they can drop them off at a PO in Anchorage for me. My husband is actually in Anchorage til Sunday, so maybe there's a place that carries it in town.

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3) Something that introduces words according to spelling pattern. I don't want something that gives a list of words that all have a different spelling for the same sound (earth, hurt, birthday, etc.) but rather reinforces the words that use a particular pattern (earth, early, earnest).

 

4) Nothing built on word searches and scrambles. Those are just confusing for a bad speller.

 

 

It is not downloadable, but you might like the How to Spell workbooks. Organizing words by spelling pattern is the key for our DS1. He does not learn spelling at all from what appears to him to be random collections of words. But word families, spellling patters and word sorts (by phonics rules) work well for him. Scholastic also has workbooks of word sorts. I don't know if those can be downloaded or not.

 

Our DS1 also cannot deal with the word searches, scrambles, or crosswords. IMO those are horrible for a kid with sequential memory/visual processing/dyslexia issues. Horrible ! How to Spell is very simple.

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I use Apples and Pears. My dtr is 10 and we are still on Book A. I do not do a whole lesson at a time. In fact I split that lesson over a week. I was encouraged by the neuropsych and special ed teacher to do short lessons everyday, frequency over length. We also have had to redo whole units because she didn't pass the unit. We would use a composition notebook for that. Sure enough by re-working the unit, she would pass to the next level. Repetition helped her build visual memory. Keeping it short helped lower her anxiety and that helped her with retention.

 

Do you think you might have moved too fast through the program? I was told to look long term and not to worry about immediate results.

 

We also use Recipe for Reading to review phonograms,rules and mneumonics but again I keep the lessons short but make sure I get 5 days a week in for review.

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Lastly, spelling did not come together for my ds until we remediated his working memory.

 

That was an issue as well with AAS (and all spelling programs) but it has gotten better. He is able to do longer dictation than he used to, but often needs a sentence broken into two parts. Of course, the more difficult the spelling is, the worse he does because he forgets the sentence when he spends all his mental energy on spelling.

 

He just took the Woodcock-Johnson academic test at school. His teacher said there was a comprehension part where she would tell a story and he would retell it back to her, and she would score it according to whether or not he used certain key words. Then 3 days later, she would ask him if he remembered the story and she would score it again. Well, he did horribly at getting the key words in the immediate recall part but fantastic in the 3-day recall part (scoring several years ahead of his age). I don't know if any part of that was anxiety (he just can't recall well when he's anxious) or if it's a memory issue.

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You said he's at a first grade spelling....would you mind posting some examples of sentences he's written (ones with his usual misspellings)?

 

I can tell you his usual mistakes. He makes every mistake! It doesn't matter how much we've gone over the rule of why something is done, because when he spells he doesn't "look up" the rules in his head. He might be in a rush to get in on paper before he forgets it. All of the things below we've covered for years. He is now starting to read what he's written and find & fix some of his own mistakes, but often needs prompting to segment the word and write the sounds. That has always been hard, he CAN do it but it is very difficult so he resists it and tries to guess first.

 

-forgetting final -e in simple CVC-e words

-using "e" for the long-e sound at the end of a word instead of y (happe)

-ending a word with "k" when he should use "ck"

-using "s" instead of "sh"

-leaving out whole sounds and syllables

-writing run-on sentences, missing punctuation, forgetting capitals

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You may want to use assistive technology now or in the future. I downloaded the Ginger spell checker (free) for my students. They were amazed at the difference in using that vs regular spell check. For one 9yo very dyslexic student, it caught most of what she was trying to write...of course at 10 you still want to teach spelling, but the day will come when you'll not want to labor over it and instead use technology to free him up to writing without worrying about spelling. It is a free download and very, very useful, as it checks whole sentences in big bold print. I was going to see how it did with some of your ds sentences :)

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You may want to use assistive technology now or in the future. I downloaded the Ginger spell checker (free) for my students. They were amazed at the difference in using that vs regular spell check. For one 9yo very dyslexic student, it caught most of what she was trying to write...of course at 10 you still want to teach spelling, but the day will come when you'll not want to labor over it and instead use technology to free him up to writing without worrying about spelling. It is a free download and very, very useful, as it checks whole sentences in big bold print. I was going to see how it did with some of your ds sentences :)

 

We actually did a trial of Ginger several months ago (it was free for 30 days). He wasn't anywhere close enough for Ginger to figure out what he was saying. My dh is probably dyslexic and a pretty poor speller for an adult (and he's terrible with punctuation), and Ginger missed a lot of his errors. I had to proofread after Ginger was done, and if I have to proofread anyway, what's the point of paying for a program? I see that Ginger is now completely free, and maybe they've made other improvements.

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My DS11 is severely dyslexic. He just started Apples & Pears Book B, and I have noticed it's taking a lot longer to complete a lesson. This week we did an experiment, he started doing just one page per day. If I notice he's not retaining what he's learning then we will go back to one lesson a day and break the lesson into two parts. Example: Apples & Pears, TT, Dancing Bears, SOTW, Apples & Pears, PE, etc.

 

Before we begin an A&P lesson, I always review what he did the day before. We just read through it and talk about the spelling patterns, it takes about five minutes.

 

OP: Have you thought about backing up and redoing A&P Book B or maybe trying AAS again?

 

Is your DS doing copywork? I've thought about using A&P sentences from lessons my boy has already done as his copywork. I'm not sure how much this would help with spelling, but I'm sure it would help some.

 

I wish the makers of A&P had an industrial strength (slower) version of each A&P book.

Edited by Shellers
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I'd consider trying Sequential Spelling combined with AAS again. And I would have him use a word processor with a spellchecker for all written work.

 

My son is also dyslexic. We had a horrible time with SS when we first started using it (he was 9). It took *forever* to get through a list and by the end he was usually in tears (and my head had exploded). Then his OT suggested that he spell the words aloud as (or before) he was writing them. Suddenly things got much better! By the end of the first book a lesson was only taking 5-10 minutes and it seemed to be transferring to his writing. We used SS for 4 years, but he didn't make much progress after the second year.

 

Then we tried AAS when he was 13. We made it through 4 books that year and then he told me he couldn't stand it anymore because it was for "babies" (true enough). Some of the odd glitches in his spelling went away with AAS.

 

Then when he was 14, we used SS for adults. We did the first year and he had very few problems with it.

 

His spelling will likely always be a problem, but things are much better than they were when he was 9.

 

Anyway, I think the rule based approach of AAS combined with the gestalt approach of SS and the real world approach of the spellchecker seems to have worked here.

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Lastly, spelling did not come together for my ds until we remediated his working memory. His capacity was so low that all the processing demands of just moving a pencil seemed to tap it out. :tongue_smilie: He was stuck at the middle of AAS Level 1 and unable to apply the rules for the longest time. I remember reviewing one of the levels (ck at the end of a short vowel word) for something like two weeks before I finally just moved on, even though he still just did not get it. Once he got to a certain point in his working memory exercises though, the spelling instruction that we did seemed to sink in. One AAS level now takes about 3 or 4 days with good, though not perfect, retention. I just started to use A&P as a review 2 days a week. I know working memory is not going to be the issue for every kid with spelling issues, but I just wanted to mention it because the fix, though it can take a while, is pretty easy.

 

 

I'd love to hear activities to improve working memory.

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My DS11 is severely dyslexic. He just started Apples & Pears Book B, and I have noticed it's taking a lot longer to complete a lesson. This week we did an experiment, he started doing just one page per day. If I notice he's not retaining what he's learning then we will go back to one lesson a day and break the lesson into two parts. Example: Apples & Pears, TT, Dancing Bears, SOTW, Apples & Pears, PE, etc.

 

Before we begin an A&P lesson, I always review what he did the day before. We just read through it and talk about the spelling patterns, it takes about five minutes.

 

OP: Have you thought about backing up and redoing A&P Book B or maybe trying AAS again?

 

Is your DS doing copywork? I've thought about using A&P sentences from lessons my boy has already done as his copywork. I'm not sure how much this would help with spelling, but I'm sure it would help some.

 

I wish the makers of A&P had an industrial strength (slower) version of each A&P book.

 

It feels pretty hopeless to think that even A&P is too much for my kid. I mean, I know this is a weak area of his but given that A&P is designed for the most remedial student and he isn't struggling with low IQ or lack of exposure, ugh.

 

I recycled the completed books, and I don't think just reviewing them would be enough ...

 

No, he doesn't do copywork. It has never, ever yielded any progress (and we have tried).

 

As painfully slow and laborious as it may be, I am going to try rote memorization of words with him. We've been over the "rules" so many times that he knows how to spell sounds, but it's going to take the full battery of tracing, covering & copying, chanting out loud, etc. to learn the spelling of every dang word. I am going to use the overteaching method with the Spelling Plus lists.

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No, he doesn't do copywork. It has never, ever yielded any progress (and we have tried).

 

You probably just need the Spelling Plus book then, not the Spelling Dictation book.

 

As painfully slow and laborious as it may be, I am going to try rote memorization of words with him. We've been over the "rules" so many times that he knows how to spell sounds, but it's going to take the full battery of tracing, covering & copying, chanting out loud, etc. to learn the spelling of every dang word. I am going to use the overteaching method with the Spelling Plus lists.

 

She has several ideas in the book about how to get in the most repetitions per minute for the words!

 

:grouphug:

 

The good news is, the most common 1,000 words account for 90% of the words in any average written passage.

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