Spelling

[AimeeM]

At what point do you give up on teaching your dyslexic children the phonics behind spelling and just teach memorized lists instead?

DD11 is a horrific speller. We've used most of the standard "thumbs up for dyslexics" programs without seeing much improvement in her content spelling (in large part, I think, because these programs are often auditory based and she is a visual learner).

So we started Rod and Staff spelling last week. She's doing okay with the words themselves, but NOT with the phonics exercises related to each week's words. Disaster would be an understatement. She reads fine and sounds out the words fine when reading, but spelling...

I'm ready to throw in the towel and just teach her to memorize the stinkin' lists.

[merry gardens]

***WARNING!!! THE FOLLOWING POST MAY NOT HELP YOUR CHILD LEARN TO SPELL*** (If you saw my child's spelling, you'd know why I wrote that disclaimer.)

 

We use both phonics and lists to memorize for spelling. Common words should be automatic. Many are phonetically regular. Some common words aren't completely phonetic, follow lesser known phonic rules or follow phonics rules but have confusing homonyms that also follow phonics rules. Do/due you/ewe/yew see/sea? Writing becomes easier when the 1000 most common words come automatically.

 

That said, if your child really doesn't get phonics at all, it's worth remediating that situation.

Edited October 3, 2012 by merry gardens

[mommymilkies]

It's still important, especially for dyslexics. That said, Apples & Pears has done wonders for my kids.

[AimeeM]

That's the odd thing - she seems to totally *get* phonics when reading... but not when she spells?

***WARNING!!! THE FOLLOWING POST MAY NOT HELP YOUR CHILD LEARN TO SPELL*** (If you saw my child's spelling, you'd know why I wrote that disclaimer.)

 

We use both phonics and lists to memorize for spelling. Common words should be automatic. Many are phonetically regular. Some common words aren't completely phonetic, follow lesser known phonic rules or follow phonics rules but have confusing homonyms that also follow phonics rules. Do/due you/ewe/yew see/sea? Writing becomes easier when the 1000 most common words come automatically.

 

That said, if your child really doesn't get phonics at all, it's worth remediating that situation.

[AimeeM]

It's still important, especially for dyslexics. That said, Apples & Pears has done wonders for my kids.

We did use Apples and Pears level B. I've entertained going back to it, but she seemed to fairly fly through it, doing well at it - but it didn't carry over whatsoever to her writing and general understanding of spelling.

It's still on my short list though :tongue_smilie:.

[my2boysteacher]

Have you tried something like All About Spelling or Logic of English?

My oldest is also dyslexic and very visual. LOE is working well for him because there is so much repetition of the phonograms and why and when to use each one. It has been slow, but I have seen improvement.

 

If that is not helpful for your child, how about taking a spelling list based on word families like Sequential Spelling, or Natural Speller, and have her make flash cards like this?

http://thethinkingmother.blogspot.com/2009/12/some-of-our-visual-spatial-learner.html

[TippyCanoe]

nm

[AimeeM]

Have you tried something like All About Spelling or Logic of English?

My oldest is also dyslexic and very visual. LOE is working well for him because there is so much repetition of the phonograms and why and when to use each one. It has been slow, but I have seen improvement.

 

If that is not helpful for your child, how about taking a spelling list based on word families like Sequential Spelling, or Natural Speller, and have her make flash cards like this?

http://thethinkingmother.blogspot.com/2009/12/some-of-our-visual-spatial-learner.html

I thought AAS was orton gillingham based (auditory)?

I will look into LOE. Thanks!

[AimeeM]

Have you ever seen Jeffrey Freed's book Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World? He has a chapter on visual spelling techniques which are very simple and easy to use. Working only ten to fifteen minutes three times a week, his techniques transformed dd's spelling from pretty well non-existent to grade level, in about 18 months total. She was eleven when we started.

 

Dd does not use phonics in spelling whatsoever; in this particular area she is a totally visual learner. Freed helps you works with this, and helps this type of kid employ powerful visual memory.

On my wish list now! Thank you so much - I hadn't seen this!

[my2boysteacher]

I thought AAS was orton gillingham based (auditory)?

I will look into LOE. Thanks!

 

I wouldn't say that all O-G programs are for auditory learners only. AAS has letter tiles which add the visual/kinesthetic element, and LOE has a lot of flashcard drill and game book.

 

I have heard two schools of thought on dyslexia/extreme visual learners; That they need to memorize phonograms and spelling rules- even more so than non dyslexic/visual learners, OR, you need to help them 'adapt' the way they store letters in their brain, like making the flashcards I liked above.

 

The first method has worked the best for my DS. A couple other good authors on the subject of visual learners are Eide, and Silverman. Here are two of my favorites:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dyslexic-Advantage-Unlocking-Potential/dp/0452297923/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349302203&sr=8-1&keywords=Eides

http://www.amazon.com/Upside-Down-Brilliance-Visual-Spatial-Learner/dp/193218600X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349302317&sr=1-1&keywords=upside+down+brilliance

 

Also, the creator of LOE has free teacher training videos on YouTube which deal with teaching phonics and spelling. There is one on dyslexia.

Edited October 3, 2012 by my2boysteacher

[Guest]

I wouldn't say that all O-G programs are for auditory learners only. AAS has letter tiles which add the visual/kinesthetic element, and LOE has a lot of flashcard drill and game book.

 

:iagree: I have no experience with Dyslexia but have to agree here. Both AAS and Spalding incorporate activities for all modalities, in their approach to spelling. To my knowledge SWR does also, although I am a Spalding fan personally.

[jetzmama]

Reading = decoding. Spelling = encoding. Different parts of the brain are required for each one, thus it is possible to have a decent reader who can't spell diddly. Which is where my youngest is. 8)

 

[herekittykitty]

I don't think it matters whether someone reads or spells using phonics or using memorization, as long as they do it pretty well. I've always been puzzled why some people think reading or spelling doesn't really "count" unless phonics is behind it. If the result is the same, it really shouldn't matter. Each person should do what works for them. If your child can become a decent speller through visualizing and/or memorizing, why would you push another method? Visual memorization is not a lessor way of learning, and it is not giving up. For many kids it is teaching to their strengths. IMHO if you keep pushing phonics, after trying it without success, you are just trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. To me the desire to get everyone to read and spell with phonics is indicative of how engrained the bias against visual spatial learners has become. Just my two cents.

 

 

[FairProspects]

AAS has worked wonders here because the tiles are color coded and very visual.

[kerenlynne]

If your child can memorize well, I think that is certainly an option for spelling. At least for the most common words. I think that is how I learned because if I don't know how to spell a word I write it down and see if it "looks" correct. I really don't know the phonics rules very well at all but am a pretty good speller. (lots of reading probably helped) DS has a terrible memory and I still have nightmares about 2nd grade spelling tests. He had 2 a week (one phonics and one sightwords) and would bomb them both even after hours of practice. I finally decided spelling wasn't all that important for him. We did a couple of levels of Barton with him and I am really not sure if that helped his spelling or not; but in combination with a lot of remediation, he reads well and can spell better now. (At least he throws in a vowel or 2 in every word)

[dancingmama]

I will also vote fore AAS. It is very visual and very hands-on. We have dropped the tiles but I use a whiteboard and different colored markers for different things. So blue for consonants and red for vowels, yellow for vowel teams, etc. One other thing that I will throw out is that my son really wouldn't/couldn't spell bigger words until I started forcing him to break words into syllables. He was just guessing before because it was "too hard". Now that he breaks it up into smaller chunks, he does a lot better.

[Faithr]

First of all I read a long time ago that spelling skills are typically two years behind reading skills. I don't know where I read that, but for the most part, for my kids it was true. All 5 of my kids are 'dyslexic' - whatever that means! They did not read until late (between 8 and 9.5 years). They all had vision therapy for some it boosted their reading capabilities and for others it was the miracle cure that got them reading. My oldest is just graduating from college this May and she still struggles with spelling. The three things that helped her the most: 1) writing a lot 2)getting someone to edit her papers 3)spell check. She still is not a good speller but she's graduating with honors.

 

My second son who is also in college can't spell either, but he does the same thing as his sister. These two were my guinea pigs and I did the most spelling with them. No spelling program ever worked really. I think they just solidified in their heads that they were not good spellers. I tried several different programs: spelling power, WRTR, IEW, MCP Spelling Workout. Tears and frustation were all we got for our efforts

 

My third son did one formal spelling program his whole life. In 4th grade (he did 3rd grade twice because he learned to read at 9) he did the Calvert spelling cd. He enjoyed it. He is a relatively good speller. I'd say average.

 

My most dyslexic kid, my 14 yo who was the last to read and still hates reading is a good speller!!!!! I can't figure it out!

 

My youngest child, 11 yo, who just learned to read two years ago, loves spelling and is the type of kid who asks me to give her really hard words to spell just for fun. The latter two have never had a spelling program.

 

How I handled spelling with the younger three. I did not make it a distinct program. I did three things: I talked about the history of English and why words have certain spelling patterns. I read them a picture book about this called The Journey of English. This made spelling interesting just as a topic of conversation. The kids would notice, for instance, a word that was spelled with a k or a g in front and they'd know it came from a Germanic language (Old English). 2) We did copy work every morning. 3) I would post spelling rules on our kitchen cabinet about every week or two. I'd just post them, and refer to them casually. No pressure from mom at all. I'd see the kids studying the rule themselves after I'd put up a new rule/pattern. Sometimes they'd ask me about, lots of times they didn't.

 

Oh, and if the kids asked for help with spelling something, half the time I'd just spell it for them and the other half I'd explain the spelling rules that governed the word.

 

I did use phonics to teach the kids to read but in a very relaxed way. By the time I got to the youngest two I was so burned out from starting in K to teach kids to read when they were not going to get it until they were 8 or 9. So discouraging!

 

So that's how things turned out in my homeschool! My youngest is 11 and I am so happy not to deal with spelling anymore!

 

So I really don't believe in spelling programs. They simply didn't work for us. It was better for us to come at spelling obliquely.

[Pen]

The perspective from seeing 5 different dyslexic situations is helpful!

[Pen]

... I read them a picture book about this called The Journey of English. This made spelling interesting just as a topic of conversation. The kids would notice, for instance, a word that was spelled with a k or a g in front and they'd know it came from a Germanic language (Old English). ...

 

This sounded interesting, but the reviews both official and customer comments on Amazon are panning it. You do find it a good book?

[zenjenn]

I find that learning phonics, while tedious, is absolutely ESSENTIAL for my dyslexic child in relation to spelling. She is a fluent reader and phonics played minimal role in her developing reading fluency. She is language-oriented and learned to read fluently through context, whole language, and pure force of will.

 

When I first started homeschooling my dyslexic child, we tried the memorized lists. Here's the problem with memorized lists; a bright dyslexic child may have no problem with that spelling work. They'll get 100% on the spelling test even. But have those same words come up a few weeks later, and it's like they never studied them at all. The letters just get scrambled again. The memorized list approach, I think, is better for a student who is NOT dyslexic. My youngest does that, intuitively. If she's seen a word in writing, she knows how to spell it. Done.

 

We have seen dramatic spelling improvement this year with the implementation of two heavy phonics programs. One is Orton-Gillingham tutoring. We had an amazing, affordable opportunity fall into our lap with a student tutor, though knowing what I do now, I would have implemented it myself at home if I did not have access to an affordable tutor. A lot of OG revisits reading and while it seems tedious, it trains the dyslexic student (who probably learned to avoid phonics as much as possible while learning to read), to develop phonetic awareness. The second program we are using - specifically for spelling - is Phonetic Zoo. Little jingles with spelling rules, and a audio-based approach works well for my dyslexic student.

 

Don't get me wrong - she's not a good speller. We are still constantly confronting errors, and I don't think she'll ever be an excellent speller. But she has improved dramatically, and when she applies what she has learned with conscious effort, she can spell most phonetic words correctly (or at least in a manner that makes phonetic sense.) Really our goal is to get her out of the embarrassing zone with spelling, before I just loose her on doing all her writing on a computer with access to spell checking. At this rate, I do think I can get her there by middle school (not something I would have been confident enough to say even 1 year ago.) By the way, my daughter is 10 1/2, so almost exactly your DD's age.

[Faithr]

 

This sounded interesting, but the reviews both official and customer comments on Amazon are panning it. You do find it a good book?

 

 

They did pan it, didn't they? I think maybe they thought it should be sort of a textbook as opposed to someone just relating what they found interesting about how English developed? But I will say that since I've been doing this teaching-dyslexics-to-read a while and have studied spelling patterns/rules via the various curricula we've tried plus I have read books like Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue, etc I am pretty comfortable with the subject matter. Also, we didn't read the book in one sitting but read parts of it over and over again, just casually over months. It just sat on our coffee table to peruse and refer to. So I guess I just didn't use it in the same way and so found it very satisfying for our needs and interests.

[ElizabethB]

By 11, I would focus on the most common 1,000 words.

 

Spelling Plus with Spelling Dictation.

 

http://www.susancanthony.com/books/sp.html

 

Spelling is the usually the hardest part of the equation, I recommend this resource to many of my older remedial students. If they are young enough or older with a very good visual memory, other programs can work.

[Hedgehog]

We've had quite a bit of success using Sound Foundations spelling and phonics books - Apples and Pears, and Fast Track AB.