Should I start all about spelling?

[Momof2littles]

My daughter is almost 6. She can blend sounds and break them apart. She knows all of the basic phonemes. She CAN read but starts guessing when she doesn't want to read. She just stops attending to the middle of the word.

 

We are using the reading lesson, and she was about to start lesson 18 (out of 20). She just wouldn't stop guessing all the time so I went back to lesson 14 to do some review on easier material.

 

I'm wondering if I should start all about spelling with her. Will the spelling instruction force her to look at the middle of the words? What do you think? Or should I continue along with the reading lesson.

 

I don't think she has any issues with reading, rather she is just distracted and gives up when she has to pay attention to the whole word.

[mom@shiloh]

I wouldn't start AAS with her yet. Kids often hit plateaus in their progress. It doesn't necessarily mean that she needs extra help with her spelling at this point. I've noticed that sometimes when my kids are going through a growth spurt, they seem to go into a brain fog and then will suddenly make great leaps ahead educationally. It's one of the beauties of homeschooling that we can roll with them.

 

AAS is one of those programs that I would use only for a child who struggles with spelling. If a child turns out to be a natural speller, there are other ways I'd prefer to spend our time! At barely 6 I think it's too soon to tell with her. I'd suggest you continue with just the reading instruction for another year and then evaluate again.

[mlgbug]

im using it alongside OPGTR with my 5.5 year old. we are at lesson 42 in OPGTR and hes doing great with the 2

[KristenR]

My daughter seems to pick up spelling easily. I don't know if it's because she would have been a 'natural speller' anyway or if it is due in part to the combination of AAS, OPGTR, and ETC. I started her on AAS when she was in the middle of OPGTR. It has been a perfect fit for us.

[Jess4879]

Does she word guess every time, or is it usually towards the end of a lesson? It could be a sign that the lessons are too long for her right now or maybe done at a time of the day that she isn't at her "prime." My DD6 will shut down like that and start making mistakes that she wouldn't normally make. Sometimes she can read for ages and another time she is 5 minutes in and she's done. We try to break her reading apart into three different sessions during the day, but we do all the new stuff in the morning because that is when she's most alert and responsive.

[Momof2littles]

Does she word guess every time, or is it usually towards the end of a lesson? It could be a sign that the lessons are too long for her right now or maybe done at a time of the day that she isn't at her "prime." My DD6 will shut down like that and start making mistakes that she wouldn't normally make. Sometimes she can read for ages and another time she is 5 minutes in and she's done. We try to break her reading apart into three different sessions during the day, but we do all the new stuff in the morning because that is when she's most alert and responsive.

 

This might be it. She is very easily distracted!

 

She does not guess every time, but definitely toward the end of a lesson.

 

She could do math for 30 minutes. Our reading times are short, like 10 minutes and she gets distracted so easily. I picked up bob books from the library today. I'm going to try those for a while...maybe try aas and see how it goes.

[MerryAtHope]

Normally you would start AAS after a child has been through AAR 1 or the equivalent. However, in a case where you are trying to get her to pay attention to all of the parts of a word and you aren't using AAR, I think AAS 1 would be helpful. She might find that the kinesthetic and visual activities with the tiles hold her attention--she'd be actually "doing" something with the word rather than just reading it.

 

AAR 1 has more specific reading activities built in, but if you don't want to switch reading programs, I think you could use and adapt AAS to help her. The beginning steps in AAS review segmenting and listening to the sounds in a word (first, last, and middle), and you could expand on that.

 

One activity that's helpful is to build a word with the tiles, have her point to each sound, and then blend the word. You can easily see letters that work together to make one sound because they are on one tile.

 

Another helpful activity is to build a word and then switch out one of the tiles (first, middle, or last, whatever you want to focus on). Ask her how the word changes when you change a letter. Sometimes changing a letter makes a nonsense word, and that's ok--laugh and have fun with it.

 

HTH some! Merry :-)

[skeeterbug]

I've so far only done AAS with one child, so I don't have much experience. But we didn't start until he was reading well and I'm so glad we waited. It made it easy to teach, he moved through the first level quickly so it was a confidence boost for him. He likes spelling, it isn't a chore. I don't plan to start my others until they can read at least CVC words easily. I agree with Merry to play with some letter tiles or magnetic letters if you haven't been doing that already.

[Momof2littles]

I've so far only done AAS with one child, so I don't have much experience. But we didn't start until he was reading well and I'm so glad we waited. It made it easy to teach, he moved through the first level quickly so it was a confidence boost for him. He likes spelling, it isn't a chore. I don't plan to start my others until they can read at least CVC words easily. I agree with Merry to play with some letter tiles or magnetic letters if you haven't been doing that already.

Normally you would start AAS after a child has been through AAR 1 or the equivalent. However, in a case where you are trying to get her to pay attention to all of the parts of a word and you aren't using AAR, I think AAS 1 would be helpful. She might find that the kinesthetic and visual activities with the tiles hold her attention--she'd be actually "doing" something with the word rather than just reading it. AAR 1 has more specific reading activities built in, but if you don't want to switch reading programs, I think you could use and adapt AAS to help her. The beginning steps in AAS review segmenting and listening to the sounds in a word (first, last, and middle), and you could expand on that. One activity that's helpful is to build a word with the tiles, have her point to each sound, and then blend the word. You can easily see letters that work together to make one sound because they are on one tile. Another helpful activity is to build a word and then switch out one of the tiles (first, middle, or last, whatever you want to focus on). Ask her how the word changes when you change a letter. Sometimes changing a letter makes a nonsense word, and that's ok--laugh and have fun with it. HTH some! Merry :-)

 

Thanks for the advice. We started today and it's fun so far. She knew all but four of the phonograms i, y, ch, and th (and she just didnt know all the sounds for those phonograms). She was very determined to learn those four so she could get a sticker on every phonogram. I told her she could sleep on it and she'd know them all tomorrow. She is very good at memorizing things quickly. She can easily decode most words (even two syllable words) if I really put her to the fire and push her, but she gives up easily.

 

I think this will definitely help her. After seeing which phonograms she needed to work on, we practiced reading. She gets stuck on vowel sounds and then gives up when she doesnt guess the word. So I took some time and said, "You know that a makes three sounds. Let's try the three sounds that a makes in this word and see which one sounds right." It worked pretty well.

 

The really embarrassing thing is that I have course work in reading specialist for my master's degree. I am a certified public elementary school teacher and have taught ELA and specifically struggling (older students) readers!! And I am so rusty since I haven't worked with kids in so long (except my own who are so young).

 

It's like I can't remember the strategies I used to use when I taught 1st grade (which was waaaay back in 2003)! And working one on one with a kindergartener is so different than working with four or five 3rd graders in a small group!

 

I do like the reading lesson, but it's not something that I will use again for my son. I really like what I see with AAR, but I didnt know about it when my dd started kindergarten. I would have bought it but I cannot afford to switch now.