Can I drop spelling at 8 yo?

[Five More Minutes]

If dd7 keeps on her current trajectory, she'll be done AAS 7 in a few months. She enjoys spelling as a subject, but I can't say I've really taught her anything with it, as she is a natural speller.

 

So should I just eliminate spelling from our day next year? Is there something I could / should replace it with because she enjoys the subject?

[dbmamaz]

Bravewriter says most kids can master spelling from copywork and from having their writing corrected. not my youngest - he is as bad as spelling as I am. but if your daughter is doing fine . . .no need to waste time on it. use that time for learning something new. jmo

[stripe]

My son is a pretty good speller, and my use of Reading Reflex gave my kids a leg up, as it basically teaches reading through spelling. I think a similar advantage is conferred by Writing Road to Reading. Anyway, I am using How to Teach Spelling and associated workbooks. I realized things like syllabication shows up on standardized tests so it would be good to briefly cover it so they knew about it. I think it's pretty painless. But I never enjoyed lists of random, unrelated words at school, so I never did that.

[musicianmom]

iI dropped spelling for dd7, unless you count dictation from WWE. If she asks how to spell something, I make her close her eyes and try to visualize the word first, which often is enough for her to be able to spell it. She's a voracious reader and a natural speller.

[StartingOver]

We will drop spelling after AAS level 7, and just move to correcting written work. With narration, copywork, and writing we will have tons of practice.

[Five More Minutes]

I dropped it with my 7 and 11 year olds. I should have dropped it with the 11 year old years ago.

 

If she loves spelling you could try using the lists from the Scripts spelling bee website. Maybe she would like preparing for spelling bees?

 

Ooooh, good idea! I'll look into those lists!

 

Anyway, I am using How to Teach Spelling and associated workbooks. I realized things like syllabication shows up on standardized tests so it would be good to briefly cover it so they knew about it. I think it's pretty painless. But I never enjoyed lists of random, unrelated words at school, so I never did that.

 

Good point about spelling including things like syllabication. Hmmm ... maybe I'll review that from time to time with here, as AAS has done a pretty good job of that so far.

 

Thanks everyone!

[MeghanL]

I just dropped spelling for my oldest! We do end-of-year-testing in March (b/c it's so much cheaper!) and according to the WJII he would find spelling difficult when he got to graduate school and was testing freshman in college. So, we said "bye-bye spelling!"

I think that's one of the hardest parts of accelerated learners: realizing that they are so capable of retaining and applying information that we have very little idea as to where they get it and letting go of our curriculum and letting them continue to pick it up and retain.

[mathwonk]

One possibility is combining spelling with vocabulary, and continuing it for quite a while, well past age 11. I.e. if children can spell all the words they already use, then spelling lesson is a chance to learn new ones. Knowing a lot of vocabulary words definitely raises scores on the verbal SAT, which can itself make a big difference in having a wide choice of colleges.

 

I often misspell "surprise". Can the child spell hemorrhage? chartreuse? amanuensis? daguerreotype? minuscule? parallel? embarrass? pneumonia? psychology? numismatist? specious? tagliatelle? monsieur? signor? asphyxiate? phlegm? isosceles? (I do not guarantee these are correct!) If so, then the scripps book will certainly raise his/her level still further. Or maybe spelling could be simply a matter of writing down new words encountered in reading, and learning them.

 

I.e. a child who is not encountering words she cannot spell, may have a limited range of reading. Does the child enjoy the science articles in the NY Times? Surely some new words will crop up there. Probably Shakespeare [this is itself a spelling of his name that the noted author himself did not use!] will introduce a new word, or new usage, now and then, in works like Romeo and Juliet or Julius Caesar. (Caesar is also a good spelling word, as is Caesarean [which apparently has two or more alternative spellings].)

 

So I may misunderstand the question, but it seems appropriate to just keep on learning new words, their meanings and spellings. Waiting until graduate school to learn new words is problematic, since the fun may be gone by then and the available time may be too short. Just a suggestion.

[lewelma]

Ah, consider yourself so very lucky. My children are on the same path as my father. He carried a spelling list in his back pocket and worked on his spelling until the age of 35! This is a man with an MD and a PhD.

[briansmama]

Absolutely- if she's a natural speller there's no need to continue with spelling as a separate subject.

[mathnerd]

One possibility is combining spelling with vocabulary, and continuing it for quite a while, well past age 11. I.e. if children can spell all the words they already use, then spelling lesson is a chance to learn new ones. Knowing a lot of vocabulary words definitely raises scores on the verbal SAT, which can itself make a big difference in having a wide choice of colleges.

 

I often misspell "surprise". Can the child spell hemorrhage? chartreuse? amanuensis? daguerreotype? minuscule? parallel? embarrass? pneumonia? psychology? numismatist? specious? tagliatelle? monsieur? signor? asphyxiate? phlegm? isosceles? (I do not guarantee these are correct!) If so, then the scripps book will certainly raise his/her level still further. Or maybe spelling could be simply a matter of writing down new words encountered in reading, and learning them.

 

I.e. a child who is not encountering words she cannot spell, may have a limited range of reading. Does the child enjoy the science articles in the NY Times? Surely some new words will crop up there. Probably Shakespeare [this is itself a spelling of his name that the noted author himself did not use!] will introduce a new word, or new usage, now and then, in works like Romeo and Juliet or Julius Caesar. (Caesar is also a good spelling word, as is Caesarean [which apparently has two or more alternative spellings].)

 

So I may misunderstand the question, but it seems appropriate to just keep on learning new words, their meanings and spellings. Waiting until graduate school to learn new words is problematic, since the fun may be gone by then and the available time may be too short. Just a suggestion.

 

I plan to do exactly this! I view Spelling as different from Vocabulary building. So, you could incorporate new ways to introduce vocabulary into your daily curriculum when you finish with your current spelling curriculum.

[Five More Minutes]

One possibility is combining spelling with vocabulary, and continuing it for quite a while, well past age 11. I.e. if children can spell all the words they already use, then spelling lesson is a chance to learn new ones. Knowing a lot of vocabulary words definitely raises scores on the verbal SAT, which can itself make a big difference in having a wide choice of colleges.

 

I often misspell "surprise". Can the child spell hemorrhage? chartreuse? amanuensis? daguerreotype? minuscule? parallel? embarrass? pneumonia? psychology? numismatist? specious? tagliatelle? monsieur? signor? asphyxiate? phlegm? isosceles? (I do not guarantee these are correct!) If so, then the scripps book will certainly raise his/her level still further. Or maybe spelling could be simply a matter of writing down new words encountered in reading, and learning them.

 

I.e. a child who is not encountering words she cannot spell, may have a limited range of reading. Does the child enjoy the science articles in the NY Times? Surely some new words will crop up there. Probably Shakespeare [this is itself a spelling of his name that the noted author himself did not use!] will introduce a new word, or new usage, now and then, in works like Romeo and Juliet or Julius Caesar. (Caesar is also a good spelling word, as is Caesarean [which apparently has two or more alternative spellings].)

 

So I may misunderstand the question, but it seems appropriate to just keep on learning new words, their meanings and spellings. Waiting until graduate school to learn new words is problematic, since the fun may be gone by then and the available time may be too short. Just a suggestion.

 

 

Thank you so much for this. You've given me a lot to think about (including getting some more science reading around here!).

[2smartones]

We haven't dropped spelling (even though that's by far my oldest son's best subject), but we don't take a traditional approach. We study roots, foreign words, bee lists, etc., and anytime we're doing a writing assigment, I'll throw in alternative words to build both vocabulary & spelling. Also, when *I* am doing something (totally unrelated to school) and come across a tricky word, I'll say, "hey, can you spell _____?" Usually, it's right, but sometimes it's wrong, so I'll correct them on that word.

[Dmmetler]

We do spelling bee prep and vocab. DD likes words and wants to go to the National Spelling Bee eventually (our homeschool preliminary doesn't let kids move on to regionals until 6th grade, so she's stacked up wins in the lower grade bees).

[2smartones]

Wow. I'm so glad ours doesn't have a 6th grade requirement! :( That's awful! I think about the 6 year old who made it to nationals last year, and I wonder how many other kids out there could've/should've been there with her.

[Grover]

Mr 6 is finishing off AAS at the moment. I've started noting words he gets wrong in his day to day work and working on those - I think we'll follow that path for a while, combining it with vocab.

[mathwonk]

I often am confused as to how many consonants belong in a word, like accommodate (2 m's? 2c's?), and learned recently that in Italian

 

there is a clue in the pronunciation! I.e. an Italian can hear both c's but only one t (before the o) in a word like staccato.

 

E.g. (the proper name) Luca and (the town) Lucca sound distinctly different to an Italian.

 

When I tried to incorporate this into my pronunciation of Lucca, my host laughed and said, "now you are saying

 

Luccca!" (3 c's).

[amsunshine]

We do spelling bee prep and vocab. DD likes words and wants to go to the National Spelling Bee eventually (our homeschool preliminary doesn't let kids move on to regionals until 6th grade, so she's stacked up wins in the lower grade bees).

 

Ours doesn't let kids move on until 7th grade! So, my dds are in the same boat as yours, but have to wait longer. Oh well.