Anyone Not Teach Spelling?

[urthmama]

I am curious to hear if anyone with older children decided NOT to do formal spelling instruction and how that worked out for your family?

 

Here is my situation:

I have three children (ages 7, 5, and 2) - and am pregnant with my 4th.  

 

DD7 is an excellent reader, and advanced in math - we study all the major subjects together - but she does NOT want to do spelling or do any workbooks ever.  Can I just assume that because she LOVES to read (and reads voraciously) - that she will eventually become a strong speller?  Right now her reading is light years ahead of her spelling/handwriting.

 

DD5 is an excellent reader and also advanced in math, piano, etc. - She is VERY kinesthetic and has a hard time sitting still.  Even so, she is academically ahead of where DD7 was at this age - and so I don't do a ton of formal learning with her at this point.  We do Life of Fred for math with her - but mostly, we just learn through reading - and she reads a ton (even at this age).

 

DD2 is very active and giving me quite the run for my money - of all the kids I'd love to put in public school - this is the one I'd send right now!!!! (just a function of her age- haha). ;-)

 

 

So - do you think I need to do spelling?  Can I wait a few years?  I am feeling guilty about it...

[EKS]

I stopped doing spelling with my younger son when he was in third grade. He was a great speller and it seemed to be a waste of time. He's still pretty good at it. I'm not worried.

 

With my older son who has dyslexia I waited until he was reading well until we did spelling, which for him was in fourth grade. He spells reasonably well for a dyslexic now (he's 18).

[Hunter]

Some students do become great spellers from just reading. Some students never learn to spell well even though they spend 2 hours a day using expensive spelling curricula. No matter what you use, or do not use, natural spellers will improve exponentially compared to struggling spellers.

 

I do not believe it's negligent to skip spelling.

 

Phonics is one of my hobbies. I have students with awful spelling. I keep plugging away at spelling. Spelling improves their reading and handwriting more than their spelling. Some students really just want me to spend time with them and to provide some focus and rhythm in their lives. I've learned to be less aggressive with those students and focus more on the interaction than what is getting mastered.

 

When you need to triage, spelling is a logical subject to drop. If you don't need to triage, then…a little spelling instructional is an expected part of childhood, so…I don't know; I recommend squeezing SOMETHING in.

[Ethel Mertz]

I sort of forgot to teach spelling. The subject totally slipped my mind. I finally remembered somewhere around 5th grade. We are now doing spelling. :eek:

[texasmama]

I gave up doing spelling with my boys in the 6th grade.  It was very freeing.  They can spell just fine.  With my rising 3rd grader, I use Spelling Workout, which is independent.  She doesn't love it, but that's okay.  She does it, and I don't have to be involved.  :)

[Jackie]

This may just depend on your kids. My husband and I both read voraciously from an early age. I'm a natural speller; my husband is a lousy speller.

 

But I don't see any harm in waiting until your children are a bit older and seeing what they need.

[Alice]

We dropped spelling, but my kids aren't truly old enough to tell you how it's worked for us yet. :) 

 

My oldest is similar to me. We are both voracious readers and horrible spellers. He hated spelling as a subject and I never found a curriculum that worked. He could memorize the words for the tests and do fine but then it didn't translate into better spelling in his writing, which seems to me to be the real goal. Spelling became this dreaded horrible thing every day. There were tears. And he cried too. :) So we stopped doing it formally somewhere towards the end of 3rd grade or 4th grade. 

 

I thought about what my goals for him were: that he could recognize misspelled words even if he had to look up the right spelling and that he could spell reasonably well in his writings. So I started just circling all misspelled words in anything he wrote and he had to look them up and correct them. Sometimes I will say "there is a misspelled word in the first sentence" and make him find it, so he can learn to self-correct. I've seen his spelling improve slowly. And it seems like it's improving as much this way as it did with any curriculum. 

 

My middle son is a a pretty good speller but also hated the drudgery of a spelling curriculum. So we've also stopped doing anything formal and I'm following a similar approach. 

[Myeightkiddies]

I only do spelling the first couple of years, and it isn't a curriculum.  I typically create word family lists, which are often from reading assignments.  After that I just go over words that they miss in their writing.  Plus they keep notebooks of their own commonly misspelled words.  The end result has been wonderful.  They all are great at spelling and kill at Scrabble.

[mamajag]

Here's what I do with my two, who are voracious readers and not into spelling. Every week I give them a pretest on Monday. They only have to do spelling work on the words they get wrong. That way I am not boring them to tears with busywork on words they already know. That's our compromise.

[urthmama]

Alright, you guys are making me feel better. :-)  

 

I think that once I am through this pregnancy (which has been a really difficult one) - I will have more energy to add spelling in some form.  

 

The way I rationalize it to myself is that if DD were in public school, she'd be starting second grade - and she can spell all the second grade word lists with zero problems - it's more advanced words that she misspells (like disciplined, or obedience, or peripheral) - so those are not words she would be spelling at her grade level now anyway.

 

DD5 is pretty much an autodidact - and for whatever reason, I am not so worried about her - or maybe it's just that at age 5, my academic expectations are pretty low for her and she always exceeds them...

 

but it's good to know that I have time to think about spelling - this upcoming school year is my second year full-time homeschooling , and it's all still seeming a little overwhelming, to be honest! :-)

[Mama Geek]

My dh has a master's degree in a STEM field and isn't a good speller.  He said the thing that helped the most was spell check on the computer.  it underlines the words that are spelled wrong as he is writing and he has learned from that.  That doesn't always help when a word is spelled a couple of different ways, but it has made a difference for him.  Not being a good speller did't stop him from getting 2 degrees and a good job.

[Hunter]

My dh has a master's degree in a STEM field and isn't a good speller.  He said the thing that helped the most was spell check on the computer.  it underlines the words that are spelled wrong as he is writing and he has learned from that.  That doesn't always help when a word is spelled a couple of different ways, but it has made a difference for him.  Not being a good speller did't stop him from getting 2 degrees and a good job.

 

Using spellcheck improved my 2E kid's spelling more than any explicit teaching and games I had used previously.

[Crimson Wife]

My oldest is a "natural" speller. I only did formal spelling with her because she specifically asked to in 3rd grade. A generous veteran HSer with older kids gave me her copy of Spelling Power and my DD placed into Level G. I did back up and do a few selected lists from Levels E & F but DD finished the whole SP program within a year. She then moved on to spelling bee prep using Hexco Academic materials.

[littlebug42]

I don't do it.  My girls are decent spellers on their own.  They also read voraciously and all of the LA components like grammar, spelling etc come very quickly and easily for them.  As they learn harder vocabulary words, etc, they learn how to spell them and we go on. 

[madteaparty]

I started homeschooling in 4th grade and have not taught spelling aside from our "integrated" language arts which does not do much about it at all.

[AimeeM]

I wouldn't bank on just because a child is a good reader, they will naturally be a great speller. My husband is a great reader, but language arts as a whole isn't his "thing"; my daughter reads very well (despite learning differences) and is NOT a good speller (at all).

[KSinNS]

My oldest spells better than I do (perfect visual memory-a gift of autism). So no spelling for him. My daughter spells atrociously, so we will be working on spelling this year and likely until she can type well. To be honest, I became a much better speller after the invention of spell check. Oh, but the most useful thing I learned in school was all the homonyms/homophones. Even my oldest does those.

[wintermom]

I wouldn't bank on just because a child is a good reader, they will naturally be a great speller. My husband is a great reader, but language arts as a whole isn't his "thing"; my daughter reads very well (despite learning differences) and is NOT a good speller (at all).

 

I agree. The point people are making is that you can't bank on a spelling program improving a person's spelling either. So where does a teacher spend their precious time - teaching reading or teaching spelling or doing something else? There isn't time in the day, nor energy and interest, to do "everything." Over the years, choices have to be made, and they're usually made on what seems to work and what doesn't, or what is going to be really useful for this child and what isn't.

 

[Ivey]

I only teach spelling to my dyslexic son, using Sequential Spelling. My other kids are "natural spellers" and have shown this by the time I would have started spelling instruction with them (~3rd grade). 

[NancyNellen]

I have never done formal spelling with any of my kids. Phonics instruction is a priority in the younger years (we complete every single page of Phonics Pathways!), as is copywork and dictation. All five of mine are very good spellers and a program has never been necessary.