Spelling Woes

[Fawnmoscato]

Hi all, 

I need some spelling advice for my 8 1/2 year old. Her spelling ability is really holding her back. She is an avid reader, wonderful at grammar and sentence structure...but she can't spell a darned thing. We use All About Spelling and she does pass every lesson. Her struggle is any time she has to spell out side of the lesson. She competes in competitions several times a year, and writing is a big part of those. 

 

I've never been a fan of memorizing sight words or spelling words, but at this point would that be the best thing? 

[forty-two]

What level of AAS? And are the words she's missing in her writing ones she's learned in AAS, or ones that she hasn't learned yet?

 

And what kinds of mistakes is she making? Are they phonetically correct (every phonogram used is a legit spelling for that sound) but she's choosing the wrong phonogram when there are multiple possiblities? Or are they not phonetically correct?

 

I know one of the posters here, when her dd could spell during spelling but it didn't carry over to her writing, had success with doing lots of dictation - practicing the words in context, over and over.

[Fawnmoscato]

She is on level 3. An example of her spelling from a competition this week: pnk (pink), crle, (curly), orng (orange), and  beter (better). She has a real problem with common words such as those, but can spell more complicated things you wouldn't expect (failing to think of an example right now). 

 

 

[fourisenough]

She is on level 3. An example of her spelling from a competition this week: pnk (pink), crle, (curly), orng (orange), and beter (better). She has a real problem with common words such as those, but can spell more complicated things you wouldn't expect (failing to think of an example right now).

Oh man, this sounds just like DD7. Following to glean any wisdom shared by others.

[Ellie]

Hi all, 

I need some spelling advice for my 8 1/2 year old. Her spelling ability is really holding her back. She is an avid reader, wonderful at grammar and sentence structure...but she can't spell a darned thing. We use All About Spelling and she does pass every lesson. Her struggle is any time she has to spell out side of the lesson. She competes in competitions several times a year, and writing is a big part of those. 

 

I've never been a fan of memorizing sight words or spelling words, but at this point would that be the best thing? 

 

Spalding. When I taught Spalding in a small one-room,multi-grade school, all of the children improved by at least two grade levels by Christmas, and more than that by the end of the year.

 

One manual (Writing Road to Reading), one set of phonogram cards, one sewn composition book annually, and you have everything you need forever.

[forty-two]

She is on level 3. An example of her spelling from a competition this week: pnk (pink), crle, (curly), orng (orange), and beter (better). She has a real problem with common words such as those, but can spell more complicated things you wouldn't expect (failing to think of an example right now).

'pnk' is missing a vowel, like she forgot to put it in or something. Every syllable has a vowel is taught in AAS 2, lesson 4.

'crle' is more or less phonetically correct, but not using spellings you see in English. 'ur' is taught in AAS 3, lesson 7, and 'y' spelling /e/ at the end of words is AAS 3, lesson 8.

'orng' is sorta phonetically correct (that 'a' is barely said in some dialects - 'orange' can sound like a one-syllable word) and sorta visually correct (used a soft g instead of a 'j', but didn't put on the silent e that makes the g soft). Soft g was taught in AAS 2, lesson 8.

'beter' forgot to integrate syllable division rules with spelling; Dividing VCCV words into syllables is AAS 2, lesson 5, and open/closed syllables plus dividing VCV words is AAS 2, lesson 6.

 

So it does look like she's not yet fluent in incorporating what she's learning in spelling with writing under pressure (in competitions). How does she do in her day-to-day, unpressured writing? Just as bad as competition writing? Or somewhat better? Also, if you show her the words and ask her if she thinks they are right, does she? (My oldest is a *horrible* speller, and will slap down any old thing when she gets uncertain, but she knows it's not right; and most spelling mistakes she catches when I have her read it aloud to me.)

 

Doing sentence dictations - so writing in context - where you stop her when she starts getting a word wrong and help her think through the relevant rules - could be a big help. You could also add an individualized spelling list to your week - take words she's misspelled in her writing, make a list, and then go through them AAS-style, marking the phonograms and using the rules and such.

 

Fluency takes time, and fluency in a pressured situation, where it really needs to be automatic, because there's no time to focus on the spelling because there's too much else going on, is going to take the longest to develop.

[MerryAtHope]

I've never been a fan of memorizing sight words or spelling words, but at this point would that be the best thing? 

 

She is on level 3. An example of her spelling from a competition this week: pnk (pink), crle, (curly), orng (orange), and  beter (better). She has a real problem with common words such as those, but can spell more complicated things you wouldn't expect (failing to think of an example right now). 

 

I don't think sight words are what she needs--the errors you listed are not sight-word types of errors. There can be a couple of things going on:

 

She could simply be struggling to "write on demand" (testing types of situations--is there any kind of editing time?). She could be struggling with automaticity (if she had time and didn't have to focus on other aspects of writing, she might be able to spell those words correctly). This article on automaticity has more information. When kids are having to think about what information to include, how to organize it, what words to use, as well as all the mechanics of punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and spelling--it's not uncommon for the mechanics to suffer. I would work on this more during the non-competitive times, and will post some ideas below. 

 

She may also be struggling with remembering what she has been taught, and needs more review along the way. I don't know if you've read Marie's memory report, but I highly recommend downloading and checking that out. A lot of the ideas changed how I homeschooled my kids in many subject areas.

 

When I look at the words you listed, 3 of the 4 would definitely be covered by AAS 1-3. What I would do is to help her think through the words (approach this similarly to the word-analysis exercises in AAS). You want to get her thinking about all of the strategies that AAS is teaching-- phonetic, rules-based, visual, morphemic, etc...  

 

For example:

 

pnk (pink), "Can you think of a rule that applies?" (Every syllable needs at least one vowel. I notice that she actually struggled with this in 3 of the 4 words, and would definitely put the related key card back in daily review for her.)

 

crle, (curly), "Can you think of a rule that applies?" (Every syllable needs at least one vowel.) "Good! How do we spell the /ee/ sound at the end of a word?"

 

orng (orange), This word is tricky--she hasn't been taught it yet in AAS, and the A doesn't say a sound we'd expect. However, I'd ask her when G says /j/, and walk her through how to spell this one, showing her about that tricky A. 

 

beter (better), Walk through this with the letter tiles so she can easily see how it would traditionally divide and that we need that double T to protect the short vowel. 

 

When you say that she "passes" each step--are you continuing to review all of the new cards after that? They really should go in daily review for several days, until she can spell the word or answer the card quickly and easily. If she's having to think about how to spell a word or how to answer a card, keep it in daily review longer. I used to keep all of the cards in there until a Monday--I found if my kids could easily answer the card on a Monday, it was much more likely to be mastered for the long-term.

 

With spelling, there are layers of mastery that are progressively more difficult:

 

-Spelling in the context of the list with tiles is easiest–words all follow the same pattern

 

-Spelling the list in writing can challenge some students who have to work hard at handwriting.

 

-Spelling from word cards (shuffled to mix the patterns) is slightly harder, but students still only have to focus on spelling

 

-Spelling in dictation is another step harder–many words using differing patterns are used, and the student has to hold the sentence in memory, and also think about capitalization and punctuation.

 

-Writing Station exercises (introduced in Level 3) focus on words the student has learned, but ask the student to come up with original content, which requires additional skills to be used. These serve as a bridge between dictation and spelling in the context of outside writing.

 

-Outside writing–this is the hardest level for the student. It requires them to think about all writing skills at once-grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, usage rules, syntax, handwriting and neatness, paragraph rules–plus content, organization of their thoughts, getting answers correct or being creative, and so on.

 

“Word Analysis†is added starting in Level 3 to get children to think more about why words are spelled the way they are–to think about which techniques they need to use.  Does this word follow certain rules?  Is there more than one spelling choice that could work? Do I have to learn this one visually and use methods like scratch-paper spelling?  Do syllable rules or suffix rules apply?  and so on.

 

Use the dictations and Writing Station exercises to teach basic editing skills–how to look for errors and how to think through how to correct them. Even professional writers need proofreaders, so elementary students definitely need ongoing training in this area. 

 

To help my kids start to use some of these editing skills, I first worked on it through the dictations. When they made a mistake, I would say, “There’s one spelling error. Can you find it?†Praise if she can find it. Then see if she knows how to change it. If she’s not sure, give a question to prompt, such as, “Can you think of a rule that applies?†or “Sound out exactly what you wrote†(very useful if she has a wrong phonogram, too many sounds or a sound left out of the word) or, “Can you think of a word that might have another option for one of the phonograms?†Try to lead to the answer by getting her to think it through. However, if she starts to get frustrated, you can give more help and just model the process of thinking of the rule, sounding it out, or trying different phonograms.

 

Make sure to put any missed words back in daily review until they are truly mastered.

 

When we started the writing station activity, I would put a light pencil x next to each line that had a mistake, and would again see if my child could find them. Again, praise for any she finds. This is hard work for kids, and you really want to encourage her. Go through the same process I described above.

 

When she has the hang of editing in dictations and writing stations, then you can start to help her edit outside writing that needs to be polished (not all writing needs to be polished, and sometimes if the subject is science or history, I would choose to focus on content, knowing that spelling would eventually come along. Kids can get discouraged if you focus on everything at once–the goal of perfection seems unattainable.) I think if you work in more review and more reinforcement on encouraging her to think through what she knows so that she has to apply it, that you'll see her become more automatic in doing this. 

 

HTH some!

[Fawnmoscato]

Great advice everyone! Thank you! 

 

I do think some of it is pressure and time. She does better when she's writing at home, though not much. I can, and should, spend more time correcting spelling and talking about the rules as I think that would help. 

 

I'm going to spend some time incorporating the suggestions and see how it goes.