Jackie Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 I asked my 7yo what she wanted to cover next in English and her emphatic answer was spelling. She loves spelling. However, she is a natural speller. She maxed out that section on the Woodcock Johnson; she only misspells anything when she is so focused on content that nothing else rates. We have Sequential Spelling for Adults, but she never makes a mistake with it and I don’t think she’s learning anything from it. We tried AAS when she was younger and requested spelling lessons the first time, but that was painfully slow and there were so many exceptions to the rules that she found it endlessly frustrating. She doesn’t have much interest in the “memorize a spelling list and then test on it†method. She has no interest in learning a dead language (and she’s already studying two living languages). She’s done Caesar’s English 1, and I’d prefer to wait on CE2 until she is ready for the level of writing in MCT Voyage so we can do the whole level. Our county’s Scripps spelling bee is only open to 6th-8th graders. Is there something left for me to do with her regarding spelling? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 (edited) How about spelling in a foreign language? Edited March 2, 2018 by maize 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4KookieKids Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 I was older when I did this (middle school, but I didn't have the opportunity to go at my own pace and homeschool, so I think that level might still match up with your daughter's capabilities), but I really LOVED doing the "learn a list of words" spelling way when it was ALSO part of a vocabulary program and the words were words that I didn't actually know well already. I wasn't a huge fan of spelling otherwise (seemed boring), but I loved learning new & "fancy" words actually. So we went through a GRE vocab book, and I just loved learning spelling and definitions for words like loquacious, alacrity, iconoclastic, approbation, delineate, opprobrium, etc. Because it was in a B&M school, where points actually matter, you got extra points when you could find the words in an actual book as well, and that was super fun for me because I'd start finding my words in books that I'd already read before but just somehow never noticed these words were in there. Is that maybe something she'd like? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domestic_engineer Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 Just brainstorming here .... Read casually or strew the book "ABC's and all their tricks". MCT has this book - but I've never seen in IRL; I don't know if it'd be helpful. Create her own language? Cryptoquips - so she's thinking about patterns of words while solving the code. I guess crossword puzzles would be similar. Oh! What about creating her own crossword puzzles? using the Scripps list? A vocabulary workbook that turns into a spelling "list" ... like wordy wise or something in that genre. What do you think motivated her to want to learn spelling? or what aspect of spelling does she like? Is it seeing the patterns? Is it high-sucess-with-little-effort? I guess I'm wondering what itch she wants to scratch by learning spelling. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 My kids are different-type spellers. On top of learning basic syllable rules and reading widely in the early years, we do explicit spelling. One child had success with a rules-based Spelling program, the other with a meaning-based Spelling program, and I use the Meriam-Webster Vocabulary builder from this set, with both of them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah0000 Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 Is this mostly just for fun? Maybe make spelling lists each month from interesting categories such as Old English, medical terminology, American slang, foreign landmarks, world leaders, country names, archaic phrases, the word hello in foreign languages, hominid specie names, etc. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackie Posted March 3, 2018 Author Share Posted March 3, 2018 She can’t really tell me why, and I have truly no idea. Spelling and more poetry teas are her two consistent requests in English. I read all the suggestions in the thread to her and the two she lit up about are learning to spell in a foreign language and using a vocabulary book (probably SAT level for now) as a vocabulary/spelling program, so that gives me some direction. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chocolate-chip chooky Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 This book is great: Webster's Word Power Essential Student Companion https://www.bookdepository.com/Websters-Word-Power-Essential-Students-Companion-Betty-Kirkpatrick/9781842057650 My daughter is also a natural speller and hasn't ever needed any explicit spelling program. But I still want to extend her somehow and she genuinely enjoys spelling and vocab. There are stacks of different categories of words, so it can be a spelling and vocabulary tool. It also covers grammar. Commonly misspelled words, commonly confused words, words we borrow from other languages, words related to a range of fields (medical, business, art etc), lists of phobias, occupations, idioms, countries/capitals and on and on. I like the look of the one that Gil linked - the vocabulary builder. I'm off to look more into that one for us. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 If she's already a very successful speller could you do something on etymology? I think Ellen McHenry has a unit on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 (edited) The Spelling Bee website has a nice list of hard words from different foreign languages. http://myspellit.com You could also do the language worksheet activities from my Syllables Program, they compare sound spelling patterns of different languages and have some different activities to do with them. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html The applicable rules are taught in lessons 7 to 9, you can watch just those videos or teach from the transcript. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/Resources/SyllablesSpellSuccessTranscript.pdf Edited March 9, 2018 by ElizabethB 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domesticidyll Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 Another vote for when McHenry's excavating English. Old exam questions from the linguistics Olympiad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackie Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 Another vote for when McHenry's excavating English. Old exam questions from the linguistics Olympiad. There’s a Linguistics Olympiad!?! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deerforest Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 What about learning how to finger spell? Might lead to an interest in ASL. https://www.signlanguageforum.com/asl/fingerspelling/alphabet/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizbusby Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 Oh man, the Linguistic Olympiad sample problems look fun: http://www.ioling.org/problems/samples/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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