spelling woes

[MeganW]

I have a child who never, ever wants to put down a book.  She reads significantly above level, and reads nonstop.  She was taught to read phonetically.  And yet, somehow, she is the world's worst speller.  She will 13 years old in a few weeks, and is resistant to working on spelling with me.  What do I do???  Is there an age-appropriate, independent spelling resource out there?  

[cintinative]

You could try Phonetic Zoo (IEW). It's auditory, very independent, and phonics based.  I'm linking the placement test here: https://iew.com/spellplacetest

IEW has a 100% money back, no time limit guarantee on everything they sell. 

I'm curious to see what others suggest. We have always used AAS but that isn't independent.  

[Tanaqui]

I doubt she is the world's worst speller. My younger kiddo almost certainly has her beat! And yet, like yours, she enjoys reading.

In her case, this can be chalked up to dyslexia. When we first started homeschooling, four years ago, she was in the fourth grade and spelled like a first grader who can't spell. And now she's in the seventh grade and spells like a seventh grader who can't spell, and that's a tremendous improvement, and I chalk it up to taking the leap and going with Apples and Pears Spelling. Don't ask me how it works, but it does, and the results lasted even through last year, which was an utter disaster for other reasons.

(We'd tried remediating spelling while she was in school. No luck.)

It's a cheap enough curriculum, and they let you see the entire curriculum up front on their website before you buy it, so I say there's no harm in doing a placement test and trying it out for a little bit, see if it works for you.

It's not an independent curriculum, but it's fast - we spend only about ten or twenty minutes a day on it. And I wouldn't use an independent curriculum for a subject my kid was behind in, certainly not a core subject like spelling.

[Peaceseeker]

Sequential Spelling worked great to remediate my poor speller. It is designed for dsylexics and not the least babyish.  There is a CD Rom version if you need it be completely hands off.  

[MinivanMom]

Sequential Spelling was what finally made a difference with my ds (phonetically taught & a voracious reader - but completely incapable of spelling anything correctly). The continuous repetition of similar patterns was the only thing that finally helped it to stick in his brain. 

[Clemsondana]

Maybe Spelling Works by Halverson?  It's not a comprehensive program - it teaches a rule, and the exceptions, in each chapter and reinforces with editing exercises, a puzzle, etc.  It's aimed at middle schoolers.  It does cover some generally applicable rules-  when to double a letter and why, ei vs ie, etc - if you do those things correctly, you can do most everyday spelling.    

[MeganW]

Lots of good places to start investigating - thanks!!

[mytwomonkeys]

My daughter spelled poorly when she was younger. We used several things, but what seemed to work best for her was dictation. Using the words in the context of sentences really helped her a lot. I used Spelling Plus & the dictation book, but I’m sure there are other options. I liked this curriculum because it focused on the 1,000 most misspelled words & they were constantly reviewed. We did 3 sentences a day. Ones that she did correctly, I would put a check by with the date. Ones that she spelled incorrectly were just moved to the next day.  When those were mastered, I’d put the check mark and date. We just kept a spiral notebook  for her daily work. 

Anyway, I’ll link it below. I’m sure you could find them cheap at ebay.

 

https://www.christianbook.com/spelling-plus-1000-words-toward-success/susan-anthony/9781879478206/pd/478207?event=CPOF

 

https://www.christianbook.com/dictation-resource-book-susan-anthony/9781879478213/pd/478216?event=CPOF

The author has additional free resources at her website too:

http://www.susancanthony.com/res/dictlit/-dictlit.html

ETA- and for what it’s worth, my daughter will be 17 and spells fine now so I’m sure your child will too. I think my dd spells mainly from memory, but she figured it out :-)

[RootAnn]

I tried so many of the options mentioned in this thread. I have kids who have low visual memory skills, so spelling correctly is very tough for them because they don't recognize when they see a misspelled word because it doesn't look wrong to them.

Whatever you try, just remember not to freak out when it doesn't work. Don't give up. And, they will eventually be able to mostly spell words correctly. (Mine seem to need 10,000 exposures or more, which comes between 12-15 depending on how much they read and work on spelling.) In fact, the olders now giggle at the same misspellings of younger siblings that they used to make. I rejoice that they can now "see" a word is not spelled correctly. Good luck.

[Kuovonne]

It’s not independent, but I found a way of working on spelling with my DD that reduces both our head butting and my stress. It sounds like your DD struggles with spelling more than my DD, but maybe some of my techniques will help you.

Every day for spelling DD writes 40 words. As she writes the words, I keep a running total in the margin and when she hits 40 words, she is done. The 40 words are a combination of review words, practicing misspelled words, and new words. Most of the words are review words that she can spell. I use the spaced repetition software Anki to keep track of review words and when she needs to see a word again. If she has trouble with a review word, I explain the spelling to her on the spot, and she immediately practices it three to five times. Including these practices in the total word count for the day greatly reduced DD’s resistance to practicing misspelled words. If she get through all the words in Anki before getting to 40 words, I teach her new words. I use All About Spelling for my word list, but I don’t do the All About Spelling lesson. I just teach however many words I can before hitting the 40 word limit. Most days that is zero new words, some days it is two new words, and on the rare occassion it is ten new words. The entire process takes about 10-15 minutes per day with no prep work.

DD doesn’t fight me on this method because (1) we have a routine, (2) she knows that she is done in 40 words, and (3) she can spell most of the words. Spelling isn’t a slog learning or practicing words that she doesn’t know. Instead Anki puts the emphasis on reviewing words just before she forgets how to spell them. She also stresses less about getting a word wrong because she knows that misspelled words don’t mean extra work. In fact, sometimes she will voluntarily practice a word that she spelled correctly because she struggled with it. When DD was younger, she did fewer than 40 words, but as her handwriting skills have improved, I’ve upped the word count.

I like this method because (1) I don’t have to keep track of which words cause DD trouble, and (2) I don’t have to decide when a word is mastered. I just tell Anki “again,” “hard,” or “good” for each word after she writes it. I’ve watched DD misspell the same word every day for several days in a row, then alternate between spelling it correctly and incorrectly, to eventually spelling it correctly most days, to misspelling it again couple of month later and starting all over again. This process has happened with multiple words and trying to keep track of the words without software would be impossible. Instead, I just trust the system, and over the years it has worked for DD.

[PeterPan]

On April 12, 2018 at 9:33 PM, MeganW said:

I have a child who never, ever wants to put down a book.  She reads significantly above level, and reads nonstop.  She was taught to read phonetically.  And yet, somehow, she is the world's worst speller.  She will 13 years old in a few weeks, and is resistant to working on spelling with me.  What do I do???  Is there an age-appropriate, independent spelling resource out there?  

My dd was like that, and it turned out when we had her eyes checked by a developmental optometrist that she had convergence issues and very poor visual memory. We did VT (vision therapy), ran through AAS1-6 (we had done SWR all our other years), and called it good. Well actually we also did some metronome work and added in digit spans to build working memory. And of course we got her evaled finally and got the ADHD diagnosed. Lots of kids with ADHD are crunchy.

So you really can't go wrong with a vision eval by a developmental optometrist, just to make sure everything is good to go and that it's not because of visual memory. Then what's left you could do a psych eval for. I thought for sure she was dyslexic and the psych ran the CTOPP, just to be sure. She wasn't. Just that terrible visual memory glitched her. 

She went on to almost perfect scores on sections of the ACT and is now happy in college. Spell check on her laptop will be her friend. It may turn out better than you fear. :D

[Minerva]

I recommend Touch Type Read and Spell. It is a typing program for dyslexics. So while you are typing you are learning spelling patterns. For my dyslexic dd it is the only thing that has worked to improve her spelling, and the bonus is that she can type well too.

 

[MeganW]

20 hours ago, PeterPan said:

My dd was like that, and it turned out when we had her eyes checked by a developmental optometrist that she had convergence issues and very poor visual memory. We did VT (vision therapy), ran through AAS1-6 (we had done SWR all our other years), and called it good. Well actually we also did some metronome work and added in digit spans to build working memory. And of course we got her evaled finally and got the ADHD diagnosed. Lots of kids with ADHD are crunchy.

So you really can't go wrong with a vision eval by a developmental optometrist, just to make sure everything is good to go and that it's not because of visual memory. Then what's left you could do a psych eval for. I thought for sure she was dyslexic and the psych ran the CTOPP, just to be sure. She wasn't. Just that terrible visual memory glitched her. 

She went on to almost perfect scores on sections of the ACT and is now happy in college. Spell check on her laptop will be her friend. It may turn out better than you fear. :D

Interesting that you should mention that.  This kid was a preemie and had vision issues, and has been through VT with a developmental optometrist.  Maybe I need to get a recheck there.  She has also had full evals from an educational psych, but there wasn't anything really significant on the language arts side.  (Math is another story!)  It's been probably 4 years since we have checked any of that though.  

[Targhee]

Another suggestion for Sequential Spelling for that age.  We used the DVD version so it was totally independent.