CAN spell, but doesn’t?

[4KookieKids]

I have two kids who can spell just fine when we do it together. We use Spalding and they really, really like it. Even my dyslexic kid who doesn’t read well yet loves to spell! 

Recently they've been having fun writing stories, mostly fantasy, and I love the content, but boy is their writing atrocious!! Spelling is AWFUL, punctuation nom-existent, oddly placed or missing capitols, words split in two lines along a non syllable break... My dyslexic is the worst and “princess” came out something like “pnris.” (She reads it back to me as princess later, of course.) Ds is not dyslexic and reads widely, and he was majorly misspelling super common words!!

I had been letting it slide and just letting them enjoy their fun, but I’m starting to get stressed out about it! Are they not learning anything?? Why would they write SO badly when this is a project they WANT to do and are actually able to do well??

Edited September 12, 2018 by 4KookieKids

[Lecka]

A lot of kids can spell properly during spelling lessons but aren’t yet generalizing to outside writing.

It’s not automatic yet.

When they are being creative they have many other things to think about and aren’t only focusing on spelling like they are in a lesson.  

[Lecka]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_load

My understanding is that working memory to focus on specific details is limited.  So, many parts of a task need to be automatic to do a task  easily.  Otherwise there’s not enough mental capacity to do everything.

So if spelling isn’t an automatic skill yet, then there’s not brain power left early from thinking of the story and writing it down, to also think about spellings.  

In a spelling lesson all the effort can go to thinking about spelling and writing it down.  There may tend to be sentences where other words are more known and there are just one or two new spelling words, too.  

Really it sounds like your kids are doing amazing!

[Lecka]

Also it depends on just how you do spelling, but in a spelling lesson probably the focus is on a small amount of spelling, a pattern or a few patterns.  

This is easier than when there could be words from every lesson that has been covered, all mixed together.  

[Jess4879]

I agree with others.  There is a lot going on when a child writes.  During a spelling lesson, they are only focused on spelling.  When they are writing an original piece they are holding ideas in their mind, working on putting those ideas into complete thoughts, transferring to paper, etc.  I would encourage their writing and not grade the pieces they do voluntarily.  What you can do, to help put your mind at ease, is pick a couple words they spell incorrectly and add them to their spelling lesson.  Chances are, they'll spell them correctly in isolation.  We had this exact same worry a few years back and a wise board member here gave me the advice I just passed along. ?

[HomeAgain]

This is why we dumped traditional spelling texts.  None of the lesson carried over to writing.  He could memorize the rules, he could spell the word lists correctly, but when it came to writing original thoughts he was terrible.  Which led me back down the road to copywork and Dictation Day By Day as our spelling.  If he had to spell the words in context, AND remember to punctuate/capitalize correctly, his writing would carry the lesson over.  We're finding now that it's working in reverse, too.  This week we have done more exercises on how to use commas and as he is hearing the sentences in Dictation DBD he is realizing where the commas go without prompting.

I don't care, really, what my kid writes on his own time and I'm not going to correct or critique it.  But I will take note of how he writes and use that to tweak his language arts lessons.

[Ellie]

These are things they write on their own? Let them. :-)

Things that they write for you? Correct, correct, correct. 

::whispers:: Also, it's Spalding, not Spaulding. :-) ::

[vonfirmath]

12 hours ago, 4KookieKids said:

I have two kids who can spell just fine when we do it together. We use Spaulding and they really, really like it. Even my dyslexic kid who doesn’t read well yet loves to spell! 

Recently they've been having fun writing stories, mostly fantasy, and I love the content, but boy is their writing atrocious!! Spelling is AWFUL, punctuation nom-existent, oddly placed or missing capitols, words split in two lines along a non syllable break... My dyslexic is the worst and “princess” came out something like “pnris.” (She reads it back to me as princess later, of course.) Ds is not dyslexic and reads widely, and he was majorly misspelling super common words!!

I had been letting it slide and just letting them enjoy their fun, but I’m starting to get stressed out about it! Are they not learning anything?? Why would they write SO badly when this is a project they WANT to do and are actually able to do well??

 

My son is an excellent speller -- except when he's trying to compose at the same time.

He catches the misspellings in review and does another draft to fix things like that, after he's done the hard work of getting words on paper

[4KookieKids]

42 minutes ago, Ellie said:

 

::whispers:: Also, it's Spalding, not Spaulding. ? ::

Ha ha. I really do know! My phone auto corrected! ?

[Petrichor]

21 hours ago, Ellie said:

These are things they write on their own? Let them. ?

Things that they write for you? Correct, correct, correct. 

::whispers:: Also, it's Spalding, not Spaulding. ? ::

my "laugh" reaction was in response to the bolded

[Petrichor]

If you can look at their work and say, "hey! how is 'princess' supposed to be spelled?" and she can give you the correct spelling, I wouldn't sweat it. Think of it as her writing in her own type of shorthand, just a means of getting the story down on paper.

I wouldn't do this for every word though, just for the select one or two that you think they probably know how to spell, but that you aren't quite sure about.

 

Another thing, do they see any point in spelling things the right way? Explain the reason for spelling words correctly - so the reader will understand how to pronounce the word if they've never seen it before, so the reader will understand the meaning, so the reader can understand the story without straining their brain to figure out which word you meant to write, because words have heritage (we tend to look up etymology for just about every word we learn), and there are probably more that I can't think of right now.

But don't push it. If they love writing down their stories, and will actually write down their stories, you've got more going on that I do! My kid still wont write more than 10 words... ?

[PeterPan]

They're working so hard to write that it's too hard to hold those thoughts and figure out how to spell. My dd for a while (like into high school), used a modified shorthand like that, where she'd just get her thoughts out any which way and then go back and write it nicely. If it really bugs you, give them dictation software or tech with dictation built in. You can also work on building working memory, so they can hold their thoughts and not lose them when they pause to spell. Also consider a themed picture/spelling dictionary where all the words they need are right there in front of them or a word bank.

Melissa Forney's Picture Speller for Young Writers