Spelling for 7th grade

[jens2sons]

My 12 yo son needs a good spelling program.  I have chosen Spelling You See but I’m not sure if it’s the best choice for him.  We are in Classical Conversations Challenge A so a program that is not simple and short will not work for us.  He’s not a terrible speller.  He has learned a lot of spelling simply by copying however I’m seeing that he needs better spelling instruction.  I appreciate your thoughts!

Edited September 30, 2019 by jens2sons

[PeterPan]

Well what do you think he needs? More visual, more analysis? You might look into SWR or WRTR for him. Since he's already done a lot of copying and visual, it seems like what you're wanting is the analysis. SWR or WRTR (either would work) would do that quickly and easily. Your library might have WRTR. 

                                            Writing Road to Reading 6th Rev Ed.: The Spalding Method for Teaching Speech, Spelling, Writing, and Reading                                     

[lewelma]

If he is a more pattern driven student and needs to work up to longer words, Sequential Spelling is the complete opposite of SWR mentioned above (I've used both) and would give you an alternative approach to consider.

Ruth in NZ

[forty-two]

On 9/22/2019 at 10:31 PM, jens2sons said:

My 12 yo son needs a good spelling program.  I have chosen Spelling You See but I’m not sure if it’s the best choice for him.  We are in Classical Conversations Challenge A so a program that is not simple and short will not work for us.  He’s not a terrible speller.  He had learned a lot of spelling simply by copying however I’m seeing that he needs better spelling instruction.  I appreciate your thoughts!

 

Spelling has been a challenge at our house.  No approach to spelling - spelling by sound, spelling by sight, spelling by morphographs - came naturally or automatically.  (Threw me off, as I'm a natural speller.)  So I hit each area in turn: I started with phonetic-pattern-based spelling by sound, using our phonics book, followed by SYS for spelling by sight, followed by Spelling Through Morphographs for, well, spelling by morphographs ;).  (Spelling by morphographs means spelling by breaking words into chunks of meaning; e.g. "spelling = spell + ing", "refreshing" = "re + fresh + ing", "inconceivable" = "in + con + ceive + able".) 

IOW, first we work on breaking words into phonemes and building words from phonemes (analyzing words by sound, plus applying phonics knowledge to spelling), then we work on visually breaking words into phonograms and learning which phonetically-correct phonogram to choose, and then we work on breaking words into morphographs, into chunks of meaning, and building up words from morphographs.

~*~

What kinds of mistakes is he making? Mistakes in spelling by sound, such as dropping sounds, adding sounds, mixing up the order of sounds, mistaking one sound for another?  Mistakes in applying phonics knowledge, so that he can correctly break the words into phonemes, but then chooses a spelling that is never used with that phoneme?  Mistakes in spelling by sight, namely choosing a phonogram that *does* spell that sound in general, but isn't the phonogram used in this word, such as "braik" for break/brake.  Mistakes in long, multi-syllable words? 

Different programs target different areas of spelling.  (Learning from copying tends to hit the visual areas of spelling, and the later levels of SYS (Level C and up) also focus on spelling by sight, but do touch a bit on morphographs.)  So it helps to consider what sorts of problems he's having, so you can match the program to your specific needs. 

[jens2sons]

On 9/24/2019 at 11:29 AM, forty-two said:

....What kinds of mistakes is he making? Mistakes in spelling by sound, such as dropping sounds, adding sounds, mixing up the order of sounds, mistaking one sound for another?  Mistakes in applying phonics knowledge, so that he can correctly break the words into phonemes, but then chooses a spelling that is never used with that phoneme?  Mistakes in spelling by sight, namely choosing a phonogram that *does* spell that sound in general, but isn't the phonogram used in this word, such as "braik" for break/brake.  Mistakes in long, multi-syllable words? .....

He makes mistakes in the spellings of sounds.  So yes, mistakes like “Braik” for break/brake.  

[forty-two]

On 9/27/2019 at 10:42 AM, jens2sons said:

He makes mistakes in the spellings of sounds.  So yes, mistakes like “Braik” for break/brake.  

So he gets the sounds right, but the spellings wrong?

If his ears are good (getting all the sounds right) but his visual memory is bad (picking the wrong spelling for the sounds), SYS isn't a bad choice.  From Level C upward its focus is on improving visual memory of words.  I especially like its color-coded marking system.  It might be insufficient, though. 

Why do you think SYS might not be the best choice for him?  Is he balking at it, or doing badly on the dictations, or doing well on the dictations but with no noticeable improvement in his regular writing?  WRT doing badly in dictation, fwiw, it's taken both of my dds five or six weeks in SYS before they started showing improvement on them.

Or do you think he might do better with a more systematic program, one that explicitly explains some of the hows and whys of spelling? 

[jens2sons]

On 9/28/2019 at 3:58 PM, forty-two said:

So he gets the sounds right, but the spellings wrong?

If his ears are good (getting all the sounds right) but his visual memory is bad (picking the wrong spelling for the sounds), SYS isn't a bad choice.  From Level C upward its focus is on improving visual memory of words.  I especially like its color-coded marking system.  It might be insufficient, though. 

Why do you think SYS might not be the best choice for him?  Is he balking at it, or doing badly on the dictations, or doing well on the dictations but with no noticeable improvement in his regular writing?  WRT doing badly in dictation, fwiw, it's taken both of my dds five or six weeks in SYS before they started showing improvement on them.

Or do you think he might do better with a more systematic program, one that explicitly explains some of the hows and whys of spelling? 

 

I have him in SYS book E and he seems to be bored with the repetition.  He’s doing excellent on the dictations.  I’m wondering if we should go to a Word Roots program instead - something like The Critical Thinking Company’s “Word Roots 1”.   To be honest, it’s a LOT of extra writing and as much as context helps, it’s just extra work for him.  We are in CC Challenge A this year and it’s intense.  Even though it’s intense, it’s a very good program but I need to scale so I can add in study for his weak spots.  I also have Spelling Plus but haven’t quite figured out how the program is supposed to work.  It seems complicated.