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Help! My 6th grader can't spell!


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I have a bright 6th grader who wants to be a lawyer when he grows up, but he just can't spell to save his life. I'm so frustrated that I'd like to give up and just say spell check will be his best friend, but he has an ambitious life plan and will need to do well on essay tests. His spelling and mechanics are going to undermine his otherwise good writing. (We are using Grammar Planet which teaches mechanics late, but seriously, starting sentences with lower case letters!?! He knows better!)

I don't know exactly what his problem is. I suspect 2 things are going on. 1. He just doesn't understand spelling rules. He constantly guesses. 2. He is lazy about this and sacrifices accuracy for speed. This is our 3rd year homeschooling. The first year we did Sequential Spelling which was a disaster. We finished the year with traditional lists and assignments. Last year we did Spelling Workout, but nothing seemed to stick. He would do well on a test, but then his writing would be riddled with errors. Spelling lessons haven't transferred into his general knowledge. At the end of the year I started making him lists of his misspelled words. This year I got No More Boring Spelling Practice to learn basic rules. We go through the lessons and I make lists from the lessons. He bombed plurals, so we spent 2 extra weeks on it. He just failed yet another spelling test of very easy words. I can tell when he is just sounding out words during the test and making errors because of it. I just don't know what to do. He doesn't have any learning disabilities that I know of, but something isn't clicking.

Part of me really thinks he isn't trying hard enough. I'd like to address that. I don't know what I can do to help him improve. I've heard good things about All About Spelling, but it seems expensive and weird to start so late. Is that my only option? Will it do the trick? Should I switch directions and do copywork? I don't know if I should also approach this from a discipline perspective, because he is definitely not putting forth enough effort. Any ideas? I am so lost.

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57 minutes ago, MJmom said:

Should I switch directions and do copywork?

FWIW, with two or three failed spelling programs behind you, I'd probably do a both/and: an explicit spelling program *and* copywork.  An explicit spelling program to learn how to learn to spell, and copywork to practice spelling in context.

57 minutes ago, MJmom said:

He just failed yet another spelling test of very easy words. I can tell when he is just sounding out words during the test and making errors because of it.

Being able to spell by sound is actually a really good, necessary foundation for spelling.  (I had to work really hard with my kids to teach them to spell by sound.)  In some languages, spelling by sound would get you all the way there, but sadly, in English we have to work harder ;).  Is he accurate in spelling by sound?  I mean, does he accurately break the words into the correct sounds in the correct order, and choose a phonetically correct phonogram for each sound.  Not that he picks the *right* phonetically-correct phonogram, but that whatever phonograms he picks actually do spell the sound he was trying to spell, if not the right one for this word.  Things like "braik" for brake, "bred" for "bread", "littl" or "littul" for little - phonetically correct options, but not the *right* phonetically correct option.  Because if he's hearing words accurately, and spelling them in phonetically-correct (if not dictionary-correct) ways, that's a very good thing.

57 minutes ago, MJmom said:

He just doesn't understand spelling rules. He constantly guesses.

It may be that a rules-based program isn't a good fit for him.  (I personally didn't understand spelling rules until my second time through our phonetic-pattern-based phonics program, when I noticed the pattern, put the pattern into words to explain it, and then realized I'd just made a spelling rule.)  Although Sequential Spelling is pattern-based, and you said that was a disaster.  What went wrong with it?

57 minutes ago, MJmom said:

He just failed yet another spelling test of very easy words.

What kind of easy words, specifically?  Short words? Common words? Phonetically-regular words?

Edited by forty-two
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When I say he's sounding out words, the problem is that the words aren't always phonetic. He needs to memorize them. For example, he wrote discription instead of description. If he was younger, that would be fine, a learning step showing an awareness of phonics, but now it feel like he should be able to study and know the words by the test, not deciding on the fly. Is this a fair expectation? I don't know.

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Thanks, ladies. I haven't figured out how to quote posts yet, so I'll try an answer here.

When he sounds out words, he does get the correct phonics. He is inconsistent with spelling which is why I suspect part of the problem is effort. But he is a good student and I don't think all of the problem is a lack trying.

I don't know why Sequential Spelling didn't work. I tried it with both of my kids, who are a grade apart. This was when I was brand new to homeschooling. My younger son is a natural speller who is now using lists 3 grades above. It took me some time to figure out where both of their abilities fell. It just felt pointless with no progress. I could try it again. Seriously, I'll try anything.

I thought a rules based program would be good this year, because he doesn't seem to know them. I thought going through them would give him a foundation so he wasn't shooting in the dark (which is what it seems like he does when he spells.)

Where would I have him tested for a learning disability? 

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My son’s a better speller now in 7th, but it’s a recent development.  We’ve been doing AAS all the way through, on book 7 now.  Honestly, his spelling didn’t improve until we added in TTRS for typing.  It is a monthly cost, but I’ve seen a huge improvement in his spelling since we started that (about a year now, maybe a little more).

So maybe something to try, in addition to a rules-based program, if copywork isn’t his thing or you suspect dyslexia?  

As a side note, I know I used to think DS was getting lazy, but when I stopped thinking that was when I realized it was just him kind of giving up out sheer frustration due to the effort it took to get things from his head to the page.  (I realized that when I started to notice he could spell just fine when we did it orally, and then five minutes later get it wrong on paper.)

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That's interesting about TTRS. My son is already a very good typist, so I'm not sure if it would work for him. 

Its always a struggle for me to figure out how much of his problem is not applying himself and how much is a genuine struggle. I don't want him to have a defeatist attitude about spelling. Sigh.

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4 hours ago, MJmom said:

I can tell when he is just sounding out words during the test and making errors because of it.

Are you saying that his spelling is phonetic but crazy wrong?  If so, that sounds like it could be dyslexia.  Google "stealth dyslexia" to see if it resonates.

4 hours ago, MJmom said:

I've heard good things about All About Spelling, but it seems expensive and weird to start so late.

It is expensive, but I started even later (8th grade) with my older son.  I think it made a difference.  We only did it for a year (four levels).  

Sequential Spelling got him up to fifth grade level spelling but then he plateaued for a year (I know you said it was a disaster for you, but we found that having the student say the letters aloud as he wrote them down was extremely helpful).  We did SS for something like three years then switched to AAS which helped with some of the basic rules.  

His spelling now is serviceable.  He has trouble with filling out forms by hand.  When he types he does well--I've watched him type recently when he has shared his screen with me on Skype.  He doesn't make very many mistakes , and this is a person who left all the vowels out of words for the longest time (and is certified dyslexic).

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5 hours ago, MJmom said:

For example, he wrote discription instead of description.

FWIW, as the mother of spellers who have/had struggled, a 6th grader getting that close on a three-syllable word - phonetically correct and just one letter off - in my possibly-skewed opinion, that's not too bad, in the scheme of things :shrug.  I think my oldest was at least two or three spelling milestones in before she was spelling that good :lol.  (I semi-joke with her (now that she's a fairly decent speller) that her first spelling milestone was going from truly horrid spelling to garden-variety bad speller :lol.  It's sort of a joke, but also not - it was a real achievement, and one I celebrated in my head.)

Is he just missing words like that - multi-syllable words - or is he also missing phonetically irregular shorter words, or other common, easy-seeming words?  (For example, my 5th grader often misspells "whith" for with, although the correct spelling's starting to sink in.)

5 hours ago, MJmom said:

now it feel like he should be able to study and know the words by the test

What sorts of things do you do to study the words and learn them? 

5 hours ago, MJmom said:

I thought a rules based program would be good this year, because he doesn't seem to know them. I thought going through them would give him a foundation so he wasn't shooting in the dark (which is what it seems like he does when he spells.)

A rules program might well be a very good thing for him.  In addition to AAS, there's also Writing Road to Reading (WRTR), Spelling to Write and Read (SWR), and Logic of English (LOE), all of which are rule-based.

~*~

Two programs that we've used that might be helpful are Spelling You See (SYS) and Spelling Through Morphographs (StM).  Spelling You See is based on copywork and dictation, is very open-and-go, and has a really nice visual word-marking system.  My oldest didn't really pay attention to the insides of words until we did SYS, and marking the words kind of opened her eyes to the details of words.  My middle has just needed some consistent in-context practice, and it has provided that nicely.  (For both girls, it took till about week 5 or 6 for them to start showing improvement.)  It could be a nice complement to a rules-based program. 

Spelling Through Morphographs is based on, 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", "description" = "de + script +ion".  You learn prefixes, bases, and suffixes separately, then practice building up words from morphographs and breaking apart words into morphographs.  My 8th grader is just finishing, while my 5th grader is just starting.  It did wonders for my oldest's spelling - she had several leaps during the program, and now finds it quite easy, and spells most things correctly in her writing (averages maybe one misspelled word per page).  And I feel like it kind of taught me how to teach spelling.  (They use lots of oral spelling and lots of review, among other things.)

Unfortunately StM can be hard to find - it's a school program and is quite expensive new.  I bought an older edition on the used market several years ago, but recently a poster here was having trouble finding one of the necessary components.  (ETA:  Just looked it up, and the book she couldn't find, Teacher Presentation Book 2, is now available quite inexpensively, and the one that was easy to find then, Teacher Presentation Book 1, is over $100.  What'd you need to do it are those two presentation books plus a Student Workbook (about $10-$15).)  Another morphograph program that is well-recommended - and easier to find - is Megawords.  From reading reviews, they cover similar ground.  A morphograph-based program could be a good follow-up to a rules-based program, or a replacement for.

And like a previous poster, both my girls also do TTRS - last year they finished about 1/3 of the program, and we are continuing this year.  I don't know how much it is helping with their spelling, but I can definitely tell when we hit a weak area in their spelling - typing goes from easy to wailing-and-gnashing-of-teeth hard.

Edited by forty-two
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What sorts of things do you do to study the words and learn them? 

Sorry. Trying to figure out the quote function.

We have different activities each day. One day he'll alphabetize his list, another he'll copy the words 3 times, write the vowels and consonants in different colors, use them in sentences. I'll quiz him orally and sit with the whiteboard and have him take a picture with his mind of each word and then write it.

I feel like he has a decent phonetic awareness,  but the problem is that when phonics fail (as they often do in English), he can't seem to remember the spelling. That's why when he reaches for phonics during a test, I am concerned. It seems like he doesn't hold on to memories of how to spell words. That's why I gave the word, "description," as an example. I would hope/expect that after a week of practicing that word, he wouldn't be sounding it out, because it does sound more like "discription," but at some point, he needs to just know it. I don't know what to do to help get it into his head. A common problem he has is confusing almost every "w" word as "wh." I can't tell you how often I see "whould," "whant" or whent." We took time out to specifically study these common mix-ups one week. It was actually fun and seemed to work at the time, but it didn't stick. I know other children struggle even more with spelling, but my son is not improving at all. I don't really care about his level as much as I care about seeing him make some progress. 

I'm looking at every curriculum suggested. Thank you for sharing what has worked for your kiddos. I checked out some basic articles about stealth dyslexia, but I'm not sure if it fits. I do think that I should add copywork into the mix. Maybe I should give him a list of words he commonly misspells so he can check his work. I'm trying to find a balance between needling him to pay attention to detail and do his best, and not wanting to make such a big deal that he feels bad or get a defeatist attitude. 

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1 hour ago, MJmom said:

Sorry. Trying to figure out the quote function.

Something I just learned - you can highlight the section of a post that you want to quote and a little "Quote Selection" button appears right at the end of it.  Click on it, and it will add the quoted selection to wherever your cursor is.  That's the easiest way to work with quoting little bits of posts, especially lots of little bits and/or from lots of posts.  If you want to quote several posts, you can hit the little plus sign that's to the left of the "Quote" link at the end of every post - it's the multi-quote function - and it will add the post to a multi-quote queue, in the order that you add them.  When you've added all the posts you want to reply to, hit the little "multi-quote" button that appears at the bottom right of the screen.  Once you've quoted a post, and it appears in your reply window, you can delete parts of the post(s) if you want to - just highlight the bits you want gone and hit delete.  Does that help any?

1 hour ago, MJmom said:

We have different activities each day. One day he'll alphabetize his list, another he'll copy the words 3 times, write the vowels and consonants in different colors, use them in sentences. I'll quiz him orally and sit with the whiteboard and have him take a picture with his mind of each word and then write it.

That sounds like a lot of different ways - a well-done version of spelling-list spelling.  So I can see why you're looking for alternatives to a spelling-list approach.  Either a rules program or a morphograph/morpheme program would provide some explicit, organizing-the-parts-into-a-big-picture guidance to aid his eyes and ears in spelling.

1 hour ago, MJmom said:

I feel like he has a decent phonetic awareness,  but the problem is that when phonics fail (as they often do in English), he can't seem to remember the spelling. That's why when he reaches for phonics during a test, I am concerned. It seems like he doesn't hold on to memories of how to spell words. That's why I gave the word, "description," as an example. I would hope/expect that after a week of practicing that word, he wouldn't be sounding it out, because it does sound more like "discription," but at some point, he needs to just know it. I don't know what to do to help get it into his head.

A decent phonetic awareness is *great*, but I agree with you that English spelling takes a decent visual memory for words, too.  Not so much that you are using visual memory *instead* of phonics, but that you are using that visual memory to *supplement* and *guide* your phonics.  Good ears are *such* a huge help in spelling - you always want to use them as much as possible.  But, yeah, good ears alone are insufficient in English.  And it sounds like time alone isn't enough to teach him to develop his visual memory for words. 

A rules program uses rules to help guide and aid the memory; a pattern-based program uses linguistic patterns to help guide and aid the memory; a morphograph- or morpheme-based program uses meaning to help guide and aid the memory.  Any program for struggling spellers will use a *lot* of repetition of its memory aids.  I have not used Apples & Pears spelling, but it is supposed to be very good for kids who need a *lot* of guided repetition to build up their visual memory for words.  On the program site, you can view samples of the whole program (click on the "Look Inside" button for whichever book you want to see), as well as placement tests.

Another program, that has a strong auditory component - so might play to his strengths - is Phonetic Zoo.

WRTR/SWR has a "think-to-spell" technique, for words where a vowel sound is indistinct, where it turns into a nondescript sort of schwa sound.  When you learn the word, you emphasize what the vowel sound *ought* to be - so /DEE-scrip-shun/ - like how you'd say the word if you were giving special, extra-precise attention and emphasis - to help you remember how to spell it.  Because English schwa's a ton of vowels in unaccented syllables, and you want your ears to be able to give your eyes as much help as possible.  Especially for someone like your son, whose ears are stronger than his eyes when it comes to spelling.

1 hour ago, MJmom said:

A common problem he has is confusing almost every "w" word as "wh." I can't tell you how often I see "whould," "whant" or whent."

My middle does that a lot, too.  While some dialects clearly distinguish between the /w/ sound and the /hw/ sound (usually spelled with "wh"), ours does not.  (It was a revelation to me when I first heard a dialect that *did* clearly enunciate them as separate sounds.)  In our dialect, both "w" and "wh" words are pronounced with a /w/ sound.  This poses a problem for spelling, since without the sound cues, there's no apparent logic as to why one versus the other.  I explained the dialect issue to her - so she understood that there *is* a clear phonetic logic to it - and why that logic has been obscured for her.  And I've been doing the "think-to-spell" technique with her.  When learning to spell "wh" words, we practice saying them with a clear, even exaggerated /hw/ sound.  It gives her a sound peg to hang her visual memory of the spelling on.

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I'm another one who started All About Spelling with an older student (6th grade) and it really did help here when nothing else was working. They do have a money back guarantee if you try it out and it doesn't work.

 

On 9/26/2019 at 4:59 PM, MJmom said:

He would do well on a test, but then his writing would be riddled with errors. Spelling lessons haven't transferred into his general knowledge. 

This is actually not that uncommon. When kids are writing outside of spelling time, there are a lot more things to think about--When students are writing outside of spelling time, they have many more things to focus on–content, creativity, organization, punctuation, spelling, grammar, capitalization, what kind of audience they are addressing–it’s a lot to think about at once. Automaticity takes time to develop. I would give him a separate editing time where his only job is to look for and correct errors (after any revising for content), and encourage for anything he can find and fix, and then walk him through the others. I would approach from the standpoint that he's just not a proficient writer yet (which is true), not that it's purposeful or lazy or anything. 

He has a long time yet until essay tests, and I wouldn't give up yet! 

Edited by MerryAtHope
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