Homophone Mix Ups

[bnwhitaker]

Hello, 

I have a DS 14 yrs old that is still struggling to understand the difference in homophones and also how to spell them.  I would love any curriculum ideas that could help him.  He is not a strong speller, but does hear phonetically.  He knows how they should sound but spells words all sorts of ways.   

We have spent time in Spell to Write and Read mostly.  When he was younger he did a little of phonetic zoo.  But mainly has used SWR or LOE.  Doesn't seem to help him at all.  The rules being taught to all 3 of my DS's doesn't seem to help them?  Maybe its me and I just didn't teach it right?  They don't seem to want to apply the rules at all.  

My youngest DS (8 yrs old) has been spending time on the LOE flash cards for about 3 years and still struggles with FC.   He can spell (easy 3 letter words) writing cursive on paper better than he can say the flashcards or get any rules memorized.   He has about 19 of the alphabet sounds and as far as blends go he sometimes remembers sometimes doesn't.  And pretty much does not love learning it as far as phonics and reading goes. 

Thanks for any help!

[Ellie]

Do you have an example of which words he misspells/confuses? Sometimes that has to do with usage, which means he has to do lots of reading and writing.

When you say that your youngest has spent time on the LOE flash cards, is that all you've done with him? Just the flash cards?

[Lori D.]

Specifically for homophone mix-ups:
If you have strongly visual learners, you can practice on a whiteboard, using different colors for to make the vowel pairs stand out, and make a quick drawing by each vowel pattern in the word to make it stand out. Say a little sentence/story to go with the drawing. And at the end, reinforce by spelling the word out loud. Having your students come up their own "memory aids" can help them pay closer attention to the spellings of homophones and remember their catch-phrases/visuals.

Examples to get you started:

meet  --> draw a stick figure over each "e" and have them shaking hands (meeting), and say: "It takes 2 "e"s to meet... M-E-E-T."
meat  --> draw a heart around the "a" and say "I love to EAT MEAT -- see the heart "A" in EAT and in MEAT? ... M-E-A-T."

there  --> underline the "-here"  and say "Is it HERE or THERE? See the HERE in THERE? ... T-H-E-R-E."
their  --> draw an arrow pointing to the "I" and say "It is THEIR "I". See their "I" in THEIR? ...  T-H-E-I-R."
they're   --> draw a circle around the apostrophe +"r" + "e", and say "If it makes sense to substitute the words "they are", it's the contraction -- replace the "a" with an apostrophe and slide the words together... T-H-E-Y-apostrophe-R-E."

If visualizing with images helps, you might check out some of these books:
gr. 1-3 = Dear Deer (Barretta); Did You Say Pears (Alda); See the Yak Yak (Ghinga); If You Were a Homonym or a Homophone (Loewen)
gr. 1-4 = A Chocolate Moose for Dinner (Gwynne); The King Who Rained (Gwynne); How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear? (Cleary); A Bat Cannot Bat (Cleary)
gr. 3-5 = Eight Ate: A Feast of Homonym and Homophone Riddles (Terrban)
gr. 5-8 = Homophones Visualized (Worden)

Not visually-based, but here's a Homophone workbook, with worksheets for the 130 most frequently mixed pairs of homophones; about 20 sentences per worksheet.

And, a totally different resource: lots of tips in this article from All About Spelling on how to teach homophones.

BEST of luck in finding what best helps! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Lori D.

[bnwhitaker]

On 4/9/2020 at 8:25 PM, Ellie said:

Do you have an example of which words he misspells/confuses? Sometimes that has to do with usage, which means he has to do lots of reading and writing.

When you say that your youngest has spent time on the LOE flash cards, is that all you've done with him? Just the flash cards?

Thanks for your reply Ellie! Here are some of the words my teenage son gets mixed up on.   cansled, emergensy, twise, vierus, shareing, corintend, tramalen (trampoline), updateing, pritty, simtons, finlly, acward, suppost, escalated.  He's speaks well and has pretty good grammar.  He doesn't always want to use it when writing so much so he hates to capitalize and even punctuate.  But given a sentence he knows how and understands it well.

My 8 yrs old.  We started with the flashcards when he was little.  SWR flashcards.  I didn't teach him the names of letters but sounds.  He still struggles with a handful:  L, F, Z, X, B, F, H, V.  He will also still struggle with I, U sounds when in a word,3-5 letter words.  He's got down ee, ck, th, ch, sh, igh.    I'm actually embarrassed.  I held off pushing him because he was so much more active than my older two boys, who I felt I pushed to early.   I also did not want him to hate school but enjoy it.   So we didn't do formal school till last year, 7 yrs old.  I had planned to use LOE.  I used SWR when my older boys were about 9 and I just never could get the hang of it fully (I've taken the 3 day training 2x).  I understand it okay.  I can do all the words with my older two (but don't feel it seems to help them).  And I never did teach it from the beginning.  My older two did PAL & Explode the Code, when then once that was over I realized they needed more so that took me to SWR.  So I was wanting something more spelled out but with a similar idea I used LOE.  Well although I absolutely LOVED that program it was killing my 7 year old.  Or at least I felt it was (He did love the word games, like run to the end of the hall and read a word).  He gets so bogged down trying to remember all of it when we were doing LOE.  We got through A and just the beginning of B.  It just seems like so many parts as I looked into the future teacher manuals.  So this was probably a huge mistake but I decided to just read with him and keep doing the flash cards.  So we work on reading readers and doing the flash cards.  I also added in some phonics pages from abeka for practice.  I break it into reading a reader twice a day, 2 pages.  He freaks out if its more than that.  Then the reading is down the tube, he will do it but if he is overwhelmed its like his brain doesn't work as well with sounds.  Again Im embarred to say I have had issues with not being diligent with doing everything daily.  I do know the repetition would be more helpful for him.  But again not really feeling like we  found anything that worked well for us.  So I realize I need to really get a move on with my 8 yr old reading.  Something I can still with that is easy to get done but work decent.  I was not against AAS and AAR necessarily all these years but had always thought the SWR, WRTR, LOE were just a bit of a step above from everything I had heard.  BUT as of this week I'm considering AAS & AAR.  I need something I can do and doesn't overwhelm me or him. Something that fits together.   I want something I can stick with and not bounce back and forth like I did with my older two.  Then have him in the predicament my oldest is in.   Sorry for my lengthy explanation.   

Edited April 11, 2020 by bnwhitaker

[bnwhitaker]

On 4/9/2020 at 8:59 PM, Lori D. said:

Specifically for homophone mix-ups:
If you have strongly visual learners, you can practice on a whiteboard, using different colors for to make the vowel pairs stand out, and make a quick drawing by each vowel pattern in the word to make it stand out. Say a little sentence/story to go with the drawing. And at the end, reinforce by spelling the word out loud. Having your students come up their own "memory aids" can help them pay closer attention to the spellings of homophones and remember their catch-phrases/visuals.

Examples to get you started:

meet  --> draw a stick figure over each "e" and have them shaking hands (meeting), and say: "It takes 2 "e"s to meet... M-E-E-T."
meat  --> draw a heart around the "a" and say "I love to EAT MEAT -- see the heart "A" in EAT and in MEAT? ... M-E-A-T."

there  --> underline the "-here"  and say "Is it HERE or THERE? See the HERE in THERE? ... T-H-E-R-E."
their  --> draw an arrow pointing to the "I" and say "It is THEIR "I". See their "I" in THEIR? ...  T-H-E-I-R."
they're   --> draw a circle around the apostrophe +"r" + "e", and say "If it makes sense to substitute the words "they are", it's the contraction -- replace the "a" with an apostrophe and slide the words together... T-H-E-Y-apostrophe-R-E."

If visualizing with images helps, you might check out some of these books:
gr. 1-3 = Dear Deer (Barretta); Did You Say Pears (Alda); See the Yak Yak (Ghinga); If You Were a Homonym or a Homophone (Loewen)
gr. 1-4 = A Chocolate Moose for Dinner (Gwynne); The King Who Rained (Gwynne); How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear? (Cleary); A Bat Cannot Bat (Cleary)
gr. 3-5 = Eight Ate: A Feast of Homonym and Homophone Riddles (Terrban)
gr. 5-8 = Homophones Visualized (Worden)

Not visually-based, but here's a Homophone workbook, with worksheets for the 130 most frequently mixed pairs of homophones; about 20 sentences per worksheet.

And, a totally different resource: lots of great tips in this article from All About Spelling on how to teach homophones.

BEST of luck in finding what best helps! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

This is awesome Lori!  Thank you!

 

[Lori D.]

1 hour ago, bnwhitaker said:

Here are some of the words my teenage son gets mixed up on.   cansled, emergensy, twise, vierus, shareing, corintend, tramalen (trampoline), updateing, pritty, simtons, finlly, acward, suppost, escalated.  He's speaks well and has pretty good grammar.  He doesn't always want to use it when writing so much so he hates to capitalize and even punctuate.  But given a sentence he knows how and understands it well.

This sounds like he may possibly have "stealth dyslexia", which shows up in writing/spelling rather than in reading. Much of what you describe fit my DS#2 who had mild LDs (probably stealth dyslexia) in Writing, Spelling, and also struggled with Math, especially the abstract (Algebra) topics.

Also, writing requires the ability to simultaneously juggle 3 different activities -- think of what to write; get it down on paper; and correct spelling/add punctuation etc. All 3 activities are processed in different areas of the brain, and not all 3 areas mature at the same time, so some students learn how to do this later than others -- and some never can do it. All that to say, much as my DS#2 hated it, I had to constantly remind him that writing is a multi-stage process (brainstorm; organize; rough draft; revise; proof-edit), and that he was going to need to work with the same piece of writing several times -- get ideas down on paper first; do the "big fixes" and changes and additions with revision (sometimes it takes several revisions); and then go back yet again at the end and make the small fixes (adding capitalization, punctuation, spelling fixes, etc.).

Does your teenage son type? And know how to touch type? That helps a LOT. All papers are typed, which makes going back and making changes and fixes a LOT easier. Also, having Spell-Check put little red lines under potentially misspelled words makes it much easier to see spelling mistakes. Also, when you see a common "theme" among mistakes, you can work with that on a whiteboard, using 2 colors, one for consonants and another for vowel teams and vowel patterns working together. Since SWR and LOE are not clicking for him, you might try looking at Apples and Pears to back up and remediate. Megawords is useful for helping to teach vowel patterns and esp. syllabication -- breaking words into smaller "bites" for spelling attacks.

In looking at your list of misspelled words, I see several common "themes" for the mistakes. I'd suggest looking into testing for dyslexia, stealth dyslexia, and for reading convergence issues (which can also affect spelling and writing). I'd also look into a hearing test -- there is a possibility that he has minor hearing loss and is missing letter sounds. From there, hopefully you can get some good specific therapies and ideas for remediating the spelling.

is not hearing all of the letters, or struggles to break into syllables for easier "bites" of spelling
- tramalen -- trampoline
- simtons -- symptoms

mishearing similar letter sounds
- pritty -- pretty
- suppost -- supposed

mixes "S" and "soft C" words
- cansled -- cancelled
- emergensy -- emergency
- twise -- twice

not applying rules about endings (here, "drop the 'e' and add -ing")
- shareing
-updateing

dyslexia-like: letter mixing, letter adding, "losing" letters
- cansled -- cancelled (mixed the l and e sounds)
- vierus -- virus (added the "e" to make "I" long)
- finlly -- finally (lost the "a")
- acward -- a good phonetic guess here; it seems to point to not having a visual sense of what the word looks like

So sorry -- I really don't have anything else to add or help. I truly sympathize -- DS#2 and I fought the good fight with spelling and writing (and math!) all the way through grade 12. I constantly was researching, and we used a ton of different things over the years. Along about age 12, he finally started to turn the corner a little on spelling, and each year he clicked another notch -- though, he will never be a terrific speller, he is tolerable, with much thanks to Spell Check. His writing was a struggle all the way through high school (similar as your DS), but we just kept plugging away at his level/need. Along about age 18-19, he finally reached a passable level on the writing. He actually is pretty decent now (mid-20s).

BEST of luck in your LA journey with your DSs! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Lori D.

[Ellie]

5 hours ago, bnwhitaker said:

Thanks for your reply Ellie! Here are some of the words my teenage son gets mixed up on.   cansled, emergensy, twise, vierus, shareing, corintend, tramalen (trampoline), updateing, pritty, simtons, finlly, acward, suppost, escalated.  He's speaks well and has pretty good grammar.  He doesn't always want to use it when writing so much so he hates to capitalize and even punctuate.  But given a sentence he knows how and understands it well.

Ok, that isn't mixing up homophones. That's just really bad spelling skills. Does he have any learning difficulties? Because if not, then at his age I'd sort of recommend getting down to business and fixing this. OTOH, if you think there are learning difficulties, then it would be good to see (when we're all free to move about!) if you can have him tested. If no learning difficulties are present, perhaps he would be helped with something like Sequential Spelling. Also, if he were mine, I would relentlessly correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation (f there are no learning difficulties).

IMHO, both SWR and LOE are unnecessarily complicated. It is why I much prefer Spalding. But in any case, it is never enough just to work on flash cards. Not ever. It isn't even enough to do the readers (which may help decoding skills, but not spelling skills). You must do the spelling lists, with the correct analysis and markings and the whole thing.

[bnwhitaker]

43 minutes ago, Ellie said:

Ok, that isn't mixing up homophones. That's just really bad spelling skills. Does he have any learning difficulties? Because if not, then at his age I'd sort of recommend getting down to business and fixing this. OTOH, if you think there are learning difficulties, then it would be good to see (when we're all free to move about!) if you can have him tested. If no learning difficulties are present, perhaps he would be helped with something like Sequential Spelling. Also, if he were mine, I would relentlessly correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation (f there are no learning difficulties).

IMHO, both SWR and LOE are unnecessarily complicated. It is why I much prefer Spalding. But in any case, it is never enough just to work on flash cards. Not ever. It isn't even enough to do the readers (which may help decoding skills, but not spelling skills). You must do the spelling lists, with the correct analysis and markings and the whole thing.

 

I got confused.  I thought you were asking what kind of words does he spell wrong.  I went and grabbed his journaling book and wrote down the ones I seen were incorrect.  I do understand that's not just a homophone problem.  I do know homophones and understanding the difference is one spot we need more work. The other is the spelling weakness issue.  I spent so much time memorizing rules, phonics and phonograms with him for spelling.  He knew them but does not apply them when spelling.  Both my older boys completely hated doing all the mark ups.  But that was probably my mistake to not keep them doing it.  I go over it orally.   It just truly felt like it wasn't helping them at all.  They actually said over and over it wasn't helping them.  But maybe I should of just kept at it.  

As far as disabilities, I'm so confused again.  When he was in the 8th grade he scored in the 11th grade for reading on the state tests.  Although he actually says he cant read well and skips words he doesn't know.  I've always felt like he doesn't want to take the time to sound them out and its easier to skip them.  He is super bright in most things.  He remembers facts awesome too. He does amazing at his vocabulary.  Gets almost all 100% in his school work.  So I guess I should get him tested.  Or I just did a super crap job at teaching spelling to him.   Ugg sometimes this is not easy.  

 

[Ellie]

43 minutes ago, bnwhitaker said:

 

I got confused.  I thought you were asking what kind of words does he spell wrong.  I went and grabbed his journaling book and wrote down the ones I seen were incorrect.  I do understand that's not just a homophone problem.  I do know homophones and understanding the difference is one spot we need more work. The other is the spelling weakness issue.  I spent so much time memorizing rules, phonics and phonograms with him for spelling.  He knew them but does not apply them when spelling.  Both my older boys completely hated doing all the mark ups.  But that was probably my mistake to not keep them doing it.  I go over it orally.   It just truly felt like it wasn't helping them at all.  They actually said over and over it wasn't helping them.  But maybe I should of just kept at it.  

As far as disabilities, I'm so confused again.  When he was in the 8th grade he scored in the 11th grade for reading on the state tests.  Although he actually says he cant read well and skips words he doesn't know.  I've always felt like he doesn't want to take the time to sound them out and its easier to skip them.  He is super bright in most things.  He remembers facts awesome too. He does amazing at his vocabulary.  Gets almost all 100% in his school work.  So I guess I should get him tested.  Or I just did a super crap job at teaching spelling to him.   Ugg sometimes this is not easy.  

 

((((bnwhitaker)))) We all do the best we can. 🙂

Again, knowing the rules and the phonograms isn't enough (and the rules should be taught in context, when you analyze a word that uses that rule, not just memorized). Doing it orally isn't enough. It is writing the spelling words and marking them.

It sounds like having him tested might be a good idea, because then you'll know for sure.

[Lori D.]

18 hours ago, bnwhitaker said:

...When he was in the 8th grade he scored in the 11th grade for reading on the state tests... 

State tests do not work to pinpoint disabilities. They are designed to give the teacher/parent an idea of what working level the student is at, or if there are "gaps" in topic areas. And a student can score high in reading (and be able to read at/above grade level) because they've learned to gain enough context from the rest of the words in the sentence or paragraph to make very educated guesses about the long words that they are skipping over.
 

18 hours ago, bnwhitaker said:

...Although he actually says he cant read well and skips words he doesn't know.  I've always felt like he doesn't want to take the time to sound them out and its easier to skip them.  He is super bright in most things.  He remembers facts awesome too. He does amazing at his vocabulary...

Another red flag about possible learning issues. This describes my DS#2 with stealth dyslexia to a "t" -- reads at a high level, skips longer words, super bright, great memory, extremely high vocabulary...
 

17 hours ago, Ellie said:

...Again, knowing the rules and the phonograms isn't enough (and the rules should be taught in context, when you analyze a word that uses that rule, not just memorized). Doing it orally isn't enough. It is writing the spelling words and marking them.

Agree, and Ellie is absolutely spot on about this for students without LDs. BUT, writing words/marking spelling words is ineffectual and soul-crushing for many students with LDs. They often need other techniques to help the spelling patterns "stick". 

If the student is dealing with dyslexia, then often they see all the letters of the word all at once, often in random order, and sometimes actually jumping around, so that each time they look at the word, it may appear differently to them. Spelling is the absolute opposite -- letters in a very specific, sequential, order. Students dealing with dyslexia often have a poor sequential memory -- so again, difficult to spell longer words correctly because they can't hold that much in sequential order.

Until you know exactly what you're looking at with DS through testing, then it's hard to say what will work. However, since we're all shut in at the moment (LOL) and you can't get any testing lined up for awhile, you might look at the free spelling resources that ElizabethB of these boards has set up: The Phonics Page: Teaching Remedial Students, and see if any of the resources might work for you right now. You can also p.m. her with any questions if you think this might be something you want to try during our current "lock-down" time, as she is very generous with her time and help. She has some great "nonsense" syllable lists to practice sounding out words.

From there, you might also consider practicing your spelling words out loud to strengthen sequential memory. When you have an hour, you might find Andrew Pudewa's FREE lecture on Spelling and the Brain to be helpful in his discussion of this idea; and, of course, his ideas are incorporated into his Phonetic Zoo program. (Out loud back and forth spelling word practice was one of the several things I did daily with DS#2 as part of remediating his spelling.)
 

18 hours ago, bnwhitaker said:

... Or I just did a super crap job at teaching spelling to him.   Ugg sometimes this is not easy...

 

Oh please don't beat yourself up! ((((bnwhitaker))). As Ellie says, we do the best we can. I'm sure you have been doing your best all along.

No, it is not easy! And VERY often, mild LDs can be "masked" by the student for a long time -- they find workarounds that help them get by without actually having absorbed how to do the work. Or get very good at "guessing", or figure out the test system to be able to 'intuit" answers without really KNOWING answers. Students with LDs are not doing these things out of laziness or unwillingness to work. They are usually extremely anxious and realize that something is "wrong" but they fear asking for help because the overriding emotion is to "not look stupid". So they go to extreme lengths to come up with strategies to appear as though they are "learning like normal". Esp. in the younger grades, they may sometimes suddenly snap into rage or tears or full melt-down -- because they've hit the wall, can't learn the material in that way, their "coping strategies" aren't working, and don't know what else to do.

Wishing you and DS all the very BEST as you figure out what is the best path for now with Spelling. Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Lori D.

[Lori D.]

22 hours ago, bnwhitaker said:

... My 8 yrs old...
... I held off pushing him because he was so much more active than my older two boys, who I felt I pushed to early.   I also did not want him to hate school but enjoy it.   So we didn't do formal school till last year, 7 yrs old...
... I used SWR when my older boys were about 9 and I just never could get the hang of it fully (I've taken the 3 day training 2x).
... I used LOE.  Well although I absolutely LOVED that program it was killing my 7 year old...
...  I break it into reading a reader twice a day, 2 pages.  He freaks out if its more than that. Then the reading is down the tube, he will do it but if he is overwhelmed its like his brain doesn't work as well with sounds...
... But again not really feeling like we  found anything that worked well for us...
... I'm considering AAS & AAR.  I need something I can do and doesn't overwhelm me or him. Something that fits together.   I want something I can stick with and not bounce back and forth...

All my other posts were directed towards your teen son. I just now am reading this about your 8yo. From the bolded from the quotation excerpts from your post -- you know your child very well, and I would NOT second guess you that backing down the workload was the right choice. And from those last lines in the quotation above -- you sound like you know what you and your DS need and what would work for you -- don't second guess yourself! 😉 

Yes, SWR, WRTR, and LOE are all great programs and very thorough. But if they come at Spelling from a teaching style/learning style that is not a fit for you or for your student, then no matter how great they are, they are no good for your family. So absolutely feel free to switch away from what is NOT working for YOU or for your child, and go to what might be a better fit. There is absolutely nothing to feel ashamed about that. There are a number of other great programs that are very thorough -- but use a different philosophy and teaching technique than SWR, WRTR, and LOE. AAS is one of those. So if you have looked over the AAS (and AAR) materials and think they would be a better fit for your family -- feel free to switch! And may it be a great program for your family!

You might even consider running your 14yo through all of the AAS levels (at a brisker/review pace than what 8yo would do) to provide foundation or fill in gaps for him, if you think that the AAS method might be a good fit for him. I know that MerryatHope has shared in other threads about doing this very thing when her children were about your 14yo's age, and she, too, would be very willing to answer questions about how she did this.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Lori D.