Teaching spelling efficiently

[drjuliadc]

This info might not extrapolate out to any other kid, but I thought I would mention it here because it worked so well.

My oldest, 9, who was always in public or private school except last semester, isn’t the best speller.

He would have spelling word homework where he had to write his spelling words three times or some other repetition.  It never seemed to help AT ALL.  I was really surprised because this kid has an amazing memory. I think it was 10 words a week usually.

I can’t remember why I started doing it this way, but during Covidschooling, I just pulled my box of sight words cards (I have 800 of them) and did 25 of them orally.  It worked and we did 25 per day. I just held back the ones he couldn’t spell right the first time until he could.

I guess his good memory is more auditory than visual. We got through 500-600 of those cards in those 4 months.  It was so fast and efficient, compared to 10 words a week that he couldn’t spell afterward anyway. Once he knew them, he knew them. 

It also sped up the process with his younger, natural speller, brother. There weren’t many he couldn’t spell off the bat, but it helped me find the ones he couldn’t, faster.

Edited December 3, 2020 by drjuliadc

[PeterPan]

23 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

I guess his good memory is more auditory than visual.

Pudewa (of IEW) has a spelling program that goes this direction, doing all the spelling orally. Some people will also combine methods, having the dc visualize the word and spell it aloud backward. If your dc is having trouble visualizing, then that's actually concerning. When we had my dd's developmental vision tested at age (I forget, 10/11), she turned out to have the visual memory of a *2* year old! No WONDER she was having trouble with spelling!!

So I would make sure his eyes are in order, but that's super good that you've found a method that is working for him!

https://iew.com/help-support/blog/spelling-and-brain-method-instruction-makes-sense

 

[drjuliadc]

Thank you Peter Pan.  I took him to a behavioral Optometrist when he was three as a preemptive strike because his bio mom is dyslexic. The only thing he found was that he moves his head instead of just his eyes when he is tracking. I think this is because of a retained astnr reflex.  I haven’t checked him lately but he still had the reflex two years ago at age 7.  

He lost his Moro reflex at some point. Moro and astnr were the only two he had retained when I got him at 22 months. In spite of knowing how to remediate them, I didn’t do as much as I should have.  He is very active in gymnastics, swimming and ninjas. The Moro probably got remediated through those rather than my efforts. I also never did the exercises the optometrist gave me to disengage eye movements from head movements.

Spelling was the only real limitation he has had academically and that seems to be OK for now.  It might show up again as a problem later though.

Do you know if there is a specific retained reflex associated with mouthing? He still puts way too many things in his mouth at age 9.

Also, what other problems would you see with someone who has a bad visual memory? His memory in general seems superhuman. It could just seem that way since mine isn’t good.

Edited December 4, 2020 by drjuliadc

[Shoeless]

20 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Pudewa (of IEW) has a spelling program that goes this direction, doing all the spelling orally. Some people will also combine methods, having the dc visualize the word and spell it aloud backward. If your dc is having trouble visualizing, then that's actually concerning. When we had my dd's developmental vision tested at age (I forget, 10/11), she turned out to have the visual memory of a *2* year old! No WONDER she was having trouble with spelling!!

So I would make sure his eyes are in order, but that's super good that you've found a method that is working for him!

https://iew.com/help-support/blog/spelling-and-brain-method-instruction-makes-sense

 

I was about to say " @drjuliadc's method sounds a bit like Phonetic Zoo", lol.

[goldenecho]

Even though my kiddo is not generally an auditory learner*, practising this way with flash cards seems to help him too (only he writes down the words as we practice usually).   Also, I work in old words in future lessons occasionally to review.   I think part of it is he's not COPYING when he does this, but thinking about how to spell it.   When he "writes a word 3 times" I think he can start just copying letters without thinking about how the letters interact. 

We also sometimes fingerspell the words since he's learning sign language.


 

Edited December 5, 2020 by goldenecho
added something

[PeterPan]

On 12/4/2020 at 1:51 PM, drjuliadc said:

Thank you Peter Pan.  I took him to a behavioral Optometrist when he was three as a preemptive strike because his bio mom is dyslexic. The only thing he found was that he moves his head instead of just his eyes when he is tracking. I think this is because of a retained astnr reflex.  I haven’t checked him lately but he still had the reflex two years ago at age 7.  

He lost his Moro reflex at some point. Moro and astnr were the only two he had retained when I got him at 22 months. In spite of knowing how to remediate them, I didn’t do as much as I should have.  He is very active in gymnastics, swimming and ninjas. The Moro probably got remediated through those rather than my efforts. I also never did the exercises the optometrist gave me to disengage eye movements from head movements.

Spelling was the only real limitation he has had academically and that seems to be OK for now.  It might show up again as a problem later though.

Do you know if there is a specific retained reflex associated with mouthing? He still puts way too many things in his mouth at age 9.

Also, what other problems would you see with someone who has a bad visual memory? His memory in general seems superhuman. It could just seem that way since mine isn’t good.

Uh yeah, he still has retained reflexes. The mouthing is, well the name of the site is evading me right now. There's your normal list, and then there are more rare ones to deal with. So obviously you need to start with the biggees. No, getting his eyes checked at 3 does not mean he's good to go at 9, lol. So I would get his reflexes integrated. Take 1-3 months, get them all done. THEN go to the developmental optometrist and start that discussion. At our place that would mean starting with a normal annual visit and asking them to *screen* for the developmental stuff. If anything shows up on the screening, then pay for the full long eval. 

Once you've made traction on those reflexes, I'd probably start bringing in some visual processing work, just because you can. Some kids' issues really do improve as you get the reflexes integrated. Not everyone ends up needing VT. My ds has significantly more issues but has had a BOATLOAD of OT and his vision has been stellar. All except his visual motor integration. That's in the tank and the OTs here suck at it and the optometrists want the OTs to do it, go figure. So nuts with that, I'll do that myself too.

So after you go through the normal lists, I think the chewing and oral issues were *hands* iirc. Maybe also cheeks. But try hands. Maybe I'll remember the site with the list I was using. Brain blip, sorry. It's whatever link I share all the time over on LC. You can use a soft brush and stroke his cheeks and his hands. The hands thing is the reflex because it connects to nursing, hence the mouthing. How is he with brushing his teeth? And how is his writing?

https://www.brmtusa.com/what-are-reflexes  Here it is. Scroll down for a list. We used successfully (via a PT) the methods from Pyramid of Potential for most of the reflexes. However things that remained I just was winging it. This guy's list has some and that's where I found about the hands and the mouthing.

Remember, 45 days of constant effort and you're gonna win on reflexes. So you start now and by the end of January you're in a new place. 

[PeterPan]

On 12/4/2020 at 1:51 PM, drjuliadc said:

his bio mom is dyslexic.

And you understand that dyslexia is *not* a vision problem but a phonological processing problem, right? So if he's crunchy, that's a separate, additional issue. Dyslexia certainly is genetic, so you were right to be concerned. And checking eyes at 3 is great, but you have to keep doing it, lol. 

Given everything you've described, I'm assuming enough more is going on that he needs an OT eval. Is there more going on? It's just something to think through. Again, not a rush thing. Do the work yourself if you want. Not like OTs are so universally awesome. But sometimes when the goal is to get the ball rolling, hold US accountable, get US on track, getting some evals is how you get that done.

Once you get into my snowflake learns this way, you're really dealing with making excuses for something not working right. Just saying. I did it with my dd, being totally wowed by her strengths. It just delays you in dealing with the mess that is brewing. It's fine to teach him where he is, but you want the whole toolset for learning.