Let’s talk about spelling...

[Penny_P]

In a nutshell: My 9 year old daughter used Spaulding at her charter for several years with little success for spelling. She would spell things according to the Spaulding phonogram rules, but it wouldn’t be spelled correctly.  An eval at ps revealed IQ of about 107 and lowish, but passing, levels r/t her age/grade level. She did not get an LD diagnosis. This is her 2nd year homeschooling. She currently has vision therapy twice a week, where she has sort of plateaued. (I initially saw an improvement in spelling and reversals.) We are in the 2nd level of Apples and Pears. 
 

Concern: She doesn’t seem to retain it most of the time, even during the same lesson, despite the repetition. I’ve used some of Spelling Success’s Barton games to lightly reinforce basic Barton rules, but they don’t translate into her actual work.

I had wanted to avoid the fiddliness of AAS with all the tiles, and I find the actual Barton program a bit overwhelming and confusing. Is there an open and go alternative? Or do I keep chugging away with AandP? We have only been doing half a lesson due to fatigue. Barton tutors are $$$. We had one briefly through Outschool but there wasn’t much rapport or retention with weekly lessons. 

[Rosie_0801]

When I used Apples and Pears, I had dd finger spell most of it to cut down on the writing, but still retain a kinaesthetic element.

[kbutton]

Some kids are more visual spellers. If you think she might be one, I have some suggestions.

Spaulding is a solid program, and I would not want to undermine her sense of that.

My kids were more visual spellers (as am I even though I internalized phonics rules). One of my kids is dyslexic, and the other is not. Anyway, we used Sequential Spelling. I will note that the first book, IIRC, was the hardest because it's the book that has the most common English words, and those words tend to be harder to spell than more academic words that came from Latin. 

Anyway, it's pattern-based. We did it with handwriting, but as soon as my kids were proficient typists (not super fast, but able to type without tons of errors and bad habits), we switched to typing the lists. It shored up the motor patterns needed for good typing as well.

It's my understanding that you can color code words on a white board and things like that as you teach the patterns. I imagine you can analyze the word patterns with Spaulding. 

[PeterPan]

On 2/15/2022 at 9:58 PM, Penny_P said:

She did not get an LD diagnosis.

Did they do a CTOPP or another screening of phonological processing?

On 2/15/2022 at 9:58 PM, Penny_P said:

She currently has vision therapy twice a week, where she has sort of plateaued. (I initially saw an improvement in spelling and reversals.)

Have they retested her visual memory? 

If her visual memory is age appropriate, then you're assuming the spelling problems are either due to ADHD (which the school might not bother to diagnose) or phonological processing or both. ADHD will result in poor working memory, which affects the ability to get the information into long term memory. So you would get the ADHD diagnosed, start meds, and do things for working memory. 

Did she pass the Barton screening tool? It is NOT a phonological processing test but if she fails that it would be extremely concerning. The CTOPP is simple to administer and you might be able to find a reading tutor who has it who could run it for you. If her phonological processing is intact and the visual memory is age appropriate, then you're narrowing it down to the ADHD/working memory.

My dd was a pain in the butt for spelling, needing tons of work, and I was so so sure she was dyslexic. Well she's *very* ADHD and had some narrow bits of auditory processing issues. To screen for the APD, well that you'd be looking for an audiologist or an SLP who specializes in it. You can even find some *cross-trained* SLP/audiologists and that could be the bomb for this. Basically they need to own the tests to find the issue. 

As far as the actual teaching and getting it to stick, well obviously you fill in what is weak (auditory processing of language skills, phonological processing, working memory, visual memory). Then you do it lots of ways, working to whatever strength they have. With my dd I tried to do it multiple ways every day, making sure that she was *seeing* the words spelled correctly. So dictation (where I was giving her the correct phonograms so she only saw the word correctly), computer software, worksheets, did I mention dictation?, etc. Honestly we were working 45+ minutes a day (maybe more) on spelling up through about 7th grade. Improving visual memory helped a LOT. Using autocorrect and dictation software helps. Even dyslexics will say that, that autocorrect is actually instructive for them. So maybe trying working multiple ways.

Edited February 20, 2022 by PeterPan

[goldenecho]

You can do All About Spelling without the tiles if you want.  It does remove the multisensory aspect, but you can replace that with practice using ASL fingerspelling if that's not something you mind teaching.   My dyslexic son picked it up rather quickly (and we have been using that since he became un-enamored with the tiles.