Spelling for the kid who didn’t learn phonics

[Ting Tang]

My son is a good reader. He never learned phonics in public school. We started homeschooling in 3rd grade with Abeka, which is the year after phonics instruction stops. Now we use a mixture of curriculums, and he’s been using Rod & Staff spelling by sound and structure. So he’s getting some help with phonics and rules there. He doesn’t write enough yet, but he’s still not a great speller, not the worst, either. I think Rod & Staff almost confuses him, though he gets through it. I don’t think he’s absorbing all the rules it teaches, even when he scores well on tests. I briefly attempted the CM dictation method for spelling last year, but I became afraid it wouldn’t work. I hardly face it any time. I’m thinking of using Spelling Wisdom from Simply Charlotte Mason next year and trying that method again, with some help. Do you think giving up Rod & Staff is too risky in this situation? Or is it worth the chance?  Time is limited, and I think using both would be too much for us. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Ting Tang

[mathmarm]

Personally, we love SbSS and have used it for each of our kids.

We teach SbSS 2-6 directly from the Teachers Guide, use a regular notebook and whiteboard and I swear by the program and gush on it often. However, my kids have learned phonics and handwriting prior to starting it. So SbSS does reinforce and flesh out their phonics skills--it especially helped them with spelling more complex words. I love and use the Drills and practices in the TG for 2 and 3, even with the later levels.

Which level of SbSS did you begin using? Do you use the Teachers Guide? Do you directly teach the course to him and guide him through the lessons, or is he using the Student Workbook just as a series of work sheets?

[Ellie]

Phonics and spelling are not the same thing; good reading skills have nothing to do with good spelling skills. 🙂

Spelling by Sound and Structure is good in many ways, although I prefer the 4th grade level and up, skipping the first two levels. I think you can't go wrong by sticking with it, because of the things it teaches in addition to specific spelling (such as dictionary skills). Just be sure to have him do all of the exercises in each lesson, and make corrections as necessary. Beginning with 6th grade, I believe, each book is a hardcover textbook instead of a workbook, so your ds will be writing everything on actual paper, and that's a good thing.

I wouldn't do both SSS and something from another publisher. Pick one.

[Ting Tang]

Thank you both! We started with the 4th grade book for my oldest, and I use the teacher guide and point out the rules/sounds. But he is mostly independent. I just think sometimes his success with it is limited to the lessons themselves, and it does seem to take him time to do it. I do think it is a good program, but I think it works better with a phonics background. Maybe using the hardcover book will go better? I was just wondering if the CM method might work well for him because he is very much a visual learner. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Ting Tang

[8filltheheart]

I agree with Ellie,  Phonics rules for reading and phonics rules for spelling are not equivalent.  Phonics rules are excellent for decoding a very high percentage of English words (words like colonel are exceptions when it comes to decoding).  Phonics rules for decoding, however, are helpful but in a limited way. For example, knowing that ough makes 6 sounds (ow, o, ew, ugh uff, off) means you can use those sounds to try to decode a new word.....say cough.  But, knowing how to spell cough means that you have to know how it isn't spelled when you can think of other options that make the same sound.  (Why fruit, not froot (bc hey, plants have roots!)?) 

If you want a program that teaches all phonics rules and has spiraled dictation, you might want to look at How to Teach Spelling.  Of all the spelling programs I have tried over the yrs, it is my favorite for non-dyslexics.

[LauraClark]

7 hours ago, Ting Tang said:

Time is limited

Just offering some encouragement: I was feeling a bit panicked about ds9 and his spelling, but my husband reminded me that he is a terrible speller and has managed to be successful anyway. That was good for me to keep in perspective. I'll be following this conversation for ideas for my child 😉

[HomeAgain]

My oldest had a rough time with spelling rules.  We tried a lot, but ultimately it came down to learning in chunks.

Youngest ds had success with Reading & Spelling Through Literature.  We kept it low key - 10 words a day in a set pattern: 

1. I read the word
2. He repeats it, breaks it out by syllable
3. I sound out the first syllable and he writes it.
4. I give him the necessary rules and he marks it.
5. Repeat for other syllables.

By book 3, he had intuited many of the rules that were being taught and doing exactly what I wanted him to do with an unfamiliar word: stop, think about it, break it out, and analyze it. And yes, we did all 4 books at a later age than intended.

His spelling took a leap between 5th and 6th, about when logic age begins and he was able to juggle rules more.

[forty-two]

12 hours ago, Ting Tang said:

My son is a good reader. He never learned phonics in public school....I think Rod & Staff almost confuses him, though he gets through it. I don’t think he’s absorbing all the rules it teaches, even when he scores well on tests.

I don't really see the disconnect/distance between phonics for reading and phonics for spelling that others are (though phonetic spelling is definitely a harder skill than phonetic reading; improved spelling generally improves reading, but the reverse isn't necessarily the case), but that might be because I think of phonetic reading/spelling as working through words by sound, versus by sight, instead of the nitty-gritty of using "the rules".  In any case, I definitely used phonetic spelling instruction to remediate weaknesses in phonetic reading instruction and ability (significant weaknesses, in our case); my oldest exited phonics-only reading instruction as a pure, though fluent, sight reader <sigh>. 

Given your ds learned to read without phonics, my first thought is to wonder if he's reading phonetically or not, especially with what you say about R&S "almost confusing him" (my sight reader was beyond confused with R&S) - working through words phonetically might not be his default.  I'd rec having him try to read nonsense words - "words" that are phonetically regular but aren't actual words - because, not having seen or heard them before, he'll be forced to use his phonics skills alone to read them.  One of the posters here, ElizabethB, has put together a lot of phonics resources, including a list of nonsense words: http://donpotter.net/pdf/blend-phonics-nonsense.pdf .

My kids all had/have dyslexia-like problems (and I use dyslexic approaches to remediate them), but I don't think it's too odd for some kids to need both formal spelling instruction (a la R&S) and a decent amount of structured practice in context (a la dictation).  Dictation doesn't have to add more than 10-15m, and you don't have to do it every day - seems like it wouldn't be a huge deal to continue R&S while adding in a bit of dictation practice-in-context. 

[8filltheheart]

12 minutes ago, forty-two said:

I don't really see the disconnect/distance between phonics for reading and phonics for spelling that others are (.... but that might be because I think of phonetic reading/spelling as working through words by sound, versus by sight, instead of the nitty-gritty of using "the rules".  In any case, I definitely used phonetic spelling instruction to remediate weaknesses in phonetic reading instruction and ability (significant weaknesses, in our case);

Phonics rules definitely improve reading decoding. Most words can be decoded applying phonics rules. The reverse is not true unless you know how to spell the word. The correct phonogram has to have been imprinted onto their memory. Too many options exist that follow the rules. True, grew, through....thorough, burrow, hoe...you cannot just sound out the correct spelling even though you can decode to read. You have to know which option is correct. It is getting it imprinted that improves spelling for struggling spellers.

[forty-two]

1 minute ago, 8filltheheart said:

Phonics rules definitely improve reading decoding. Most words can be decoded applying phonics rules. The reverse is not true unless you know how to spell the word. The correct phonogram has to have been imprinted onto their memory. Too many options exist that follow the rules. True, grew, through....thorough, burrow, hoe...you cannot just sound out the correct spelling even though you can decode to read. You have to know which option is correct. It is getting it imprinted that improves spelling for struggling spellers.

Oh, I don't disagree that you can't escape the memory load.  But the ability to break a word into syllables and phonemes, and to know and apply the usual spellings for those phonemes (most common and most common alternate), really helps to reduce the memory load.  I mean, there are an annoying number of just-have-to-memorize-which-odd-vowel-spelling words.  But the vast majority of the letters in those words *are* regular.  Basic phonetic spelling ability and basic rules get you at least 70-80% of the way, which is absolutely not nothing.  At the very least, that 70-80% gets you more than close enough to look it up in a dictionary or for spell-checker to know what you meant, which is pretty important in daily life.  Not to mention, the *inability* to do those basic "break it down and apply common rules" spelling tasks makes it very hard to ever get spelling imprinted.  *Having* them may not be enough for perfect spelling, but their *lack* pretty much guarantees bad spelling.

[SilverMoon]

Megawords. It's aimed at older learners and isn't the typical "memorize this list and test on Friday." My kid who was also confused and simply not getting it with R&S has done well here. 

It's leveled, not graded. I'd start with level 1 and go at the kid's speed. 

[Ellie]

6 hours ago, forty-two said:

I don't really see the disconnect/distance between phonics for reading and phonics for spelling that others are (though phonetic spelling is definitely a harder skill than phonetic reading; improved spelling generally improves reading, but the reverse isn't necessarily the case), but that might be because I think of phonetic reading/spelling as working through words by sound, versus by sight, instead of the nitty-gritty of using "the rules".  In any case, I definitely used phonetic spelling instruction to remediate weaknesses in phonetic reading instruction and ability (significant weaknesses, in our case); my oldest exited phonics-only reading instruction as a pure, though fluent, sight reader <sigh>. 

Given your ds learned to read without phonics, my first thought is to wonder if he's reading phonetically or not, especially with what you say about R&S "almost confusing him" (my sight reader was beyond confused with R&S) - working through words phonetically might not be his default.  I'd rec having him try to read nonsense words - "words" that are phonetically regular but aren't actual words - because, not having seen or heard them before, he'll be forced to use his phonics skills alone to read them.  One of the posters here, ElizabethB, has put together a lot of phonics resources, including a list of nonsense words: http://donpotter.net/pdf/blend-phonics-nonsense.pdf .

My kids all had/have dyslexia-like problems (and I use dyslexic approaches to remediate them), but I don't think it's too odd for some kids to need both formal spelling instruction (a la R&S) and a decent amount of structured practice in context (a la dictation).  Dictation doesn't have to add more than 10-15m, and you don't have to do it every day - seems like it wouldn't be a huge deal to continue R&S while adding in a bit of dictation practice-in-context. 

There are millions of us who suffered through the public school, sight-reading "instruction" of the 50s--i.e., no phonics at all--who nevertheless are good at spelling.

I don't recommend R&S Publishers' materials for teaching dc to read, as they are very sight-reading oriented. Some of the spelling instruction makes me twitch, because I am a Spalding geek. But overall, Spelling by Sound and Structure is decent, even if it isn't Spalding. If the children do all of the assignments, they will use the spelling words in several different ways, which can help most children. Of the traditional spelling materials I have reviewed, SSS is my favorite, even with its minuses.

[Ting Tang]

2 hours ago, SilverMoon said:

Megawords. It's aimed at older learners and isn't the typical "memorize this list and test on Friday." My kid who was also confused and simply not getting it with R&S has done well here. 

It's leveled, not graded. I'd start with level 1 and go at the kid's speed. 

I've looked at this as a follow up to AAR for another. I didn't realize it could be in lieu of spelling, so I will look again. To be honest, we are all a little bored with the format of R&S, too.  Yep, I get bored with curriculums, too.  lol

Thank you!  This might be a good change of pace for my two older kids, actually.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Ting Tang

[Green Bean]

I was going to suggest MegaWords as well.

https://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/literacy/phonics-word-study/megawords-2nd-edition/about-the-program

 

Apples & Pears by Sound Foundations, a UK company, may also be worth looking into. It doesn't look anything like a traditional program at all. I think 8 has used it and might be willing to share her thoughts.

https://www.soundfoundations.co.uk/product-category/spelling-books/

 

Here's the link to the book 8 mentioned.

https://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/literacy/spelling/how-to-teach-spelling/about-the-program

 

R&S confused every one of my kids except my very oldest son (26 now) who worked through 2-8 as a 17 yr old copying all the rules into notebooks. It was the latter he says that finally made spelling click for him, not the exercises. I would drop it in favor of a different choice.

Also, you are not running out of time. He isn't graduating yet. Take it slow at his pace even if that pace doesn't look like an age peer. We are meeting our kids at their developmental pace.

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Green Bean