Looking for suggestions for remedial phonics

[melmac]

Not so much for reading (although I'm sure it wouldn't do any harm :)), but mainly for my struggling 5th grade speller. We're using Sequential Spelling and it is helping a lot. I just would like to review the phonics because I think it would help, as well. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. It doesn't have to be specifically for remediation, even just a full phonics program that would work well would be fine. Thanks! :)

[Amber in AUS]

Try The Phonics Page google for the site. It is ElizabethB from here's site and she has free phonics lessons specifically for remediation using Websters Speller. The lessons are web based and excellent. She also had a lot of good info there. I am sure she will be along to give you her link and more info.

[Aurelia]

All About Spelling does phonics and spelling. You might also try http://www.donpotter.net.

[melmac]

Thank you both. :)

 

 

Does anyone know if ETC or PP or Abeka Handbook for Reading would work? I already own them. I really don't want to use something that will take a long time, I'd like to use something that could be a quick review and give me the chance to work with ds on anything that hasn't clicked this far.

 

I'm going to google the site mentioned above and check it out. Thanks again. :)

Edited April 16, 2009 by melmac

[melmac]

Wow, I'm amazed with the Phonics Page. What a great site. :)

[HiddenJewel]

Spell to Write and Read

 

or

 

The Writing Road to Reading

Edited April 16, 2009 by HiddenJewel

[Ellie]

See, I don't think remedial *phonics* will help improve *spelling*.

 

You could use something like Spalding or SWR, which will improve spelling *and* reading skills simultaneously (children learn to read by learning to spell).

[melmac]

My son is an excellent reader, but he struggles with spelling. We used ETC when he was younger learning to read and SWO shortly therafter up until about a year ago because it just wasn't working for him, then we tried other spelling programs and have decided to stick with SS.

 

So, I feel we really do need to work on the mechanics for spelling, and I think a review of phonics, this time concentrating on it for spelling rather than for learning to read would be helpful to him.

 

Something I could just pick up whenever he has trouble with a word from his spelling list and go over the phonics and rules with him would be nice. I'm not looking to spend another two to three years of actually doing phonics again. And I did mention that it wouldn't do any harm for his reading skills as well in my OP, but he really is an excellent reader, so that's not a concern, the spelling is.

 

 

See, I don't think remedial *phonics* will help improve *spelling*.

 

You could use something like Spalding or SWR, which will improve spelling *and* reading skills simultaneously (children learn to read by learning to spell).

Edited April 16, 2009 by melmac

[calandalsmom]

We did AAS levels one and two this year. My 11 yo has benefitted.

[Amber in AUS]

I think if you have him watch the lessons on The Phonics Page you might start to see a difference. They are free, so you have nothing to loose.

 

If ETC didn't/hasn't worked I would think he wont benefit much from a review of that. He may need something more systematic and rules based. All ABout Spelling would cover those bases too.

[mktyler]

My 10 y dd has really struggled with spelling and so I ditched all the curriculums and have gone to only dictation. It has done wonders. We have tried list-style programs only to see 100% on the tests and error in her writing. Her confidence has dramatically increased as she has to write a paragraph each day. Here is the general idea:

 

I pick out passages of 2-4 sentences. She reads the passage several times and notes which words might be difficult for her. I am working through selections from Hilyer's A Child's History of the World. Here's an example:

 

The passage is:

At first, however, our world, or Earth, was nothing but a ball of rock. This ball of rock was wrapped around with steam, like a heavy fog. Then the steam turned to rain, and it rained on the world, until it had filled up the hollows and made enormously big puddles. These puddles were the oceans. The dry places were bare rock.

 

First day: She reads the passage several times. She copies the passage. Then I dictate it to her. She misses these words: however, wrapped, heavy, hollows, enormously, puddles. We talk about the words: however is a combination of how and ever, wrapped (double the consonant when adding past tense -ed, I chose not to teach her about "short" and "long" so omitted discussing it at this time), -ous of enormously means "full of" so the word means full of enormity, etc.

She studies the words. I have her underline the spellings for each sound: wrapped would be wr a pp ed. She says the sounds as she writes. I have her write the words 5-10 times. Then she copies the passage, including all the corrected spelling words. This takes 4 tries. (She's a tough, lovable, brilliant, nut to crack!)

Second day: Dictate the passage. She misses: wrapped, hollows, enormously. Study again. Copy again. Oh, she can now say the passage verbatim.

Third day: She starts throwing in some omission errors: tured for turned, seam for steam, etc. and misses enormously. We talk about ways to remember enormously and she decides to read it as /e-nor-mouse-ly/as she studies the word. Studies words. Copies. Require her to reread her writings by sound then word rather than by word alone (I know that doesn't make much sense, but it sounds like /a/ /t/ /at/ /f/ /ir/ /s/ /t/ /first/ /ou/ /r/ /our/ . . . she hates it but she catches her letter omissions that way)

Fourth day: Gets it right. Now I am going to through her for a loop and have her write some sentences with the words she missed over the week. Misses hollows as "hollowes." We talk about adding -s for plurals (again).

Fifth day: Dictation and sentences. Gets them right.

Add another passage next week. I throw some old passages in on occasion for review.

 

This actually gets her learning more words than the list method, which at most I was doing 20 words a week. Some words she just has to go over and over and others she learns more quickly. I can see that this is working much better because her general writing is improving. She is also wanting to write more, I think because she is feeling more confident. She has to write so much now that it feels natural.

 

The list method worked as far as a spelling test went but would never seem to cross over into her writing. With the dictation method, it is, because she is practicing what she needs to be doing: writing words in context.

 

The benefits of this method are:

 

1) The words are learned in a meaningful context. Meaning and spelling are linked.

 

2) It is efficient. It eliminates the work that is not producing effect (lists and tests) and has them practicing the skills spelling is meant for (using the words in context).

 

3) Its free!

 

4) It focuses effort on the words the child does not know. Patterns and rules can be addressed as they come up, in a word specific way. For example, my daughter had the word 'edition' to work on and she missed the spelling of 'tion'. We talked about the meaning of the word-part 'tion' in which it changes a verb to a noun, connecting it to the word 'edit'. The /t/ sound of the word 'edit' helps remind her that the /sh/ sound in 'edition' is spelled with a 'ti'. If you don't feel confident with breaking words down yourself, a rule based spelling program used as a supplement would work. Just use the rule parts, not the spelling list parts. Keep track of the rules in a notebook and then you can refer to them as you work through words.

 

5) Frequently needed words are written over and over and over and over because they are in all the passages.

 

Melissa

Reading Program Junkie

dd(10) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

[melmac]

ETC did work great for learning to read, which is what we used it for. We've never used it for spelling, as we didn't start spelling until we had finished ETC. I can't afford AAS and he is doing well with Sequential Spelling so far. I think we may use the videos on The Phonics Page and see how that goes. Thanks for your help. :)

 

I think if you have him watch the lessons on The Phonics Page you might start to see a difference. They are free, so you have nothing to loose.

 

If ETC didn't/hasn't worked I would think he wont benefit much from a review of that. He may need something more systematic and rules based. All ABout Spelling would cover those bases too.

[melmac]

That sounds like it's working well for you all. The premise is similar to Sequential Spelling, we do 25 words per day, lots of review and learning to spell the words rather than memorizing. I need to add in the phonics like you're doing. Do you have a phonics resource to recommend? Thanks! :)

 

My 10 y dd has really struggled with spelling and so I ditched all the curriculums and have gone to only dictation. It has done wonders. We have tried list-style programs only to see 100% on the tests and error in her writing. Her confidence has dramatically increased as she has to write a paragraph each day. Here is the general idea:

 

I pick out passages of 2-4 sentences. She reads the passage several times and notes which words might be difficult for her. I am working through selections from Hilyer's A Child's History of the World. Here's an example:

 

The passage is:

At first, however, our world, or Earth, was nothing but a ball of rock. This ball of rock was wrapped around with steam, like a heavy fog. Then the steam turned to rain, and it rained on the world, until it had filled up the hollows and made enormously big puddles. These puddles were the oceans. The dry places were bare rock.

 

First day: She reads the passage several times. She copies the passage. Then I dictate it to her. She misses these words: however, wrapped, heavy, hollows, enormously, puddles. We talk about the words: however is a combination of how and ever, wrapped (double the consonant when adding past tense -ed, I chose not to teach her about "short" and "long" so omitted discussing it at this time), -ous of enormously means "full of" so the word means full of enormity, etc.

She studies the words. I have her underline the spellings for each sound: wrapped would be wr a pp ed. She says the sounds as she writes. I have her write the words 5-10 times. Then she copies the passage, including all the corrected spelling words. This takes 4 tries. (She's a tough, lovable, brilliant, nut to crack!)

Second day: Dictate the passage. She misses: wrapped, hollows, enormously. Study again. Copy again. Oh, she can now say the passage verbatim.

Third day: She starts throwing in some omission errors: tured for turned, seam for steam, etc. and misses enormously. We talk about ways to remember enormously and she decides to read it as /e-nor-mouse-ly/as she studies the word. Studies words. Copies. Require her to reread her writings by sound then word rather than by word alone (I know that doesn't make much sense, but it sounds like /a/ /t/ /at/ /f/ /ir/ /s/ /t/ /first/ /ou/ /r/ /our/ . . . she hates it but she catches her letter omissions that way)

Fourth day: Gets it right. Now I am going to through her for a loop and have her write some sentences with the words she missed over the week. Misses hollows as "hollowes." We talk about adding -s for plurals (again).

Fifth day: Dictation and sentences. Gets them right.

Add another passage next week. I throw some old passages in on occasion for review.

 

This actually gets her learning more words than the list method, which at most I was doing 20 words a week. Some words she just has to go over and over and others she learns more quickly. I can see that this is working much better because her general writing is improving. She is also wanting to write more, I think because she is feeling more confident. She has to write so much now that it feels natural.

 

The list method worked as far as a spelling test went but would never seem to cross over into her writing. With the dictation method, it is, because she is practicing what she needs to be doing: writing words in context.

 

The benefits of this method are:

 

1) The words are learned in a meaningful context. Meaning and spelling are linked.

 

2) It is efficient. It eliminates the work that is not producing effect (lists and tests) and has them practicing the skills spelling is meant for (using the words in context).

 

3) Its free!

 

4) It focuses effort on the words the child does not know. Patterns and rules can be addressed as they come up, in a word specific way. For example, my daughter had the word 'edition' to work on and she missed the spelling of 'tion'. We talked about the meaning of the word-part 'tion' in which it changes a verb to a noun, connecting it to the word 'edit'. The /t/ sound of the word 'edit' helps remind her that the /sh/ sound in 'edition' is spelled with a 'ti'. If you don't feel confident with breaking words down yourself, a rule based spelling program used as a supplement would work. Just use the rule parts, not the spelling list parts. Keep track of the rules in a notebook and then you can refer to them as you work through words.

 

5) Frequently needed words are written over and over and over and over because they are in all the passages.

 

Melissa

Reading Program Junkie

dd(10) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

[rafiki]

.

[ElizabethB]

Wow, I'm amazed with the Phonics Page. What a great site. :)

 

Thank You!

 

My spelling improved after learning phonics (I only got a bit of phonics in K, then Dick and Jane in 1st grade.) I was a good reader, but a poor speller, until I was in my 20's. Then, after tutoring with phonics and learning the sound/spelling correspondences and all the phonetic spelling rules, I became a pretty good speller. The spelling movies have most of the rules, and the phonics lessons have the same rules as the spelling lessons, they just move at a slower pace than the spelling lessons.

 

The Pollard Books and a new great find from Don Potter also have a lot of rules (free from Google books.) Pollard is about 3/4 of the way down, and the other book is at the end, the 2nd to the last book, it's called "The Spelling-Book Consisting of Word in Columns and Sentences for Oral and Written Exercises Together with Prefixes, Affixes, and Important Roots from the Greek and Latin Languages" by William D. Swan (1854)

 

http://www.donpotter.net/education_pages/spelling_books.html

 

I link to Pollard as well, and also have a link to her teacher's Manual, it's linked from my page as well as Don's page, here's my link of good free and cheap phonics and spelling books:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/phonicsandspelli.html

[mominbc]

We tried almost every spelling program out there for my dd when she was in grade 5 and had a difficult time spelling(but was fine with reading). We started with All About Spelling in level (which went fast) and continued through and it has helped so much. On top of that having her do lots of writing and copying, its all about practice. These are what helped us.

[mktyler]

There are roughly 4 levels of spelling understanding in English: Phonetic which addresses the sound-spelling correspondences ('et' spells the sound /ae/ in ballet, beret, buffet, cachet, crochet, bouquet, etc.); Changes, which addresses how word spelling changes when the word changes form(story to stories); Patterns (or rules) which try to address which spellings are used in a certain letter environment (the spelling 'ck' is never at the beginning of the word, usually at the end following a short vowel, and sometimes in the middle); and Morphemic (or meaning) which addresses prefixes, suffixes, and roots. I'll give you resources for each.

 

Phonics

Here is a phonics manual from the turn of the century (found using donpotter.net) which has really nice word lists divided by spelling patterns.

http://books.google.com/books?id=nBcKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA111&dq=phonics%20man&lr=&as_brr=1#PPA47,M1"

 

Changes

Here's some nice site addressing word changes:

 

http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/susan.htm

 

http://www.davidappleyard.com/english/spelling.htm

 

Patterns or Rules

This one is not my favorite as so often the rules are so complicated as to be useless to the young child (If this and this then this except when this or this, etc.). These rules are often only applicable in a fraction of the words, so I don't tend to emphasize this aspect. However, if you are so inclined, Wiley Blevin's book Phonics A to Z s has a list of rules and the percentages for how well they work, which will allow you to decide which ones you want to use.

 

Morphemic

The Program Vocabulary Through Morphemes from Sopris West teaches the spelling of commom morphemes from the meaning side. Other resources:

 

http://efl.htmlplanet.com/morphemes.htm

 

http://www.affixes.org/index.html

 

Some might add a fifth category etymology (word history), however that is probably not necessary at this point.

 

Because so much of English spelling is not based on the sounds but on the meaning or the etymology of the words, it can be difficult for some kids to internalize spelling independent from context. This has been true for my daughter. Adding a dictation component is important for ensuring the spellings really are learned.

 

Melissa

Minnesota

Reading Program Junkie

dd(10) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

[melmac]

No, thank you. :)

 

Thanks so much for responding. I think you *get* what I'm talking about. I appreciate your help and all the work you've put into your site. What a blessing.

 

I can't wait to start using this with my son. He's such a great reader, but struggles with spelling. We just started Sequential Spelling a few weeks ago and it is helping a lot, so that gave me hope that this child *can* learn to spell. I think the addition of your site and resource links may be the perfect combination.

 

Thanks again. :grouphug:

 

 

Thank You!

 

My spelling improved after learning phonics (I only got a bit of phonics in K, then Dick and Jane in 1st grade.) I was a good reader, but a poor speller, until I was in my 20's. Then, after tutoring with phonics and learning the sound/spelling correspondences and all the phonetic spelling rules, I became a pretty good speller. The spelling movies have most of the rules, and the phonics lessons have the same rules as the spelling lessons, they just move at a slower pace than the spelling lessons.

 

The Pollard Books and a new great find from Don Potter also have a lot of rules (free from Google books.) Pollard is about 3/4 of the way down, and the other book is at the end, the 2nd to the last book, it's called "The Spelling-Book Consisting of Word in Columns and Sentences for Oral and Written Exercises Together with Prefixes, Affixes, and Important Roots from the Greek and Latin Languages" by William D. Swan (1854)

 

http://www.donpotter.net/education_pages/spelling_books.html

 

I link to Pollard as well, and also have a link to her teacher's Manual, it's linked from my page as well as Don's page, here's my link of good free and cheap phonics and spelling books:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/phonicsandspelli.html