Early Writing and Correcting Spelling???

[MrsSpoon]

My DS1 is 6.5 and in his second year at Primary School. He has started trying to write down the words he is forming in his head. His School follows the Jolly Phonics scheme, I notice in the little book the School sent home that his spelling should be corrected (with the theory that noticing mistakes isn't a failure but rather a good thing) but I'm not sure about this very early spelling as almost all the words are wrong, I think it would knock his confidence to have me correct them all.

He is spelling things exactly as they sound so "put" is "poot" etc, etc. His teacher hasn't commented when his homework has been handed back with all this weird and wonderful (and it is wonderful, I love it, tears rolling down my face reading it) spelling.

Should I be gently proding him about the spellings or should I leave things a bit longer until he gets more confidence and starts to realise himself that he is not spelling words correctly?

[gigglinggoblin]

i dont correct spellings in written work, he gets spelling lists which i correct but wouldnt want to stop the creative juices flowing by making him worry more about spelling than what he is writing

[ghosty]

What DS's teacher does is put a tick under each sound he got right ... and then right the correct spelling above the word to show him what is should be.
So for your DS he should be praised for using his sounds so well (P, tick ... OO, tick ... T, tick, "Well done Spoon Jr, you have really used your sounds well!" and then above it she should write "put" to show him how to spell it.

DS's teacher doesn't like us to talk about 'spelling' but rather wants to talk about 'sounds' ... so rather than, "How do you spell ... ?" we should say "How does it sound"

I am not very knowlegeable about jolly phonics (they have a different system in NZ but do use phonics) ... but to me it seems a bit odd that the teacher is teaching jolly phonics but is saying that you need to 'correct' spelling ...

I think Catflap is the expert on phonics here.

HTH

[ghosty]

doh ... look at my spelling!
I meant write in the first line, not right!

[MrsSpoon]

Thanks both of you, it's definately my instinct to leave his spelling alone.

Like the way your DS's teacher does it Ghosty, I don't know what they do in my DS1's School.

[Gomez]

MrsSpoon where about in Scotland are you? We had a meeting with DD1s teachers last week (she is in P1) and they said that you ise Jolly Phonics plus Oxford Reading Tree and I wasn't sure how they would work together as they seemed to contridict (sp?) each other as you describe.

[MrsSpoon]

Gomez, we are in Fife, funnily enough my DS1 came home last week with a book from another scheme, although can't remember if it was ORT and a worksheet, I think the book was called "The Lost Coat" (can you remember that one? ). The book was stamped with the name of a School that has closed recently and assumed it was a scheme that they used and DS1's School was making use of the books, thought he was maybe needing a bit extra as he is a bit slower with his reading/writing.

Running the two schemes together seems a bit strange and confusing, for the mothers if not the children!

[MrsSpoon]

Sorry Gomez, don't know why but thought you had said you were a teacher, don't suppose you will remember "The Lost Coat" then?

[MrsSpoon]

Must go to my bed, saw this thread on the top of "Active Convos" and thought, oh, I've got a thread like that running, what a coincidence.

This is my thread, doh! Must go to bed!

[LIZS]

There is a concept of "creative spelling", where it is thought more important to get them writing be it with incorrect spelling than to constantly correct. As long as the school supplement his own inaccuracies with spelling lists and perhaps gradually increase their expectations during the year so that they do start to make some corrections to his work it should be ok.

[yoyo]

If you look under Education there is a thread "Does anyone have a seven year old" which is about children who read well but find spelling tricky. You'll find your son is not alone in his spelling of words. Can't remember if anyone commented on correction though.

[MrsSpoon]

Brilliant, thanks will go and look for that thread.

[Wallace]

my ds is also in p2 and spells like that too! The funniest one recently was "frt" spells "thought" of course His teacher thinks he is brilliant the way he sounds out words, and as they gradually learn more sounds (eg ai, ou, etc), they will learn to spell.

[MrsSpoon]

Brilliant Wallace!

[nelly0706]

It's really good that your son is sounding out words in this way but I wouldn't leave it entirely as your son does need to know the spelling alternatives. I would suggest you tackle a few at a time by dictating words with the same sounds in, e.g. bun, fun, sun, but, hut; look, cook, hook, took etc. You will also need to point out that 'oo' can be used for the 'oo' sound as in moon, soon, balloon, etc (he will probably already know this if he has learned with Jolly Phonics). It is a matter of learning which spelling alternative to use and it just takes time. You could also dictate short sentences with these words in them and help him with the correct spelling, e.g. I left a bun in the sun; I am going to the moon very soon etc.

Don't do too much at once. I would suggest a couple of alternatives per night if you can, e.g. u/oo; ai/ay/ae; oa,oe etc.

[Gomez]

MrsSpoon - Yip 'The Lost Coat' is one of them little ORT blighters!

[coldtea]

Bump for catflap, she should be here soon!

[Catflap]

Hi there Mrs Spoon - the tricky thing with Jolly Phonics is, it isn't always used 'properly.' It follows a very sepcific philosophy with guaranteed success in 99% of cases, but used inaccurately, it can cause problems.

I don't know how your ds's school are doing it, but I will explain here how it should be done, so at least perhaps you should know what the intention is as far as the scheme and philosophy is.

Following JP, spellings are learnt for each of the 40+ sounds. Words are made from these sounds as they are learnt in groups of 6. In structured, directed work, children should only be expected to independently read words containing these sounds and letters covered.

However, the enabling part of this work is that in spelling, once the children have learnt a sound, they can then spell it, even if it is not the accurate spelling. There are a lot of spellings to learn, and it has to be done in stages. This is great because in the past, when children spent ages only learning sounds connected with single letters of the alphabet, common words like 'night' and 'party' couldn't be spelt properly with any knowlegde at all (unless the children were particularly capable and had spotted the spelling patterns from their wider reading.)

Once the first spellings have all been taught, children can write anything, albeit spelt very basically. However, this results in very important things: a child can communicate in writing anything they want and it can be read, and they are showing they understand and can use the sounds of our spoken words in sequence and choose spellings for them e.g. remember whether one or two letters are needed.

So, at this stage, they might be writing about caicks and things they liek and flouers and their tois, but it can all be read. These spellings should not be corrected, because of course no others are known but will be taught at the right time.

Once spelling alternatives have been taught and the children have the means to choose accurately which ones to use, then some can be corrected as a reminder of which spelling should have been chosen.

So, once the alternative for 'ai' has been taught as 'ay' for the end of words, if a child writes 'plai' then I would say - ooh, remember now, we know another spelling for the 'ai' sound, if the sound's at the end of a word - 'play' has 'ai' at the end, so which spelling would we use?' or something similar - indicating the display which should always be around either on the walls or in a book or on a sheet.

Regardless of the teaching method used, spellings should be corrected when appropriate. For example, if the focus and effort has been on a creative piece of writing, then attention should be paid to that, not on the spelling which may go to pot if all the concentration has been on another focus.It is hard for little ones to get their ideas down, when they have to use their imaginations, remember spellings, remember how to write the letters on the page all at once.

Generally, spellings can only be expected to be correct if the children are taught how to spell, and I don't mean by doing spelling tests. Spelling tests are often a huge memory test and there's a lot to remember with little knowlegde to support it.

If a child hs a consistent problem with spellings that you think they should know, think about how they are actually taught to recall all these sounds and spellings - do they have all the knowlegde and skills to understand why these spoken words are represented as so on the page?

Haven't got time to preview and check - any spelling errors are typos, honest!!

[yoyo]

You make it sound so simple Catflap and yet.. If schools were more transparent about how they teach instead of thinking parents cause confusion the problems regarding spelling might be so easily solved.

[Catflap]

It is scarily simple.

Unfortunately, politics is not so simple.

The reading debate is huge and very heated. You can follow it on many sites if you are interested; primarily on the Reading Reform Foundation website

[Nevada]

Catflap - if you're still around, question for you.

My dd (Yr2) has a problem with spelling - she can't seem to learn all the spellings in her list every week. She gets very upset when she doesn't get every (or even many) spellings right. Her reading level is very good, however. What's the best thing I can do to help her spelling? (Obviously I reassure her re the tests.)

[MrsSpoon]

Fantastic Catflap, that really helps.

If I understand correctly then at the moment he writes "poot" for put and I should leave him to that because he doesn't yet understand that the "u" in "put" makes an "oo" sound.

I do not want to discourage him from writing at all, this week he has started to write a diary which is great, this is something he has been working away at in his own time without us knowing. He has written all sorts, most of it untrue, fantasising about going to play snooker with his Dad, beating his Dad at snooker and drinking beer . I will try and get a hold of it (think he might have hidden it, he is only reading us excerpts) and have a good look at how well he is using the sounds.

I will have a good look round the website you linked to.

DS1's School offered a short induction course for parents when he first started, I went along but without having seen the books, homework, worksheets alot of it went straight over my head. Could do with a refresher course now that I know what they are talking about!

Thanks for the suggestion Nelly, I will give that a try with some of the sounds that he knows and see how we get on.

LOL Gomez, have you read that one? Cracking plot!

[Catflap]

Nevada - I'm sorry for your dd; it's a common problem. If you find the thread on here entitled Reading: does anyone have a 7 year old who can read... and it finishes 'really well but can't spell' there is a discussion there about good reading ability but poor spelling skills. It was last added to fairly recently so should be quite near the top. - I'll bump it for you.

Without any additional info, I would guess that she lacks the appropriate info to understand why the words are spelt like they are and is instead having to rely on memory of the words as a whole and that rarely works with most people who do not have adequate memory skills... Coupled with the competitive nature of tests these days...

The honest answer, as far as I believe, is to get her taught properly - she needs to know why the letters are there and have effective understanding of the alphabet code. This could mean buying some resources and having a go yourself...

or, at least helping her make sense of how the sounds and letters work within the words she needs to learn - it's hard to advise without any ore specific info but hopefully the other thread will give you some ideas.

It's late, but I wanted to get back to you briefly as you had asked - talk to me again if you want me to say more tomorrow.

[MrsSpoon]

Catflap/Nevada, I have found the thread, wanted to have a read of it anyway, and have bumped it.

[Nevada]

Thanks Catflap and MrsSpoon.

Sorry for hijacking your thread, MrsS.

[tatt]

as the children get older I think you'll find the most creative writers are those who didn't have too many spellings corrected too young. It does dishearten them unless you are very careful about handing out lashings of praise too.

I used to correct a few where I couldn't understand what they meant.