come and give me you opinion on ds2's spelling please.....

[ingles2]

6 (7 in 2 months) yr 2, about to do SATS....
Dyscalculic but a free reader!

from SATS spelling practice sheet today

pleys = place
darns = dance
chirlroon = children
arnd = around
psabil = possible
worck = walk
moov = move

What do you think?

[LuLuMacGloo]

It looks vv like ds's spelling (7 in five months) but having said that we've just been told at parents evening that the school has 'some concerns' over ds's language work (I think they were flagging up dyslexia but when I suggested it the teacher backed off and said it was too early too say).

Sorry not to be more constructive but ds is my oldest and I don't have anything to compare his spelling to. Hopefully someone more informed will come along shortly (and I'll be watching with interest )

[ingles2]

thanks for that Lulu....
Where is everyone tonight? We need a teacher...

[seeker]

My dd's spelling was like this. She is still-at 12- not a brilliant speller ( recent examples are reasersh and knowlage!) but she is doing very well at a highly academic selective secondary school, so it hasn't held her back. Don't know if that's reassuring or not!

She is not dyslexic, by the way - she is just a rubb1sh speller! Interestingly, by the time she was in year 3 she always got 100% in spelling tests - it's using the words in context she can't do. Living proof that spelling tests are a waste of time and effort.

[kategarden]

Hmm - can't help, but was having similar questions myself. DD (yr 1, just 6) has absolutely no idea at all of how to start spelling things & writing at school seems to be mainly copying from 'word banks'.
Was wondering when they started teaching them to figure out how to spell. (She is in welsh medium school so it is all completely phonetic, and she can read fluently in English & pretty fluently in Welsh).
I guess it doesn't really matter, as presumably they will start to learn at some point, but she often wants to write things at home, and gets frustrated (as do I when I have to spell everything out). There seems to be so much time spent on reading, but surely writing is helpful too !

[robinpud]

ingles2- has your ds been learning those words or is that his first attempt at spelling?

Does the school have a formal approach to the teaching of spelling ie do they send spellings home each week? Do they follow one of the approved phonic schemes?

I'm not going to comment further until I have more info to go on!

[LuLuMacGloo]

Ingles - I've been topics for more information on this subject and have come across some of your other posts. We sound like we are in a very similar situation - not sure whether something is up or not but wanting to know so if there is something we can DO something!

From your other posts your ds sounds quite similar to mine. The spelling is almost identical, ds frequently gets muddled with b/d th/f p/q and reverses loads of his letters and numbers (don't think I've ever seen him write a '3' the right way around. He does fine in number work at the moment (but it did take him an age to get 1-10 in the right order even in reception...). Reading has been a huge struggle and it's only lately that the penny has started to drop for him. The teacher also seemed to think it was signficant that when he starts a new exercise book he automatically starts writing on the back page as opposed to the front page.

Sorry - I don't mean to hi-jack, I just wanted you to know you are not alone with your concerns. I'm a bit stumped regarding what to do next tbh. I don't want to make a mountain out of a mole-hill but if there is a mountain lurking behind the molehill then I want to know about it!

[cazzybabs]

I don't do Year 2 but I do teach Year 1. They are goof phonetic attempts. Possible is the only one that isn't right if you see what I mean.

teaching spellinf is tricky - you want them to write and use wonderful vocab which they are not is they worry abotu if they can spell a word or not. I would rather a child wrote my a page of fanastic writign than a child that writes 3 senteces asking me for every spelling.
I would look at them with him - talk abotu alternive spellings...oo is a way of making long o but so it the split digraph o-e. You have to know by the looking at the word and thinking is it right.

Also look for the little word in tbe big word..for example all - small

Sorry not to be more useful

[ingles2]

Robin,
difficult to describe really,...this is his first attempt at writing them but we have sounded out the words before. In fact if you give him a verbal spelling test you'd think he was a good speller. Have no idea what the school is doing...very little I think. He has never had a piece of homework. I've concentrated on reading using a mixture of jolly phonics and ORT and he's actually a great reader. I send him to a tutor once a week who is meant to concentrating on his numbers (appalling) but she's also been working on his poor writing (she blames the school btw) His predicted SATS are 3+ verbal 3 reading 2c Writing 1 Maths

[seeker]

My dd (mentioned earlier!) often reversed d and b even in year 3. Her secondary school is not particularly concerned about her spelling - but they do make her work with a dictionary beside her at all times, and they are doing a lot of work with the whole year on proof reading.

In my opinion it's more important to write and read fluently (particularly at the beginning) than to hold them up with spelling. Good phonetic attempts are fine - it shows that they are hearing the sounds and putting them in the right context. The rest will come.

[ingles2]

Lulu very glad to hear it's not just me whos (slightly) worrying...and I know exactly what you mean about mountain and molehill

[tortoiseSHELL]

I think it depends on how they're being taught - he seems to be using his phonics to spell them. Ds1 is Y2, 7 in June, and his spelling is pretty good - he would tend to get 80-90& of the spellings correct, using a mixture of learnt spellings and phonics, and just knowledge from reading.

Something that has MASSIVELY improved his writing recently is his love of 'writing books' - atm he wants to be an author and an actor, and we have stapled some blank pieces of paper together for him (about 6 sheets, so 12 sides), ruled 5 or 6 lines at the top of each sheet, and he has then written a 'book' with pictures on each page, and this has really motivated him. He has done a series of 'Sam saves...' books - Sam saves the seaside, Sam saves space etc, plus a football book and a Pirates of the Caribbean story. He also enjoyed keeping a diary over the holidays.

So in answer to your question, I think I would ask the teacher whether she/he was happy with his spelling and go from there.

[iloatheironing]

My dd (y6) has to write sentences containing the words she has to learn. I regularly have to look them up in a dictionary. Before Xmas (she is 10 btw ) one word she had was lascivious!! That was an interesting one to put in a sentence appropriate for a 10 year old. She always does ok in spelling now but was not so good in y2. I regularly used to say to her " well all the letters are there just not necessarily in the right order"!!

[ingles2]

I know and agree with what you're saying Seeker,.. and in fact his teacher at parents eve said ' his writing and spelling is somewhat unusual (!) but his ideas are so brilliant I just want him to get them down on paper...
That's fantastic,..but when is someone going to address his unusual writing and spelling? Isn't this just reinforcing bad practice to an extent? He's starting a new school in Sept at junior level and his writing is terrible,...isn't it going to be hard to correct the longer you leave it?

[neolara]

Your DS seems to have identified most of the correct sounds in the words, which is good. However, they are obviously spelt incorrectly. Sometimes kids don't know all the different ways to make different sounds (e.g. they may think that you can only make an "s" sound by using an "s", so when they write "dance", they write in in the way your DS did - "darns"). Also, he may not have a visual picture in his head yet of how the word looks, so that he is unable to look at the spelling and just know that it is not spelt correctly.

You can find grids on the internet that show all the different spellings that make the different sounds. Under the new system of Letters and Sounds being used to teach spelling and reading in schools, teachers should be explictly teaching children the different ways of making different sounds. Actually, not sure if that has only kicked in for Year 1 or not. A teacher on here should be able to fill you in about that.

Something like Look, Cover, Write, Check may help your child to learn their spellings. However, I wouldn't suggest just relying on this visual approach only. It should be done in combination with being encouraged to sound out the words, but also explicitly learning the different ways to spell different sounds.

Sorry, that was a bit rambling.

[robinpud]

Ok- a little more information. I think these are phonetically plausible attempts at these words and show that he has a good understanding of the basic phonemes but perhaps hasn't been taught the different graphemes in any sort of systematic way. I would also hazard a guess that as a confident reader, he is more likely to write imaginatively and not to be too worried about the correct spellings of the words he wants to use.
I have lots of children who would write like this; some who would spell them all correctly and some who wouldn't be able to make attempts as plausible as these.
Does he spot the inaccuracies in his own spellings?
I wouldn't jump to any conclusions just yet, but I would talk to the teacher about the way that they teach spelling and where she/he thinks your ds should go next and see if they are concerned about it. hth

[LuLuMacGloo]

ingles - it's a mutual 'big sigh of relief'.

[ingles2]

Thanks everyone...this makes me feel better. I have to confess to an "oh Sht sinking feeling when we did this today...he got 3 out of 20 correct,..need, for and person.
We are moving him (and his brother) in Sept as I said. the school(under special measures) hasn't been teaching any handwriting or spelling, hasn't had a head until recently and my ds's are together in a mixed yr2 and yr 3 class with a very high % of SEN and an inexperienced teacher. As you can imagine I've lost all faith in their education at the moment.

[tortoiseSHELL]

ingles, there is a school of thought that says not to correct spellings etc because in order to encourage the child to be creative in their writing, they shouldn't be hampered by spellings etc, and it can be discouraging to get a piece of work which is full of good ideas, only to be covered in red pen because of spelling.

However, it is all a question of balance - ds1's teacher does things like writing the word correctly, but with a nice comment - so when he used the word 'prarnse' for prance, she wrote 'lovely use of the word prance' with a smile. They also have spellings to learn each week - up to 20 words - often things they can use in their writing so one week it was 'First' 'Next' 'While' 'During' 'Finally' etc.

[harpomarx]

English spelling is a nightmare if you ask me - and I'm not sure that phonics doesn't confuse it sometimes. my dd (3.5) is trying to work out spelling in her head at the mo and asks me stuff like by going 'i,i,i,i, - what does ear start with?' and then i have to tell her 'e' which they say 'e' like in 'elephant' - can totally understand why they get in a mess, think your ds is doing a pretty good job under the circs!

[ingles2]

tortoiseshell. a bit of balance sounds good
we've never had a spelling home from school, for either of the ds's. ds1 spelling is not much cop either

[christywhisty]

Your son is probably a bit young but my DS 12 is awful at spelling (is most likely dyslexic)
but had a lot of help in primary with spelling.
The first scheme they used with him was Wordwall and later on they used Stareway to Spelling.
He used to do okay in spelling tests but that was because the test were based on a sound so one week they would all be "ough" words etc He is intelligent enough to realise that and get most of the right.

He is also much better at spelling when he is saying them out loud, but not so good when he gets them down on paper.

He is on the Special Needs register at secondary school but in the top set and doing very well. He does most of his work now on computer, although the spell checker doesn't pick up all his mistakes like todays one was
alaplensis for appliances.
My favorite is "afisherly" for officially