dd (4) doing well at reading but spells how she talks?

[familyfun]

they do RWI at school so all phonics based and reading is going excellant but she spells how she speaks and as we are in the black country its not good.
eg. cum and joyn us.
gowing
sownd
tuthpayst
is this normal to spell like this to start with?

[mousymouseprice]

normal
she is only little and will learn in her own time!

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

It is normal. It it how they learn.

We were advised to ensure we are careful with pronunciation to help her.

[lyinginbed]

surely it's pretty good she's trying to spell at all at four!

[learnandsay]

There's a deal of intelligence about that. If we had a local accent I'd make light of this. (In a way we do have that in that our family is bilingual) And what we say is that the English do it this was and the Germans do it that way. So our daughter is perfectly comfortable with multiple ways of doing the same thing.

But the basic principle of getting children to sound out words and spell them is precisely what we're all trying to do. So I personally wouldn't discourage her.

[familyfun]

im not discouraging her and i let her spell it herself in her homework as then ht teachers can see how she is trying to use phonics but obvioulsy getting the sounds wrong. when she does spellings she gets them right, like if they are concentrating on air words she spells them all air, like pair, lair etc but then later she writes per for pair so it hasnt sunk in.
i presume the more she sees words written she will see they are spelled differernt to how they sound.
the teacher did say the accent hinders spelling.

[ShowOfHands]

4yo dd does this too though she has no accent. She wrote 'strayt' the other day and when I pointed it out she asked if it should be 'igh' instead so the 'rules' are there, it just takes time. She also wrote a birthday card to Uncle Mathyoo the other day. It's fine I think.

[Bramshott]

Very normal. DD1 (9) still does a lot of this

[familyfun]

thanks for reassurance i wondered if perhaps her reading was too far ahead of her spelling and needed more help but if its normal im happy.

[IndigoBell]

Her spelling isn't normal - it's above where it should be for a 4 year old.

[FourThousandHoles]

my dd spells like that at 7, although she's better now than she was 6 months ago

she has plenty of time to learn the rules

being able to even attempt to write words like toothpaste at 4 is well above the norm ime

no need to worry, her spelling will straighten itself out in time

[miaowmix]

do you really say 'tuthpaste'?
Seriously, she sounds really intelligent. I am impressed that she's attempting to spell out long words like that. I wouldn't worry at all.

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

Strayt is perfectly reasonable because based on the phonic knowledge she will have this is 100% correct.

It takes more time to get which version if the long a sound is needed (ai, ay or a_e).

My Dd spelt Scotland 'scotoond' last week because she insists it is pronounced 'scotlund' - which it is when dtd1 does her scottish accent. Oo is an acceptable way of writing 'u' as in book etc...so fits her pronunciation....even tho that was flawed itself

[CoffeeGoneColdAgain]

Dd is 5 (just)(reception) and has just moved to level 3 of Oxford reading tree, her 'tricky words' this week are the sounds oo ee ear air ain and er. Her reading astounds me, I never realised how muich she has actually learnt already, her last book was Doctor Duck, and there were some quite tricky words in there eg quick/quack chopping/hopping etc.

She really enjoys writing lists, names etc and is also sounding out to do the harder words, for instance this morning she wrote my name, dp name, brothers name all correct and then the cat... Persee (Percy). Woody was spelt Wuby and Buzz was Bus!

I honestly think at 4years old what she is writing is quite remarkable and so long as you show her in a way she understands she will soon pick up the correct spellings.

[soandsosmummy]

Perfectly normal.

I have a friend who specialises in teaching PGCE students to teach children to read and when I mentioned DD had a similar problem she said it was good as she was making attempts that were "phonetically plausible" and the actual spellings would come with time.

[mrsbaffled]

My 7.5 year old doesn't spell that well! She's doing great!

[GobHoblin]

Out of interest i just asked my daughter who is 4 how she would write toothpaste, she said, T O O F P A S T!
I'd say your daughter is doing brilliantly :o)

[ShowOfHands]

I just asked dd (4.8) and she said T O O T H P A S T E. Followed by 'I see it written down twice a day after all'. Good point, well made.

[Tgger]

Hee hee! My son has just started writing all sorts of things, but as you say he writes phonetically. It's the only way they know and as others have said I think it's impressive they are trying at this stage (Reception). Just to compare my son wrote a "to do" list which had on it

"Wosh Mr Ien's socs" (wash Mr Ian (his Dad)'s socks
"Invt a msheen" (invent a machine)
kleen up
bedtim

[Haberdashery]

My DD also writes completely phonetically (she's just over five and in Reception). Her teachers say she is doing really well and is on track to be well above her targets for reading and writing for her year group. I think your daughter sounds like she's doing great. My DD's teacher just said to tell her the 'grown up spelling' of anything she asks about if she seems receptive to that and let her work it out herself in time, explaining the bits that seem confusing (so explaining that you can write oi or oy or whatever and it can still make the same sound).

Today she wrote a shopping list as part of a game we were playing which featured:

pokorn (popcorn)
tois (toys)
swees (sweets)
sireel (cereal)
keeweey froot (kiwi fruit)

I love it! I think it's really interesting to see how things sound to her.

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

They are supposed to write phonetically.

That is one of the perfectly normal stages of learning to write.

What is important though is that they are pronouncing as 'properly' as they can (and that others around them are pronouncing properly) so that they correctly hear all of the sounds to help them spell phonetically - and I know that accents can make this difficult.

Without meaning this to sound picky - it is not intended this way (especially for a reception child)....from the above list tois and keeyweey froot would be considered perfectly acceptable spellings for these as all the sounds are represented phonetically even if they are not accurate spellings for an adult. Swees and pokorn would potentially highlight poor pronounciation as it suggests that the middle p in popcorn is not pronounced and that the t in sweets is not pronounced or heard. Does that make sense?

Anyway....bottom line.....spelling not expected to be perfect at this age, but punctuation helps this massively.

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

[SoundsWrite]

It is 'normal' Familyfun, if your child is being taught phonics and I'd be absolutely delighted to see any child of this age writing words in the way you've described.
I saw a child in YR some time ago who had written (in the context of writing about a pet) 'My uncl Stevn but him for me.' [My uncle Steven bought him for me.]
What your daughter's writing demonstrates very well indeed is that she is listening to what she hears and then representing all the sounds. The fact that, at this stage, she isn't using all the accepted spellings for those sounds doesn't matter much. All of this will be fine-tuned as she progresses - as long as the teaching is good. She'll learn that in the word 'join' we spell the /oy/ , and in the word 'sound', we spell the /ow/ . Unlike many other European languages, it takes time to become a really good speller in English because there are so many different ways to spell sounds.
And, by the way, a 'Black Country' (by which I take to mean West Bromwich/Wolverhampton area) accent is just as good as any other!

[Haberdashery]

Yes, swees and pokorn clearly don't get all the sounds, but that is probably what she hears a lot of the time in the local accent so I'm not too worried. I make a point of sounding things clearly for her if she's writing at home and thinking about how to spell something but don't tend to give her the real spelling until she's had a go herself (not in a 'you got it wrong' way, just in a 'well, this is interesting because there are lots of ways to spell this sound'). I'm sure she'll get it in her own time. After all, two or three months ago she wouldn't have had much of an idea how to spell any of those words, bar the first letter probably. She spells pretty accurately a lot of the time. She wrote 'the royal queen and king' and 'i will see sum birds on sunday' earlier with no help at all.

[familyfun]

thanks, its really interesting to read all these and good to hear she is supposed to learn this way.
her homework spellings this week are blow, show,snow, found,sound, and last week it was care,dare, repair,share so each week she is learning the different sounds and how they are spelled. words she sees regularly she spells from memory its just when she thinks herself how to spell them they are spelled wrong.
i try and say things clearly but she hears wrong pronunciation and wrong grammar a lot cos of the area, like "we was going" which she writes "we waz gowing".

[familyfun]

she reads on the read write inc scheme which not many people seem to use, they read every day at school but not much written yet i dont think