7 year old misspelling words

[Lindy2]

I was wondering what the teachers here thought of this. My just turned 7 year old has always found writing tricky but is showing steady improvement now.
She came home with a little story she had written for fun the other day - she writes a lot for fun which is great. For most of her reception year and some of year 1 she would do everything she could to avoid writing anything. All the way through though she wrote "she" as "sye". I asked her how to spell she and she spelt it correctly straight away. There were other common words misspelt too which she does also know how to spell when asked. The less common words she has to stop and think about she does much better with.
Personally I think her mind is racing ahead with her story and she makes silly mistakes. I give her lots of praise for her imagination and effort but do say she needs to slow down a little and just check she is getting the right letters in her words. I'm not sure how to help her correct this without putting her off writing. She does have extra writing support at school and she has improved a lot but I'd like to help her at home too. What she puts down on paper though doesn't really reflect what she can do. Interesting when she types she is much more accurate because she can't go very fast and has to search for each letter.

[PeterParkerSays]

I'm not a teacher but I'd just be encouraging her to write, irrelevant of those mistakes. To me, the sye may be an upside down h rather than a y iyswim so it's just a variation on a child putting letters the wrong way round.

Focus on her writing as a positive thing, and just ask how words are spelt if you read something but can't tell what it says.

[Lindy2]

Thank you. Yes I think the y is an upside down h. She used to get b and d the wrong way round a lot. She's got much better with that now though. She also sometimes gets th and sh muddled when writing.
I do give lots of encouragement. It is lovely to see my previous anti writing child doing stories for fun. Even if they do need a bit of decoding!

[Ferguson]

This is one of the best resources I know to help children:

An inexpensive and easy to use book, that can encourage children with reading, spelling and writing, and really help them to understand Phonics, is reviewed in the MN Book Reviews section. Just search ‘Phonics’ and my name.