Can't SPELL. Is phonics to blame?????

[drosophila]

I was thought to read by phonics and I am a terrible speller. Are the two related. As a child I would have trouble spelling a word like 'cable' cos the end of the word sounds like 'bel'. I never had a mental image of the word so would rely on my phonics. Well several beatings later and much abuse my spelling is no better.

I wonder if phonics had anything to do with this or was I just born that way.

I was taught by phonics and I think it is the best option. I am glad they are reverting back. My spelling is great and never had a problem. It was maths that I couldn't grasp at all and am still terrified now!

maybe it was the way you were taught rather than the method used. Bad teachers can have a lot to answer for.

Thing is I am an avid reader but must not have good visual recall although my sense of direction is fantastic and I always visualise with finding my way about.

i think I am just locked into the notion that I am a poor speller and everyone is judging me making me paranoid and more like to cock things up.

What's ITA? I started at one primary school but was switched to another after a term as it was closer to home. Years later i found one of my work books from the first school where I first learned to read and it was complete nonsense, full of odd letters and characters I now have no memory of, I wonder if it was the same?

I'm a terrible speller as well.

I know so many avid readers - children and adults - who are awful spellers. They might see the same words over and over but still spell them with incorrect phonics. I know one adult who always has a book on the go and yet spells 'feel' as 'feal'. Why would that happen?? I guess memory is more complicated than we think, actually, and there must be a specific area of memory devoted to picking up on the complexities of language that some of just can't handle...!

blueshoes - we definitely learned to spell - we had a spelling test every week, I remember it in Junior school definitely

Catflap, just reading the latest posts, there must certainly be different types of memory. I can remember word spellings but clearly have no memory of childhood learning or sense of remembering direction

GDG - is that learning how to spell; or remembering how to spell.... I think there is a crucial difference, which is how many children succeed and many do not....

I was a very visual learner and spelling tests were easy for me - I saw a word and remembered how to spell it. I have a very photographic memory.

However, there have been a few words that have always troubled me because I just can't remember them for some silly reason - and silly words, like deodorant, towel, fluoride, liaison, weapon... and funnily enough, it has been my synthetic phonics learning that has finally helped with those ones - I had to carefully segment each one and thing very carefully as I typed then!

blueshoes The more I read/hear/see on the subject of the brain and memory, the more I realise there are hundreds of different types of memory. I have first had experience of a couple - I had a fit a few years back in my temporal lobes and have had long term memory issues ever since - OH keeps telling me about things I did a few years back that are a total blank to me. He keeps trying to blame that on my shorter term failings, but that's down to completely different reasons....!