Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Education

Join the discussion on our Education forum.

Very perplexed by DC8’s spelling — how to help?

20 replies

Ippagoggy · 29/07/2024 11:19

DC8 (just finished Y3) was brought up bilingual (English + another language) and just before 7th birthday moved to a UK state school.

First year in the UK school was a struggle as, although spoken English and vocabulary were great, there was a lot of catching up due to differences in schooling systems.

Now reading and maths are at the standard. Spelling however remains a huge issue. We try to do a bit most days (eg Carol Vordeman’s spelling books) but this seems to be getting us nowhere. DC8 will do well on the exercise and essentially forget it the week after. Also aces all weekly spelling tests at school as they see them as a memory exercise only. However in their written work, these are the kinds of spelling mistakes DC8 makes :

gril (girl)
gurl (girl)
boi (boy)
Saturdai (Saturday)
glod (gold)
stic (stick)
mysteious (mysterious)
replide (replied)
cooiek (cookie!)

The bizarre thing is that DC8’s reading is actually pretty good and if I force them to reread (carefully) what they have read they can often spot that it’s wrong but struggles to fix it.

The spelling errors strike me as so egregious — almost as if they think the orders of the letters don’t matter in some cases. I feel like something really foundational is missing.

I’ve brought this up a couple of times with form teacher who keeps telling me not to worry and that it will get better. Maybe it will, but wondered if any parents or teachers out there might have advice on what I can do to help DC8.

I doubt DC8 is neurodiverse. Concentrates well (eg on maths, puzzles, reading), no behavioural issues, fairly social.

OP posts:
Timeisnevertimeatall · 29/07/2024 11:25

There appears to be an element of specific literacy difficulty (dyslexic traits) alongside incomplete phonic knowledge. He would benefit from robust phonics practice in the first instance to ensure gaps there are addressed - this may or may not be the answer (phonics are not always, although it's heretic for a teacher to say so...) but once that has been covered, it will make it easier to see what the actual areas of need are.

LottieMary · 29/07/2024 11:28

Do any of those spellings reflect phonics of the other language?

as pp said, some dyslexic traits but at that age I’d say reading is key - as much as possible and as advanced as possible. Anecdotally I see a lot of y7s (so older) coming in with favourite reading books I think are way below their age/supposed ability. Primaries do a great job of pushing books but the kids need to have as much as possible.

TheSquareMile · 29/07/2024 11:36

@Ippagoggy

Which language is spoken at home, OP?

Ippagoggy · 29/07/2024 11:51

TheSquareMile · 29/07/2024 11:36

@Ippagoggy

Which language is spoken at home, OP?

One of the Scandinavian languages and English.

However the differences in schooling are such that DC8 barely knew how to read and write at age 7. At age 7, DC8 had familiarity with some of the alphabet and basic spellings such as “cat” (their home country’s school system was v much based on play until age 7 with formal reading and writing started at 7).

So I believe @Timeisnevertimeatall who mentioned incomplete mastery of phonics is likely onto something — everything has been a game of catch up for DC8 since moving and possibly hasn’t had the time to let the material really sink in. I think I will go out and buy some phonics cards!

OP posts:
DailyEnergyCrisis · 29/07/2024 11:58

DC who is 8 has dyslexia though is at average reading age and above average IQ and exceptional verbal reasoning for her age (formally assessed). Her spelling is similar to the examples you’ve given.
Otherwise you wouldn’t suspect neurodivergency at all with dc- she’s very mature, socially aware and no behavioural issues. I think this is one of the many misconceptions about neurodiversity.

Octavia64 · 29/07/2024 12:03

Those are what are called "phonetically plausible" spellings.

In the U.K. as kids learn phonics they try to spell out words that they know using the phonics they do know;

That looks like the kind of systematic errors a child in maybe year 1 would make? They are trying to use phonics but haven't learnt the subtleties.

I'd say that they have basic phonics (letter make sounds, combinations of two letters, but are missing intermediate phonics - maybe level 3 upwards?). Been a while since I taught phonics so the names of the stages might have changed.

Lemonsallday · 29/07/2024 12:08

My daughter is bilingual and began English reading and writing in year 3. Her other language is Welsh which has some phonetics the same as English and others different. Her English reading is now average but her spelling still isn’t. her spellings often mix English phonics with Welsh. So for example she would spell boy as boi too and Saturday would be something like Satyday. Stick would also be stic and reptile would probably be reptail.

what she doesn’t do is mix up the order so it does make sense phonetically for her (if you know welsh. If you don’t know welsh you’re buggered 😆). The fact that your ds mixes up the order a lot suggests possible dyslexia to me. Or like others have said he hasn’t got that grounding of phonic awareness.

BobbyBiscuits · 29/07/2024 12:13

Things like mysterious and replied. I would say those words are tricky for an 8 yo, and she's clearly doing the latter phonetically. The former she's not that far off. The confusion between y and I might be to do with the other language she speaks? I would say my spelling was no worse than that at 8 and I was considered quite smart, lol. Not now obviously.

TheSquareMile · 29/07/2024 12:24

@Ippagoggy

I wonder whether there might be something to gain from trying out some of the books especially written for bilingual children which are stocked by Foyles, OP.

I have a degree in Modern Languages and spend a lot of time browsing language catalogues!

These are just examples, but the specialist bookseller at Foyles will advise.

https://www.foyles.co.uk/book/i-love-winter-english-swedish-bilingual-childrens-book/shelley-admont/9781525940095

https://www.foyles.co.uk/book/i-love-autumn-english-danish-bilingual-book-for-kids/shelley-admont/9781525927683

https://www.foyles.co.uk/book/the-wheels-the-friendship-race-norwegian-english-bilingual-kids-book/inna-nusinsky/9781525993725

Raindropsonrosesand · 29/07/2024 21:12

I'd also say to be on the lookout for dyslexia.

A bright child with dyslexia may find adaptive strategies which mean that their reading comprehension is at a good level, but they'll be putting huge amounts of effort into it, and will still struggle in specific areas.

Look out for misspelling the same (not difficult) word in various different ways in the same text, continuing to misspell common words which he sees often, difficulty deciphering unknown words, and missing out small non-visual words like 'a', 'the', 'is' when reading aloud.

It's worth getting a diagnosis as early as you can if he does have it. Interventions really help, and undiagnosed dyslexia is hard on their self-esteem.

Ippagoggy · 30/07/2024 03:15

Thanks @DailyEnergyCrisis and @Raindropsonrosesand — will bear this in mind. I think you’re right in that I have a lack of understanding about neurodivergence. I somewhat assumed there would be other signs.

But some of what @Raindropsonrosesand pointed out definitely holds.

DC8 will spell the same word in the space of 1 sentence in two different ways. “The cat went to the market and then whent to the dentist.”

Not only that, they will frequently forget words (I assumed carelessness) mid sentence. For example “He to the shop” (missing the word went). Or certain sounds will be missing from a word: “whe is the cat?” For (where is the cat). However, when I force them to edit and review their work, they will often pick up on these types of error, so wasn’t sure how “significant” this was.

I also notice that with reading, I think there is a lot of picking things up from context or trying to connect it to word they already know. So perhaps their reading is actually not as strong as it appears.

So I’ve tried to do some exercises where I just give them words to read with no context at all, just lists of words to really try and focus on sounding out. This has limited success. For example, if they are given the word “Spain”, this might be read as “Spanish” and I have to remind them to slow down and read what is on the page rather than guessing and inventing letters that don’t exist.

OP posts:
Willowkins · 30/07/2024 03:47

Just to rule out dysgraphia (like dyslexia but for writing), maybe try the spelling exercises using a laptop instead.

Raindropsonrosesand · 30/07/2024 06:18

There are some big red flags there, including struggling with single words rather than in context. Guessing is very much part of the dyslexic strategy for reading. For a bright child, it's surprisingly effective! They don't seem to even realise they're doing it: it's just what they do when they read.

The even more telling thing will be if you show him a list of phonetically plausible but made up words, and see how he gets on with those (like 'temat', 'slig', 'gorol'). Do tell him they're made up!

One of the tests they do in a dyslexia assessment is time how quickly they read a list of made up words versus real words. For a child who can read phonetically, it isn't too big a challenge. But a child who relies heavily on memorised 'pictures' of whole words (another dyslexic strategy) will slow right down and struggle.

Dyslexia doesn't necessarily come with behavioural problems or difficulty concentrating. A child who has ASD or ADD does have a higher probability of also having dyslexia, but dyslexia can absolutely stand alone. In fact, you may find a dyslexic child has learned to focus and concentrate really hard because they have to! A fidget toy is the one thing I'd suggest trying. Difficulty with organisation does seem to be part of dyslexia though. You might not see it at his age yet, but when he starts needing to organise his school books and take the right things to different classes it can cause stress and might need some support.

Some people (including Richard Branson, who is very positive about his dyslexia) suggest that creativity and 'out-of-the-box' thinking is often a strength of the dyslexic brain. That does seem true for us - although hard to know whether it's confirmation bias! Dyslexia is certainly completely independent of intelligence, and exists across the bell curve.

Dyslexia does bring very real challenges, but early diagnosis and intervention will really help. I can't emphasise enough that you shouldn't just 'wait and see'. It doesn't really matter what the cause is: whether the change of language has aggravated the difficulty, or whether that challenge is actually hiding an intrinsic difficulty. The same interventions and strategies will work, and hopefully also prevent the emotional harm which often comes from undiagnosed dyslexia.

There are some free dyslexia screeners, including one from Nessy (https://www.nessy.com/en-us/dyslexia-explained/testing-and-screening/free-dyslexia-pre-screener-ages-5-7) which might be worth trying. But I have known friends whose child passed the screener but were later diagnosed as dyslexic, so I wouldn't take it as gospel. (We didn't do the screener: it was a teacher who realised, but later than ideal)

Speak to your child's teacher. They've seen their written and spoken work (dyslexia is defined as difficulty with reading/writing which doesn't reflect underlying ability - which you would see in their spoken work) and also has lots of other children to compare with. But be aware that even experienced teachers can miss dyslexia, especially in a bright child who creates their own techniques to cope. Meeting expectations for reading comprehension absolutely doesn't rule out dyslexia. The difficulties may still be there - just worked around by your incredible child through enormous effort - and will manifest in various ways at different times!

The bar for the school to recommend an assessment on the NHS is very high. A private assessment is about £500, which you might consider. The assessor will want to speak to your child's teacher, so you should still be working with the school even if you pay yourself.

If not, the school should still put in place reading interventions regardless of diagnosis. But it does help to have the diagnosis. It gives you more leverage to ask for whatever it is they specifically need - like permission to use a kindle with dyslexic font instead of a book. Later, it will give them more time in tests, which will allow them to actually get their knowledge down. (imagine having to do all your exams - in all subjects - with 20% less time than the exam was designed for, and which everyone else does get. That's what an undiagnosed dyslexic is doing.)

PinkPlantCase · 30/07/2024 06:37

They are still very new to learning to spell by the sound of things so it may well get better with time without there being anything else going on.

However what you have said is very much in line with my own spelling difficulties and I have dyslexia. Even as an adult half the time I don’t really know what individual letters are in words if you asked me to spell them out aloud. My brain works by understanding the shape of words, when I write by hand words will look close enough as I get the overall shape right. I would also often spell the same word wrong in lots of different ways in the same piece of writing.

Tbh it’s pretty great that they can learn the words well enough to pass the spelling tests.

A lot of quite basic spelling didn’t click for me until university where I had 3 years of 1:1 essay help with a tutor for dyslexia.

It hasn’t particularly held me back. I did very well academically, went to grammar school for sixth form, mostly As at GCSE, As and As at Alevel. I have an undergrad and masters degree and am a chartered in my profession. I just have to get my co workers to proof read important emails from time to time.

DailyEnergyCrisis · 30/07/2024 08:26

Raindropsonrosesand · 30/07/2024 06:18

There are some big red flags there, including struggling with single words rather than in context. Guessing is very much part of the dyslexic strategy for reading. For a bright child, it's surprisingly effective! They don't seem to even realise they're doing it: it's just what they do when they read.

The even more telling thing will be if you show him a list of phonetically plausible but made up words, and see how he gets on with those (like 'temat', 'slig', 'gorol'). Do tell him they're made up!

One of the tests they do in a dyslexia assessment is time how quickly they read a list of made up words versus real words. For a child who can read phonetically, it isn't too big a challenge. But a child who relies heavily on memorised 'pictures' of whole words (another dyslexic strategy) will slow right down and struggle.

Dyslexia doesn't necessarily come with behavioural problems or difficulty concentrating. A child who has ASD or ADD does have a higher probability of also having dyslexia, but dyslexia can absolutely stand alone. In fact, you may find a dyslexic child has learned to focus and concentrate really hard because they have to! A fidget toy is the one thing I'd suggest trying. Difficulty with organisation does seem to be part of dyslexia though. You might not see it at his age yet, but when he starts needing to organise his school books and take the right things to different classes it can cause stress and might need some support.

Some people (including Richard Branson, who is very positive about his dyslexia) suggest that creativity and 'out-of-the-box' thinking is often a strength of the dyslexic brain. That does seem true for us - although hard to know whether it's confirmation bias! Dyslexia is certainly completely independent of intelligence, and exists across the bell curve.

Dyslexia does bring very real challenges, but early diagnosis and intervention will really help. I can't emphasise enough that you shouldn't just 'wait and see'. It doesn't really matter what the cause is: whether the change of language has aggravated the difficulty, or whether that challenge is actually hiding an intrinsic difficulty. The same interventions and strategies will work, and hopefully also prevent the emotional harm which often comes from undiagnosed dyslexia.

There are some free dyslexia screeners, including one from Nessy (https://www.nessy.com/en-us/dyslexia-explained/testing-and-screening/free-dyslexia-pre-screener-ages-5-7) which might be worth trying. But I have known friends whose child passed the screener but were later diagnosed as dyslexic, so I wouldn't take it as gospel. (We didn't do the screener: it was a teacher who realised, but later than ideal)

Speak to your child's teacher. They've seen their written and spoken work (dyslexia is defined as difficulty with reading/writing which doesn't reflect underlying ability - which you would see in their spoken work) and also has lots of other children to compare with. But be aware that even experienced teachers can miss dyslexia, especially in a bright child who creates their own techniques to cope. Meeting expectations for reading comprehension absolutely doesn't rule out dyslexia. The difficulties may still be there - just worked around by your incredible child through enormous effort - and will manifest in various ways at different times!

The bar for the school to recommend an assessment on the NHS is very high. A private assessment is about £500, which you might consider. The assessor will want to speak to your child's teacher, so you should still be working with the school even if you pay yourself.

If not, the school should still put in place reading interventions regardless of diagnosis. But it does help to have the diagnosis. It gives you more leverage to ask for whatever it is they specifically need - like permission to use a kindle with dyslexic font instead of a book. Later, it will give them more time in tests, which will allow them to actually get their knowledge down. (imagine having to do all your exams - in all subjects - with 20% less time than the exam was designed for, and which everyone else does get. That's what an undiagnosed dyslexic is doing.)

Edited

This excellent post describes my dyslexic daughter to a tee.
Bright, mature, observant, emotionally intelligent, good reader (hadn’t realised she’s possibly guessing), poor spelling (similar to Ops post), poor working memory, creative- particularly in 3D and with dance/gymnastics, disorganised, absolutely zero sense of direction to the extent she amuses herself with it. No issues at all with concentration or behaviour but “over concentrates” to mask so needs breaks and fidget toys.

Raindropsonrosesand · 30/07/2024 08:35

That's fantastic that it hasn't held you back, @PinkPlantCase . It's definitely a difference with advantages as well as difficulties. I understand that dyslexics are over-represented in top-level engineering, and also as entrepreneurs. And can do anything, of course!

Just thinking about diagnosis, OP: the assessor did labour the point that the difficulties were persistent despite educational opportunities and interventions.

I do think that you've described red flags for dyslexia regardless of language change, but I think the language change may complicate formal diagnosis. I'd ask for your child to be included in reading interventions at school - so that you can show that history. And go all-out finding phonics resources to do at home now. There's loads out there: reading eggs, Nessie, Toe by Toe, Fast Forward, the word wasp, stare way to spelling, apples and pears. And do some reading onto techniques which help dyslexics, like visual learning and sensory-motor (eg drawing a picture of how a word is spelt, or making it in playdoh).

If you still suspect difficulties in a year or so, it will be more obvious that it's truly dyslexia - and by doing dyslexia-friendly learning at home (which helps all children, not only dyslexics) you'll have done the things that help in the meantime.

ArnieCh · 30/07/2024 14:48

My son's spelling was similarly random. He was very articulate, but didn't read until he was 7, then all of a sudden read fluently. He was diagnosed as dyslexic aged 9. Your son sounds similar in some ways, so dyslexia could be a thing for him too. Personally, I wouldn't get too hung up on phonics - my DS never got the hang of them and his primary school constantly pushing them (they were trying to help!) just made him feel stupid. If your DS is struggling with something big up other things. Never make him feel dim over spellings - I don't mean tell him it doesn't matter, but try to turn it into a game if you can and find methods that work for him. Definitely try and find out if he is dyslexic. It really helped my son to know why some things were harder for him and it helped us to help him. With bright kids who are broadly hitting targets, a lot of teachers will fob you off. If your DS is dyslexic, celebrate it and keep him positive. We always told DS that it's harder for him to do well, but dyslexia makes him more interesting. He's ended up with great grades and is at a top Uni. The key thing is their confidence though.

ArnieCh · 30/07/2024 14:56

ps: ask your son what happens when he looks at text. ie, do the words blur or move? We'd had my son's eyes tested and he has 20:20 vision, but he couldn't copy his weekly spellings off the white board to learn. He said he wrote a couple of letters, looked back and the word had gone. If things do move for your son, don't go to a normal optometrist - no point as they don't have the right equipment. We found a specialist optometrist who gave ours a coloured tint to look through and that stopped the words moving/ blurring. You don't have to be dyslexic to be affected. My son wore tinted glasses to correct it. He hadn't said anything as he thought it was the same for everyone and I hadn't clocked it as I hadn't a clue it could happen - imagine trying to read if the words keep moving though - poor kid, it made it nigh on impossible!

Raindropsonrosesand · 01/08/2024 14:01

Text doesn't always move for dyslexics.

But tinted sheets could be worth trying since they seem to help some children. The evidence isn't very strong - it might be just reduced visual stress with lower contrast - but there's nothing to lose! Overlays don't cost much, so buy a range of colours and ask your child to try reading with them and tell you whether any of them help. (You can use them for craft afterwards!)

https://www.thedyslexiashop.co.uk/collections/coloured-overlays

In the end, it's up to the child to decide which support actually helps them. DD did have a measurable difference with one of the colours (in the dyslexia assessment, they time how quickly the child reads with each colour) but she finds overlays awkward so doesn't use them.

If a particular colour helps, you can also get writing paper in that colour. But a lot of work at school is on printed outs, so not sure it helps much.

https://www.thedyslexiashop.co.uk/collections/exercise-books

None of these things will 'cure' the dyslexia, but small improvements can add up to help.

Getting the books which they were reading in class on Kindle and setting it to dyslexia font did make a big difference to DD. That's a more expensive thing to try though (unless you already have a Kindle). DD's school were fine with her bringing in a Kindle, although it might be harder without a diagnosis.

OhCrumbsWhereNow · 02/08/2024 14:25

These look very much like my DD's spellings.

She's severely dyslexic and ADHD, and didn't learn to read until she was 7. She's extremely high scoring in VR and NVR and extremely low on working memory.

Teaching her to touch type and using a laptop for everything has made a massive difference, and despite still being unable to spell other than phonetically or semi-phonetically she's still on track for top grades in English Lang & Lit next year.

I would recommend getting an Ed Psych report to find out exactly where the weaknesses are.

ETA: My DD still won't read unless she has to as it's not enjoyable, so we use a lot of films, plays etc for vocabulary. Audio books are also good (but she won't use them). Her mind works in weird ways, which has meant she'll probably end up with some very odd GCSE results, but is particularly able in music so will be going off to focus on that post 16.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread