Question about correcting a dyslexic child's work

[Cadmum]

Dd1 (nearly 10) has just started to willingly write long and articulate 'essays'. I have really struggled with her request to correct the spelling mistakes so that she can write a good copy.

I could write a novel about her struggles but basically I am very proud of her for being willing to express herself in writing because she finds spelling very challenging.

Her latest work is a write up about the circulatory system. It is a total of 156 words and is broken into 4 paragraphs.
With the exception of one sentence which does not begin with a capital letter, the punctuation is correct but the spelling is another issue altogether. 84 of the words are spelled incorrectly and I cannot guess what 2 of those words are.

It was written without a book for reference and the facts are also correct and clearly articulated (if you can battle through the spelling).

It is her desire to have it corrected so that she can have a good copy in her biology notebook.

Prior to Friday's attempt at writing, we have generally done the work together in one of two ways:

1. She records what she would like to write into my MP3 player and then asks me how to spell the words as she listens to her recount

1. or we work on it together with the books open to use as a guide.

She decided that she wanted to do this write-up on her own because I was busy with her younger siblings and she wanted to go outside to play.

Sorry for the novel but I am happy to answer any more questions if I have left out anything important.

Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks cat...

She is well aware of how pleased I am with the content and the work rate because I nearly fell off my chair when she handed me her paper.

I hadn't thought about correcting only some of the more common words. Suggestion much appreciated!

I am afraid of spoiling the moment by pointing out the errors but equally worried that if she copies the mistakes into her notebook that she is reinforcing the errors and that she is bound to find out eventually that I didn't actually correct all of the mistakes.

She generally prefers to start with a draft. In this case she wants to do a good copy of her work in her notebook. (I suppose in part because she is aware that it is full of spelling irregularities.) She plans to add a few illustrations as well.

Interestingly, she has managed to spell the words she finds most challenging (such as the, they, when) correctly in this piece of work.

Her keyboarding skills are coming along and she loves to use spell check. Thankfully, she also has beautiful handwriting and doesn't seem to mind writing but she wants it all to be correct.

She also uses a brilliant synthetic phonics spelling program (Apples and Pears) BUT and this is a big but the lessons learned in the book seldom translate into her everyday work. This was true in school where she had a weekly spelling test and would easily get 10/10 but then proceed to spell them all incorrectly in other work.

I don't feel at all criticiced and very much appreciate your advice!

Cadmum, if you scroll down on this page you'll find a synthetic phonics version of 'look, cover, write and check'; Word Puzzle sheets. She might find this a more interesting and memorable way of learning her spellings:

www.aowm73.dsl.pipex.com/dyslexics/spelling.htm

Thanks maverick.

I will have a closer look at the link this evening.