Tips for dyslexic parents

[Teamslaterjones]

Thought the eve of the first day of school was bad enough but now I'm dreading tomorrow.....year 2 homework including spelling. Helping my little ones start to learn to read with phonics has been challenging enough but now I'm really dreading spelling. Have looked on the web for inspiration and will speak to the school but do any other dyslexic parents have any tips please?

I preempted this problem by getting myself a tutor for about 6/7 mths. I swear it has made so much difference to my confidence, she took me back to the beginning and drilled me in phonics and knowing every sound exactly helps so much with spelling. Lots of people add vowels onto the ends of letter sounds, like /b/ is just that but lots of people say /bu/ which does work when you try to blend it together. I also learned various spelling rules, two vowels out walking the first says its name, etc.

Another option would be to alert the teacher and ask if the school can do any classes for parents, believe me you won't be on your own.
As a child my mum who is naturally talented at spelling / English despaired with me. My Dad also dyslexic avoided helping with homework. I knew as a mum I would be the main carer so taking Dads avoid route wouldn't be an option for me!

My son is in Y3 and is dyslexic. I tried so many ways in Y1 and Y2 of helping him with his spellings - writing with his finger in neon on the i-pad, throwing and catching a beanbag to each other and chanting, giving him the letters to each word in red and blue magnets and getting him to put them in the right order, spot checks in the car, making up mnenomic stories. I don't know what we didn't do, but he consistently came home with zero out of 8 every week and it was soul destroying.

I made an appointment with the teacher, explained how much we were doing, asked for suggestions and when they didn't work, said I was no longer prepared to put so much effort into something that was clearly not working. Following advice from the educational psychologist, we focused on reading where we were seeing good progress having abandoned phonics and started doing tracking and duet reading of really interesting and challenging books instead.

Unfortunately he had to carry on doing the spelling tests and he carried on getting zero. Right at the end of the year his teacher admitted the spellings had been inappropriate for him. We are back to square one now in first year of juniors, battling with homework and spellings that feel like hoop jumping exercises rather than productive strategies to help a dyslexic child learn effectively.

From bitter experience I would say give the spellings a go, but be mindful they may be a huge waste of time and at worst potentially damaging to your child's confidence.