any tips on how to get my 7 yr old son better at spelling - he is hopeless!!!

[greedygreedyguzzler]

thats it really! he is shockingly bad at spelling!!!

he seems to remember most of the 'rules' of spelling and his basic phonics, but gets so so confused because he can't remember the exceptions to the rules (and there are so many!!) I was wondering if there are any good techniques to help him. My main technique at the moment is to shout at him! (not quite, but nearly sometimes because it's so frustrating!!)

any help appreciated

Does he read much? My dd's spelling has come on in leaps and bounds since she started reading a lot for pleasure.

give him time

he's probably still spelling phonetically

leave it a couple of years

Do the school correct spelling? DS1 aged 7 has started a different school this term. The spelling in his homework is corrected and he gets tested on 10 words a week. This has improved his spelling no end.

He does not yet read for pleasure. He prefers it when someone else does the reading

See if you could get him to have a good look in a library or bookshop and find something he really finds interesting. Reading Horrid Henry, Horrible Histories, Astrosaurs etc helped to improve my DS's spelling.

thanks everyone! he does read lots for pleasure, he loves the beast quest books, so is quite a good reader really. he just seems to struggle with remembering the actual spellings............i guess it will come with time..............i am feeling a lot more chilled out about it today!!

My son (now 9) is terrible at spelling. When he was in year 2 his teacher suggested he might be dyslexic as he was also slow to read. On her recommendation he was assessed by an Ed Psych, who determined that whilst not dyslexic, he had a specific learning difficulty with phonetic processing (manifested in his poor spelling). Since then his reading has really improved and he's now very good, but he still struggles with spelling out words and has a learning support session weekly for this. He can't read back what he's written because it isn't spelt correctly! It's probably not the same situation for OP's son, but maybe worth keeping an eye on.

I wouldn't worry too much at this stage - it will come. Spelling really is quite hard unless you are one of the lucky ones for whom it just seems to all "click". I teach year 3/4 and am more concerned to ensure the children are "hearing" the sounds in the words correctly - we use a posh voice when we are sounding out to ensure we can hear all the sounds int eh word.

I am also a very poor speller myself! Always have been! We introduced "Read Write Inc" as our school phonics programme and it is the first time that the spellings of English words has made sense. Seriously I actually had a "Oh my God that makes sense" moment when we had to go for the training! I have a massive chart with all the speed sounds on it up in my class for the children to refer to. On the chart all (most) the different spellings (graphemes) of the different sounds (such as -or) are grouped together, so if you can sound out a word correctly, you have a fighting chance of being able to work out the spelling. Some words can't be sounded out, like "said" but these are always flagged up and we call them "red" words.
Sorry gone on a bit there but I am a real fan!!