Improving Spelling - DS (age 5)

[figcake]

There have been a few threads on here about reception/yr 1 children spelling words in 'creative' ways such as plees for please.

My DS is 5 and does not seem to want to have a go at that. He is making steady progress with reading though we are finding spelling to be a drag. Either he learns and learns the word and finally knows how to spell it correctly, or he looks to me to help with the spelling. There is no middle ground. His writing is quite messy but I don't think that is related and he is forming most letters correctly so 'gets' that aspect of it. He is also pretty good on high freq words.

I am wondering whether I missed out a stage in teaching him involving lining up letter tiles to 'show' spellings in a more concrete way (I am the only serious teacher he has as both teachers have been rubbish at school and failed to even recognise where he is at ability-wise - however, I work P/T so I have been able to help and I have not made a big deal of it really as he is generally learning well at home).

I had no such issues with DD as it seems that she has always been a quick learner with a different kind of memory to DS.

Are there any IT progs out there or books I could buy to help me? He loves the reading and maths progs we have previously purchased.

I sometimes get DD1 (7) to do the Minibees challenges on the times spelling bee website. She quite enjoys it, but her spelling is still bad ("orinj" for example!) which is surprising because she reads well and voraciously!

I am hoping it will sort itself out given time . . .

It isn't creative spelling it is spelling words using the knowledge the child has at that point. If a child has been taught "ee" represents the long vowel sound /e/ and hasn't yet been taught that it can also be written "ea" they will use what they know, so spell "plees" rather than "please". As they are taught the alternatives and read more they will begin to recognise which to use.
Instead of giving him the spelling ask him what sound he can hear at the beginning of "please" then what other sounds can he hear what is the final sound? Speak clearly emphasising the sounds as many times as needed.
There is no IT or written substitute for a patient adult's support

On a complete tangent and not in uk but is 5 not incredibly early to be learning to spell? Would think fact that you're helping him each day is prob all he needs and that it will click in over time - sorry prob not very helpful - all I remember using was as one poster said, pronouncing words correctly and asking child to break them up in terms of souncs

Thanks - I had a look at minibees and it seems great once he is more used to how letters are set out on the computer keyboard (only really good at numbers and mouse atm).

mrz - I know it's not 'creative' as such - it is just that his classmate writes it as 'plees' - they have learnt 'ea' though it may not yet have gone in as the teaching is a bit . I will try out your suggestion.

I do support him a fair bit - I don't just leave it to computers but he seems to switch off less when there is an IT prog available.

Just an update. He is 'getting it' more than ever before. It is difficult to quantify but it feels like we are finally on our way. Much thanks for all the great advice

My year 2 has had less phonics input than most and I think probably less practise at writing words with sounds so she doesn't always know the the different possibilities. She is, however, starting to get it. Gently correcting her now she is getting the support through school means she is coming on in leaps and bounds. Hopefully the more she writes and reads the more she'll remember. To expect her spelling to be really good was probably a bit wishful on my part. I guess what I am saying is that they are still very little but there is plenty of time to grasp these things.

you are right poppet- but our school is a pretty merciless environment. DS only took pen to paper a year ago but they could not care less and said something along the lines of 'oh well, some of the kids have been writing since they were two but if you didn't know that's what you were meant to be doing with them...'

I think u need to understand that one big problem with English spelling for many children is its inconsistency. ?Getting it? applies just to the consonants, although even some of those are a bit tricky (fond photo, gentle jester).

Vowel spellings are nearly all highly irregular and have to be memorised word by word (sleep, leap). The ones that use different spellings for different meanings are especially hard (see/sea). With all of those it?s just a matter of word-by-word memorisation which takes many years. If u take even just a very brief look at englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2010/11/english-spelling-rules.html u?ll understand why.

So be supportive, but patient. Nearly every pupil I ever taught wanted to learn to spell. They know that adults set great store by it, but children vary greatly in their ability to imprint on their minds the 3700 common English words with some kind of spelling quirk. My daughter could do it without ever having to try. My son has never been good at it, but has learnt to get by (now that he is 39).

The trickiest spellings, judging by the hits on my free website www.EnglishSpellingProblems.co.uk are long and short oo and o-e/oa. Ee/ea/e-e/ie/ei and consonant doubling also need huge amounts of word-by-word learning.

"I think u need......"

Nuff said.

but Feenie think how much easier it would be if we substituted letters for words ... text speak

Don't, you will set Masha off even more!

but haven't U noticed Masha likes vowels... ea U ou eae ou e ooa iea

I'm one of those pedantic types who insists on proper spelling and punctuation when sending texts. Boy, am I sad - but it makes me feel better.

I wouldn't be too worried about spelling at age 5 as long as they're applying the phonics they've learned and are engaging with the written word in a positive way, and any school that says you should have been doing literacy since age two would get a big fat from me.

I have been known to punctuate my texts with semi-colons even, when necessary.

Euphemia and mrz, you made me laugh!

Goodness me, Feenie! Doesn't everybody?