Severe Writing Problems

[IndigoBell]

DD (Year 3) has severe literacy problems (so please, I'm only looking for comments from very experienced teachers or the like)

Her writing is no more than a jumble of letters. School have just given her a scribe on her last assessment because her work can't be read at all. (No physical problems - her handwriting is fine)

She has very recently more or less got the hang of reading and has just been assessed as a 2b on an optional SATs paper. But her writing isn't improving yet (Apparently she's a Level 1 when working unaided).

She does an hour a day of Read, Write, Inc at school (and has been doing so for 3 years). And we obviously read every night at home.

What on earth shall I do with her at home?

AccelRead/AccelWrite?
Word Wasp?
Hornet?
Apples & Pears ?
Nessy ?
??????

What structured programs do you recommend?

Her writing is really bad. I've spent the last 4 years trying to teach her to read. And now the task of trying to teach her to write just seems impossibly daunting :(

Not to mention she's missed all of literacy last year to do RWI, so she needs to be taught absolutely everything :(

I've applied for a statement - but obviously chances are she won't get one.

Dyslexic schools are £7,000 a term. For far less than that I could HE and hire a full time private tutor - which I would far prefer to do.

Just tried her again on apples and pears, and it went much better than last year. We will do half an hour apples and pears every day from now till school goes back in Sep and see how much progress she can make.

My neighbour didn't pay the fees though - she said the LEA had to pay as the school's couldn't provide the help her son needed. She wouldn't have been able to pay that much either - we live on a council estate and don't have that sort of money here!

Indigo's daughter would need a statement and would then have to convince the panel that no local state school could provide for her needs. Not an easy task.

Here's a thought. Why don't you ring up one (or more, until you get someone sympathetic) of these fancy specialists schools and ask to speak to their specialist. Explain the situation and see what they would do. These are the people who deal with the most severe problems every day and they apparently get some wonderful results.

I'm sure they'd give you five minutes of their time.

If she's used to RWI, does she use Fred Fingers for spelling? We found our less advanced readers/writers have come on a treat with this. (This is with RWI every day.)

After doing apples and pears with her today I found out her spelling is much better than I thought. If she really concentrates and thinks about it she can spell words phonetically.

So i guess it's just that she can't think about ideas and sentences and spell at the same time.

This reassures me. She can do it - she just needs an awful lot more practice in order to do it automatically.

And apples and pears will give her a fair amount of practice.....

good news

And as her reading progresses it will support her writing.

That's great news!

"So i guess it's just that she can't think about ideas and sentences and spell at the same time."

This is so common with dyslexic students and children with other learning problems too!

My initial thoughts - her reading has improved incredibly - spelling always lags behind so be a little bit patient ( which absolutely does not mean you should not do work with her to help!).

It sounds as if the apples and pears scheme is helping so I'd keep doing that. I'll PM you too!

Indigo, I found out her spelling is much better than I thought. ... she can spell words phonetically.
I tried to explain that to u in my last post. I could read most of her spellings. She needs some reinforcing of the main vowel patterns, but what will help her most is extra work with the most high frequency tricky words.
I'll paste them in, with the main patterns shown in brackets.

Spellings for some sounds (ee, short and long oo, oa/o-e, air, au, ir) have so many exceptions that they don?t really have a pattern. They need to be learned one by one and so I am listing those first.

*been feet green keep need queen see sleep three tree trees -
even here these - each eat please sea tea - be he he?s me she we we?re - people - key -
could couldn?t would - book good look looked looking looks took - pulled put

food room school soon too - do into to - two who - through
home over clothes going - boat - cold old told - only don?t most oh -
go no so - grow know snow window
air - where there there?s - their - bear
because ? saw - all called small - water - thought -
birds first girl - work *

The other irregulars are:
have, animals dragon(without doubled consonants as in ?granny, stagger?) -
*(late) - again - great
(play, day) - they
(far, car) - are - laughed - (after asked can?t fast last plants - S England)
(bed, best) - said - head - friends - every everyone were - when
(penny, teddy) - any many - ready

(merry) - very * (no doubled consonants)
ever never live lived river (we don?t double v)
(like) - I?ve - eyes - find I I?ll I?m - night right

(on, top) - gone - want wanted was what
(or, for) - before more - your door -
(much, mum) - come (coming) mother other one some something - once
(use) - you

(about, around) - down town - (regular in endings: how now)

If u are going to work with her for some time, u will find my blogs and website helpful.
Masha Bell

I am sorry that the bold did not show as often as I applied it.

Masha - you are totAlly failing to understand the scale of DDs learning difficulties.

As an example in Year 2 she had a target on her IEP to learn to read 20 high frequency words in 6 months (is, it, if, am, at, me, my, the, and, can etc.). She had a TA working with her every day for 6 months on this target - and she failed it. She failed to learn to read 20 simple words in 6 months.

For the last 4 years school have spent an enormous amount of time trying to teach her regular words and tricky words. High freq words and phonetically regular words. By and large they have failed.

So your list of words is not at all helpful. Not unless they come with a magic wand to make them stick in DDs head......

Sarah I'll PM you back - but your advice was enormously helpful.

I am not claiming that the irregular spellings are the only cause of your dd's difficulties, but I think u underestimate how confusing spelling irregularities like 'mum -come', 'bed -said' or 'wet - when' are for some children.

They are certainly the reason why all English-speaking countries have much higher levels of dyslexia than ones with more regular spelling systems.

Your dd's spellings
we I wos wocig hom fom sco it wis bucrig bawn wiht ran wen I got hom I and litl awenro wur wet sow I brib as lit lat wetn cut a cob so I rap him gp anb got him a tiso
make it very clear that she gets confused by the irregular spellings.
U said yourself that her phonemic spelling is quite good.

Masha what is irregular about rain up down (just a few)

Indigo's daughter has recognised difficulties which Indigo has worked very hard to correct. She has made a huge breakthrough in reading using AIT and with Indigo's determination I am sure she will make similar progress with writing.

As a number of people have pointed out her current difficulty seems to be recalling the spellings and the order of words when writing sentences. With respect your lists aren't going to help.

I've had a look at masha's website and find it useful. However, I am teaching in a mainstream school with children much in the 'norms' of SN. The ideas are fine for children who have gaps in their phonological code or are able to remember patterns (through practise).

But I think MRZ is right, Indigo's DD needs more severe than this.

I am new to AIT, interested. Have you got any good links?

Mrz, up is regular and not on the list.
come (coming) mother other one some something - once are exceptions to the spelling.

-ain as a syllable is more comon than -ane, but the main spelling for the /ai/ sound is ** (bake, make, take, late, date....).

The main spelling for the /ou/ sound inside words is ** and in endings (but ow have variable sounds: how low, blown down). The spelling occurs mainly before and , but there is no real rule:

brown, brownie, clown, crown, down, drown, eider-down, frown, gown, town

abound, account, amount, announce, around, astound, bounced, bound, boundary, compound, council, counsel, count, counter, county, encounter, flounder, found, foundation, fountain, ground, hound, house , lounge, mound, mount , mountain, ounce, pounce, pound, profound, pronounce, rebound, round, scoundrel, sound, surround,

Anyone interested in the exceptions to the main English spelling patterns can see them all at englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com

Masha once again you have missed the point I am referring to mis spelt words in Indigo's daughter's story not your incessant lists

With so many exceptions to the main patterns, many children can't grasp the patterns because of them. So learning to spell is just a blur.

there is no pattern in up!

Indigo's daughter has identified difficulties nothing to do with your lists!

LetThemBe - AIT is the weirdest thing ever. I never expected it to help DD, but after trying an awful lot of other things it was next on my list :)

I had already done it with my DS who has Aspergers, and it made a significant difference to him - but even so I didn't think it would help DD.

Very few places in the UK does it. We went to the Sound Learning Centre in London. It's also done Here in Reading.

Before doing the AIT they did an audiogram of DD. And I was amazed to find out that despite an audiologist telling me her hearing was fine, it wasn't. An audiogram should be basically flat. But hers was spiky like a mountain range, and she also had patches of hypersensitive hearing.

So for example the sound 's' she might be hearing at -5 db in her right ear, but at +10 db in her left ear. Whereas 't' she might be hearing at +5 db in her right ear and -2 db in her left ear.

So what she was hearing was all weirdly distorted. But it wasn't noticeable that she had any hearing difficulties at all.

After doing AIT - which is listening to specially designed music for 10 days, her hearing has been corrected. The audiogram at the end showed she now has almost perfect hearing (almost a flat line on 0)

The effect of that has not only made her able to hear the different sounds in the words - it has also improved her absolute worst problem which was 'slow cognitive processing' and improved her very dire memory.

I can't explain any of it. All I can say is that previously she could not learn to read. She was stuck on the stage of very slowly blending CVC words for 18 months! She knew how to do read, in that she knows there are phonics and you have to put them together. But she didn't have enough of a memory to remember what the phonics were, and she was so slow that even CVC words she couldn't read fluently.

And she had absolutely no sight words. Like I said she spent 3 years learning to read the 45 HFWs.

Now she has sight words, and can blend, and basically read :) Once we'd done the AIT, I went through a phonics program with her, 10 mins every night. And taught her to read in 8 weeks! She went from a 1b to a 2b in 8 weeks - after having been stuck on a 1c/b for 18 months.

Truly amazing. ( And truly expensive, and truly unavailable to the majority of people :( )

Thanks Indigo, it sounds fascinating! I expect there are many children out there who would benefit from such treatment. I am now going to research if there is a similar centre in my area (North East England). I have a boy in my class at the moment who has diagnosed auditory processing problems, but has recently been discharged from EP support and Speech Therapy. He's not dyslexic and his needs are not as severe as your DD but something isn't quite right. I know his mum would be interested.

And well done to you and your DD with her reading, I bet she's so happy being able to read.

I have been following this thread with the greatest interest but not contributing as my DS's difficulties with spelling are different from Indigo's DD and also linked to his dyspraxia and poor handwriting. But the comment about not being able to spell and think about ideas and structure at the same time is SO true for him and has really helped me in thinking about how best to help him - so thank you.

It's really difficult to give you advice without assessing her properly. As Chanda says it could be so many things. I have taught a child with dyslexia for 3 years and suddenly what she is writing is starting to be clear. Part of the reason she really struggles is that she finds it really hard to retain things. To help her, we have used sound discovery and word shark. She has personalised spellings each week and I give her a personalised word bank to help her with her writing. She is continually assessed, so we know what sounds she knows and where she needs to go next.