How to spell words like Garden,Kitchen,Button,Frozen,etc

[TheRoundTable]

Hi,

I am hoping I can get some help here with spelling words like the above. My daughter doesn't put the 'e' or 'o' in,so would spell 'garden' as 'gardn', chicken' as 'chikn', frozen as 'frozn',etc. Her spelling is quite okay generally, I think.

Any advice appreciated.

TIA

I would break it into syllables get her to spell gar - g-ar + den d-e-n g-ar-d-e-n

Thanks, but do I pronounce the 'den' in 'garden' with the /e/ as lion's den? I think the problem she has is that she cannot hear the /e/ in 'garden or in 'kitchen'. Or are we pronouncing these words all wrong in my house? I cannot hear the /e/ either. English isn't our first language though,so maybe we pronounce them wrongly.

you say
spell gar
then say
spell den
put them together
gar+den
= garden

I see,thanks very much! Will try that! Thank you,mrz.

If you think she might not be 'hearing' the /e/ sound I suggest that you ask her to identify the sounds in the second syllable before she actually writes them. e.g. How many sounds do you hear in 'den'? What are they? You might have to model it a few times so that she understands what you are wanting.

Of course, it is just possible that she thinks that the letter 'n' spells /e/, /n/....

I doubt if you are pronouncing them wrongly, as in normal speech we tend to pronounce them as gard'n or kitch'n. If we are concentrating on spelling, it generally helps to over-emphasise the pronunciation of the second syllable. You have not said how old your DD is. Does she know what a syllable is and what a vowel is? As a general rule, each syllable should contain a vowel.

She is spelling them as she hears them and tbh, where I am anyway, this is very common in these words as it is pretty much what we are saying - gard'n. The last e is not really said as such, so many of our children (I work in a y1 class) miss it out.

I use a "posh" voice to make it very clear and emphasise the final e sound when working with my children at times.

She is in Year2 now and does know what syllables and vowels are, but don't think she knows about syllables generally containing a vowel.

Will try the syllable approach,just didn't want her being too hung up on spelling when writing. Been trying for ages to get her confidence up and it is finally working. She is a perfectionist and will ask me over and over when writing if a word has a 'c' or a 'k' or an 's' or a soft 'c'. Don't know if this is normal at this age with them learning alternative spellings.

In reception she will probably have clapped the syllables in her name and other words but not taught a definition of syllables.

while we are on this topic could I ask about words ending in gh and words beginning with silent k?

we teach kn as an alternative way of writing n and gh as an alternative way to write f

MrsMag-I use the sounds with her as I have tried to learn the phonic sounds as well so as not to confuse her.

Really stressing the fact that every syllable has to have a vowel has definitely helped my dd, who rarely included any at all until we talked about that rule & spent loads of time breaking down words. She does still often miss them, but at least she knows they ought to be there if she stops & thinks, IYSWIM.

I don't know whether that would be appropriate at your dd's age, though. My dd is in yr 5, so older & more aware of syllables etc.