Spelling!

[WhereMyMilk]

DD who is in yr3 and has recently turned 8 is a bright girl.

Achieved level 3 across the board last year in her Sats. Is a really good fluent reader.

However, she is really really shockingly bad at spelling. Sometimes when she writes, the words are nothing like what they are supposed to be, not even phonetically spelt, IYKWIM.

Some I think, is because she rushes to get her thoughts down, and I know she sometimes feels under pressure to achieve a certain amount of writing. But we have talked with teachers, who are backing off with it, as they don't want to knock her confidence. They are also now, allowing her time at the end to check her work, but I think she rushes throguh this too, as she can be under confident in things so doesn't want to draw attention to it.

She does go to an extra spelling group, but as she works hard and practices, she manages to get 10/10 every week in tests however, when it comes to putting that word into practice, things just don't follow through...

She now is just saying that she's rubbish at spelling, so defeating herself, and confidence is plummeting:(

Any help or ideas would be gratefully received, thank you.

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I was just like that. I could learn the spellings for a test but it didn't really stick. Even now I use the spell check on the computer and sometimes can't get the word close enough for the spell check to guess correctly.

Dm reckoned that I probably was dyslexic, but because I was a good reader (though I didn't get phonics until I was 6yo, it clicked while I read "Lord of the Rings" and I was working out the names in it) and very good at maths it wasn't really picked up on. I'm ambidextrous too, which apparently goes with dyslexia for some reason.

Basically I knew I was a bad speller so got used to looking things up. It really irritates me to see bad spelling on a poster or similar because firstly I would always check spellings before putting things up, and secondly because if I see a wrong spelling up I can find it difficult not to memorise it as the write spelling.

WMM - there is nothing wrong with your child's spelling:

Dear firys, sorry I mite of swolled my tohth so I put a flower insted. Hope you fgif me. Yours sinsely, mini milk. PS could you write back to me and put it under my pillow.

In that whole passage she only spelt 3 words badly - firys, tohth and fgif. (And they're not spelt particularly badly)

And that is probably due to lack of concentration rather than lack of being able to spell.

(All the other words that are spelt wrong are perfectly good attempts for her age)

She spelt 'sorry', 'write', 'flower', 'under' and 'pillow' correctly. Her spelling is very good.

Hi WhereMyMilk

My DD1 (now Y4) was very much like your DD in Y3. She was taught phonics and seemed to take it literally so that her spellings made phonetic sense. We were told that this was quite normal and that things would gradually improve. We also had a lot of remedial work with reading/ maths to do anyway, so let this lie.

We have noticed that gradually over this year it has been getting much better. One of the things that has been a real help is that the spelling in her Y4 class has been working on groups of words (so -ight words, -ou words, -ough words) and what happens to words when you add suffixes/ prefixes, certain endings -ed/ -ing/ -ion, make them plural, etc...

So my advice is to hang in there (but look out for spelling work which is really working on groups of words with similar routes/ endings or vowel sounds).

In the meantime start chosing your battles. If there's something your DD is consistently getting wrong - try these sites and see if they don't help to give extra practice to reinforce correct spelling/ grammar/ etc...

Our school often uses resources from Crickweb: www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2literacy.html

Resources from woodlands junior school: www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/literacy/index.htm

and Saint Ambrose School: www.saintambrosebarlow.wigan.sch.uk/Year3spellingpage.htm

All very useful for more practice when something is a struggle.

HTH

I am a retired headteacher (primary) and I now run my own tutoring business, and also tutor myself 6 days a week. I have been in education for over 40 years, and I am very familiar with the scenario described by the mum who has a daughter who can read well and is generally bright, but who can't spell. The problem is, schools don't teach spelling rules, they only make children memorise lists of unrelated words. Children manage to learn these for the test, and then immediately forget them again, because there is no reason to remember them. This is going on in so many schools now, and it makes me really angry. Children need to learn spelling RULES, not lists! I'm referring to such things as short vowel, double consonant - hopping, skipping, swimming, etc. These rules should be taught from an early age, so that children grow up with them. They need to know the difference between a short vowel and a long vowel, and it all comes down to phonics. They need to know that a short vowel followed by the 'c' sound is always made by a 'c' and a 'k' together, think back, block, thick, sock etc... There are lots of these rules, and if they are taught from Year 1 onwards (or even from Reception for the easy rules), then there is no problem. If you really want to help your child improve their spelling, then get 'The Hornet' from Amazon. It is written by Harry Cowling, who helped to co-write 'Toe by Toe' with his mother, the best book there is in my view, for getting poor and dyslexic readers up to a good standard. You need to be patient, this takes time and committment, and is not solved overnight! Ignore teachers who say everything is fine - it's not!! I have had to pick up the pieces so often after parents have been told all is well. If you suspect there's a problem with spelling or handwriting, then do something about it. Many schools won't bother! Remember - repetition, repetition, repetition. It's why Kumon works! Good luck!

this book is quite useful in taking you through the spelling rules. It is NOT a workbook, just quite a useful thin and easy reference book for you to check, also to have out on the table at homework time!

Thanks spelling. What you say makes sense. Last term, her spelling lists were days of the week, months of the year and other equally unrelated stuff! Apparently all off the list of high frequency words. She of course kept getting them all right, but now doesn't know them!

Sometimes she just doesn't think wrote hurt for hunt for example. Some words are phonetically correct, so readable, but others are just shocking. At parents evening I was shocked with some of her work as I just couldn't read it. Her teacher has said she now only corrects a couple of words in DD's work each day as otherwise her page would be covered in red ink, which she feels would be disheartening and reduce her confidence further. :(

She also doesn't like working on spellings as says she's no good.

I will get that book. Just spoke to DH about it, he says thank you as he will read it-he is dyslexic and didn't know there were rules! Is a doctor so also has shocking handwriting so poor spelling doesn't show up so much! :o