Help with phonics/spelling

[accountantsrule]

My niece is in Y2 and seems to be having difficulty with spelling.

My SIL doesn't really know what to do and although practices her spelling list every day I heard her saying that when DN couldn't spell 'found' she was trying to tell her that its spelt like the 'could' 'would' family. I corrected her on this and she got a bit shirty with me but actually then admited that she was struggling with it as it just didn't seem to be going in and she was frustrated at not being able to help.

She is on gold level reading books so absolutely fine for her age (she is 7 - sep birthday) but seems to struggle to translate phonics into spelling. Her reading is better on sight as opposed to blending words IYSWIM.

I said to her, what letters make an 'ow' sound. She said ou and ow, so I said so how do you sell found then. She spelt it perfectly.

How can my SIL help her to translate the phonics into the spelling, are there any good resourses she can use to help, I think SIL needs some help herself as she doesn't really understand the phonics that well really.

was only teasing really

Just wondering how you could even begin to spell "heist" if you'd never seen it before and you weren't allowed to use phonics? Presumably you couldn't write anything, as even knowing /h/ is "h" is a phonic rule.

Of my 2 elder DSs, DS1 avid reader finds spelling hard, DS2 is amazingly good (at least in comparison to his brother).
They have both learnt phonics, but DS1 picked up reading very early and very quickly - reading Harry Potter by the time he was 5. DS2 is above average for reading but learning more steadily, he also does lots of phonics work every day in school which DS1 never did to the same degree.
Everything DS2 spells (reception) is at least phonetically plausible, and literally getting better every day in choosing the right phonic to use, presumably as he reads more he is committing more words to memory and seeing overall patterns in which sets of phonics tend to fit together.
DS1 however (yr 5) has a reading age about 4 years ahead, but a spelling age about 1-2 years behind. We are working hard on when he asks me how to spell something, I make him sound it out (out loud to me). We then talk through which letter combinations could be used to make that phoneme. I am thinking I might even go back to getting a 'Jolly Phonic Wall Chart' showing the different combinations to make each sound. Part of his problem is confidence, he is so used to being told his spelling is rubbish he is a bit afraid to try in case he gets it wrong. Spelling tests per se don't work for him - we learn the words for the test, but he still consistently spells them wrong when he is writing, partly as he is thinking ahead about what he wants to write - so I am working on making sure he has a plan written down so he remembers where he wants his story to go, but can slow down and work on grammar and spelling as he goes. I have in the past also had him dictate a whole story to me, I write it down so we have a record, then I read it slowly back to him and he can focus on writing each word down correctly.

LittleMissGreen My gut feeling is that she really needs to do more of the advanced phonics work rather than SIL just asking her the spellings each day until she remembers them as I am sure this will not help her in the future.

My personal belief is if they know or 'get' phonics then spelling comes pretty easily and isn't always connected to good reading.

Thanks, this has given me a few ideas to pass on!

"My personal belief is if they know or 'get' phonics then spelling comes pretty easily and isn't always connected to good reading."
I agree, DS2s phonic knowledge is much sounder than DS1s and it shows when they come to spell. The school are now integrating phonics learning all the way up to year 6 and I'm hoping it will help DS1. DS1 learnt to read so quickly and easily that he never got the solid grounding in phonics that DS2 has got at school.