Best way to help with general everyday spelling.

[Loa]

DD1 8 is going into year 3 teacher said that she doesn't use her phonic knowledge to actually spell words in her writting and her spelling is much worse than it should be.

DS is 6 going into year 2 does better in the weekly spelling tests than DD1 and does have a go at phonically spelling things but it was still mentioned as an issue on his report.

Neither are bad enough to get extra help in school but their poor spelling keeps being mentioned. I'm wondering what the most effective support we can give them?

Marks place!

If you scroll right down on this page
www.dyslexics.org.uk/spelling.htm
I have compiled a list of phonics-based Dos and Don'ts to help with spelling.

HTH

More phonics? Do you see the writing she does at school and if so can you go over some of the spellings she's got wrong with her? Sound out, and show how writing the word (spelling) relates to the sound/s. It seems she needs help to get into the right habit to do this herself automatically.

I am lucky my DS is a pretty good speller, he's going into Y2 but nearly 7 as Autumn birthday. He has had very good phonics teaching and importantly his teacher has related this well to writing. He was an early reader so has had more time to absorb language from reading, and I think this has helped too, although some children seem to need more explicit, good teaching and you can't just expect them to spell well without it.

Hi Loa:

Two things come to mind as DD1 (now going into Y6) had similar problems in Y3/ Y4.

First - we stumbled across St. Ambrose Spelling webpage: www.saintambrosebarlow.wigan.sch.uk/spellingpage.htm

There are spelling lists for particular years - but more importantly there are spelling rule games. We started with Year 3 stuff (in Year 4) and have gradually worked our way through these. DD likes it because there is instant feedback.

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The GCP English workbooks have been a real help (we used the literacy workbooks by year for Y4/ Y5 - there available at most newsagents, book stores & on-line directly or through things like amazon) . They teach both grammar and spelling rules and make it a bit funny. We did about 2 worksheets a week (usually whilst DD1 was waiting for DD2 to finish her ballet lesson) and it helped kill the waiting time and gradually, week on week, both her writing and her spelling seemed to improve (especially this past year).

HTH

Hi -

several MN people quite like this Phonics Dictionary, available via Amazon:

www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Phonics-Spelling-Dictionary-Reading/dp/019273413X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373490750&sr=8-1&keywords=Phonics+dictionary#reader_019273413X

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions.

Dd1 knew all her jolly phonics and has started blending thank to nursery and us before school. Unfortunately the school used mixed methods - there is only 2 school years between her and DS but they'd stopped using mixed methods in those years and I think that why he does try and spell phonically and she doesn?t.

Clearly we need to find the time to get back to doing spelling work at home again ? so thanks again. I appreciate all the replies.