Year 3 spelling worries

[Notcontent]

Just looking for some reassurance and maybe some tips!

Tonight had first parents evening in year 3. Apparently dd's spelling is a "problem".

To give some background, her reading is excellent, and her handwriting is very good. Very good at maths. No dislexia. She is fine with simple words but rushes and guesses and her teacher said that at school every second word has a mistake.

I am very worried. Not because I don't think she will eventually get it. But simply because I am concerned this will drag her down, and she will be considered less able and will damage her confidence.

We are doing writing at home. What else can I do to help?

I have taught Year 3 so hope I can help - did the teacher make suggestions of ways you can help? They should and if they didn't I would ask again.

It is very common to rush and spell things - sometimes because their train of thought is quite quick and they don't pause to think about spelling, sometimes because they are keen to get their work over and done with!

The sounds that have two ways of spelling e.g. ai/ay just have to be learnt which one it is. So this might be something you could do at home if this is where the problem lies. If she is rushing then you could help her go back and check each sentence before she moves on. It is a balance between keeping the quality of content and getting spellings right.

When you are learning spellings with her try to get her to write them in a sentence rather than on their own.

Thanks BoysRule.
The teacher just suggested that we practice using phonics to work out spellings.

phonics only gets you so far with spelling because so many words/sounds are spelled in a multiplicity of ways, ade, aide, aid, ere, air, heir, aisle, I'll, isle, calender, calendar (etc)

You may learn how to write each sound but you also have to remember which combination goes into which particular word. That's the hard bit.

Yes, English spelling is hard.
I guess we will just have to work hard!!

It's a lot more manageable than trying to memorize thousands of words