Writing and phonics

[Notcontent]

Background is that I am a bit annoyed at dd's teacher who seemed to suggest that dd's spelling is not great because she needs to improve her knowledge of phonics.

Dd is 7 and her reading is great, as acknowledged by her teacher, but her writing is not as good as her reading. Before Christmas at meeting teacher said that her spelling is letting her down and gave me a sheet with the phonics sounds to practice with dd. But the fact is that there are so many exceptions to English spelling that a lot of it is just memory work. I think that needs to be acknowledged. We have been doing lots of writing at home and I think her spelling is pretty good actually.

I do agree that phonics helps with reading, and helps a bit with spelling, but that's not the whole story, is it?

teaches not teachers

The valuable bit is: pays close regard to how words are actually spelled

That's what anyone needs to do if they want to be able to spell.

I can repeat the instruction as many times as is necessary for people who find it hard to understand.

Repeat as necessary...

It seems as if you have been recommending a programme that you are totally clueless about

pays close regard to how words are actually spelled

You hadn't a clue about what you have been recommending hilarious!

The programme instructs users, including parents, to pay close attention to how words are spelled and immediately correct a child's mistakes. It's the constant attention to how words are spelled which is the valuable part of the programme.

Have you even seen the programme columngollum?

The points I've just made are from its instructions.

From the teacher's books

1.Carefully planned structure ensures that material is taught in a logical order.

1. Every task is broken down into the smallest possible steps.
2. Continuous reinforcement ensures that no time is wasted by teaching skills that are eventually forgotten.
3. Pupils are trained to hear each sound in a word—this greatly reduces memory load required to learn to spell

as I said hilarious!

1. Pupils are trained to hear each sound in a word

Should I repeat the actual instructions columngollum

1.Carefully planned structure ensures that material is taught in a logical order.

1. Every task is broken down into the smallest possible steps.
2. Continuous reinforcement ensures that no time is wasted by teaching skills that are eventually forgotten.
3. Pupils are trained to hear each sound in a word —this greatly reduces memory load required to learn to spell

Even in your quote

the task remains that of remembering how the correct letters are ordered in a word.

Nothing has changed.

The simplest description of spelling is simply remembering the order of letters in a word.

Lots of people including myself are not good at remembering the order and I cant visualise words at all. I use a much simpler way of breaking down into smaller words ie Wednesday ie remember as Wed Nes Day. Marriage Mar ri age. Learning rules about double consonants and pronounciation, e at the end of a word changing the sound. Asking words have a "WH" ie who, where, why.
My DS 18 with a spld wanted to spell scenario yesterday and got the sc because he realised it was a latiny sounding word and similar to science. There is so much more to spelling than remembering letters in an order, that is a very arduous way to learn to spell and most importantly retain spellings.

Pupils still need to remember the correct spelling of that sound in this word.

Nothing has changed. It's simply that phonicsy people have added an extra step.

its not an extra step, its actually a short cut!

It's not my quote columngollum it's the actual instructions from Apples and Pears

exactly bruffin!

Pupils still need to remember the correct spelling of that sound in this word.

it's called 'sound-symbol relationship'.

In other words, phonics.

I will keep repeating this until you understand. You seem to have a problem understanding CG. You keep yapping about remembering how the word looks.

Clearly you have a problem with understanding because I've explained quite clearly that memory is not simply visual.

Try to grasp that, love.

Then other words have letters which don't appear to do anything, like the k in knife, then there are words which have the same sound and different meanings. Those ones are not sound symbols, dearie.

In fact, spelling by sound is just a load of balls, frankly.

As I said before,
U have to be a bit of nerd
if u don't find spellings like
'bird, heard' and 'word'
phonically regular
and not absurd.

kn is a common spelling for the sound /n/ as is gn and have everything to do with sound symbols dearie

"In fact, spelling by sound is just a load of balls, frankly"
which takes us back to the question of why you are recommending a programme that teaches spelling by sounds columngollum

It doesn't matter if it's as common as tennis shoes. You have to remember the silent k. If you forget it, then you'll have misspelled the word and the k in knife doesn't sound like anything.

Incidentally, the w in sword is pronounced in the German version of the word.

All letters are silent columngollum they just sit quietly on the page