Teaching spellings and helping a child to retain the correct spelling

[HappyAsEyeAm]

DS is in Year 1. He ahs spellings to learn at home every week,. They are always 8 words, with a common theme eg this week's words all have 'ou' in them. House, mouse, out - all the same sounding 'ou' (ie not ought, would etc).

He gets them on a Wednesday. I practice them with him on a Sunday and we have a brief run through again on the following Wednesday morning berfore school. He is then tested on them at school and gets another lot of eight.

What is the best way for me to teach them? This is what I do at the moment:

I write them all on the white board in the kitchen. I tell them that each of the words has the 'owwww' noise and those letters are 'ou' so they will be in every word. I point to each of them and say the word. Then I rub them out. Then I ask DS to write each of them in a pice of paper. I go through them one by one ie "Now DS, please would you write 'mouse. Mouse as in "A mouse lives in the skirting boards in nanny's house". He writes them. If they are wrong, (eg DS sometimes reverses b and d, or will get the spelling wrong eg not putting the 'e' on the end of 'house'), I correct him as we go along. After we've done all eight, I do the whole thing again. After that, I write them back up on thwe white board.

Critique away! Education is not part of my job, and I have no eperience of teaching.

I have noticed however that even if he does do well in spelling them in his tests, he does not retain the spellings at all. He will spell the words phonetically the following week and does not apply what he has learned.

Normally I would recommend the spelling programme apples & pears. But some experts on here have convinced me that it's stupid. But it might still help you.

Watching with interest as DS is a bit younger but I suspect this will be his issue as although bright with concepts, things like particular phonics digraphs can take ages to stick in his head properly when other kids just have to glance at them to remember them.

What u are doing is fine.

Nearly all children make lots of mistakes when they first start learning to write. Nearly all also do much better in tests than when writing stories or doing other writing. It's hard for young children to concentrate on what they are trying to say AND getting the spellings right.

And as everybody knows, English spelling is beastly (bean/been, very merry). Learning words with the ou spelling for the /ou/ sound is fine, until children have to learn brown, down, towel as well. Choosing between them afterwards is not so easy.

That's why becoming a proficient speller of English simply takes years of practice, and nobody becomes really proficient in less than 10 years.

So however u practise, u can't do much wrong. As long as ds keeps practising.

Masha Bell

I'm absolutely no expert whatsoever, but DS is now 11, and spelling is something that's come gradually over his years at primary school, and has noticeably improved in the last 12 months.

We did a certain amount of look, cover, write, check, but the school were a bit hither and yon about issuing spellings to learn so it was never a very regular occupation.

I am convinced that in DS's case the factor that really made the difference was the fact that he's read much, much more frequently - and widely, but I think frequently is the thing - over the last year.

In the main, though, he'd learn a spelling one week, and then plough on getting it wrong again after having learned it for a test - gradually, though, the right spelling came back in time.

In other words, in my DS's case, it wasn't a neat linear progress of learning words and then you could leave that one behind and move on - more two steps forward and one back.

HTH.

My DD was hopeless at spelling in yr 1. Plus the spellings she was coming home with were insane. Things like perfume. But she couldn't spell 'what'.

She's in yr 3 now and is a superstar!

Mine are too little for this atm, but might it be worth going through them again at some point in the week?
And maybe the weekend after the test too, so the learning is spread over 2 weeks rather than half a week?

it isn't unusual to learn them for the test but not be able to use them when writing independently. No idea how to help that though - sorry.

My personal approach is to do them briefly every day as then it reinforces them, I know others who split them out and focus on say 2 a day. I think it depends on the child.

it isn't unusual to learn them for the test but not be able to use them when writing independently. No idea how to help that though - sorry.

Exactly, nonickname - you said in two lines what I took four paragraphs to say . With DS, it came in time.

Hi nonickname, its me again. I agree that I need to do them more frequently. The white bnoard is nwext to the kitchen table so we could do them at a mealtime. Little and often seems the best way and hopefully he will get there in the end.

Don't write them first, ask him to break the word into its component sounds (it seems as if he is learning phonics at school, so he should be able to do this, if not, say the word very, very slowly and you will find that each 'sound' becomes clear).

Then ask him to spell each sound in the order in which he can hear it in the word.

Get him to say each sound as he writes it; this promotes kinaesthetic memory of writing it (i.e the brain will remember what it 'feels' like, an important element in learning spellings).

CHECK that the word is correct by reading back EXACTLY what he has written.

Practise writing out each word a few times, still saying each sound as he writes it.

They sound like good spelling lists if they focus on one spelling of a sound.

He will spell the words phonetically the following week and does not apply what he has learned.

All words are spelled phonetically! I think what you mean is that he uses the wrong letter/sound spellings!

Practising writing out the words, as I said above, helps to promote automatic recall. That's why my old teachers many years ago used to make us write out corrections 10 times! Repetition is essential to learning.

And what happens when he comes to words which are traditionally mispronounced, like because, flavour, colour, Edinburgh and sword?

and are either beauty or bureau spelled the way that they are pronounced? Do we in fact routinely mispronounce them, given that they are in fact not English words?

He hasn't got there yet. He's getting lists of nice, phonically 'regular' words.

By that time he could well be self teaching as he understands the principles.

What are the spelling principles of words like sword, yacht, eye, one and twelfth?

column what would you suggest then? Your constructive suggestion was to try apples and pears, which I've looked at this morning as I'd never heard of it before. It looks good, and its something I will certainly consider. But you also say that it is stupid

It's fine, happyaseyeam. Use it by all means, if it's helpful for you. There are some "experts" who find it strange that people who think spelling by sounds is a fundamentally flawed way to behave should recommend a programme which arranges the spelling of words by the way that they sound. And, if that was the only thing that the programme did do, then it would indeed be useless. But, because it also focusses on how words are actually spelled it's of use to children having real problems getting to grips with basic spelling. Of course it can't deal with some of the more tricky problems, but then, neither can anything else save but memory and or practise. So, please go ahead and use it, if you feel that it will help.

I'm clueless, that's the problem. I just think that it might be worth a try. I am open to all suggestions though.

maizie, if you find making rational arguments irritating then that's your viewpoint. However, I'd stick to formal arguments rather than slanders and slurs, if I was you. That's the road to personal attacking, which as you know is not allowed.

If you have a rational point, do please make it.

Apples and Pears is a remedial programme for children who struggle. Your DS is only in Y1, so I think it might be early days to be considering that sort of thing. I don't think your DS is particulary unusual in being able to learn words for a test but forget the spelling in his own writing. It all takes time - I think what you are doing goes way beyond the call of duty anyway.

Oh, I had no idea that it was a remedial system. I agree that he is still young, but O m trying to support him as much as possible at home, and just wanted to know how best to do that. Would you really not do any more than I am doing?

Maizie
All words are spelled phonetically! I think what you mean is that he uses the wrong letter/sound spellings!

If English was spelt phonetically, each sound would have just one spelling, as the International Phonetic Alphabet does. Finnish spelling is completely phonetic. Italian and Spanish close to it.

Nobody except SP evangelists would describe English spelling as phonetic. This is simply an attempt to deny that English spelling is difficult to learn, but the denial does not make the problem go away, or make learning to spell 'stole coal bowl' or 'much, money, touch' any easier.

If English spelling was 'phonetic' children would not be forever asking,
'Is it 'ou' as in 'out' or as in 'down'?

'Ee' as in 'tree' or as in 'tea'? 'Air' as in 'hair' or as in 'bear'? etc. etc. ....

There would be just one answer for each.
And learning to write English would take just a small fraction of the time it takes now, and English-speaking children would leave school far better educated than they do now.

No, masha. English is phonetic because phonetic just means the way English is. It's a bit like calling the language that any foreign tourists speak: Arabic when they're on the Arabian peninsula, French, whenever they're in France and English whenever they're in England.

The logic goes like this. If you're on English soil, then whatever mother tongue you're speaking in must also be English because you're speaking it in England, therefore it belongs to England, therefore it's English. See? Easy, isn't it.
Now you know why all words are spelled phonetically. (because they're words.)

Hi Happy, At my DD's school (also year 1) spellings are tested in sentences. Each week, while at school, she writes out her list of spellings for the week in a book with 3 columns.

We practice the spellings 3 times. Times 1 & 2 she writes out the words again in two of the columns. The first time I start reading the words out from the bottom of the list and the second I start at the top. She doesn't look at the words she's already written (these are covered with a piece of paper) so she's doing it from memory, however she always writes the wound she's working on at the top of the column first. The final time I come up with a few sentences, and she writes these into a separate book we have at home. I try and use at least three of her spellings words at a time and usually manage to keep it to 3 or 4 sentences.

For example last weeks sound was ee, one sentence was:

I saw the queen in the steep street.

This weeks sound is ar, one sentence was:

I worked hard to make a smart card.

As you can see I make these sentences up at the last minute so their not the best sentences but they do the job! The benefit of this is that you can add common high frequency words into the sentences and it's a good opportunity to practice starting with a capital and ending with a full stop etc.

How much this is helping her spelling though I am unsure - I struggle with spelling, DH is a good speller (he sees the words, so good visual memory). I suspect DD has a good dose of DHs visual memory and this is standing her in good stead. However, my understanding is that writing the words in sentences is the best method for helping the spellings to stick.

It is worth remembering that if a young child is working hard on creating a story then spellings often go out of the window. I have noticed some very creative spellings when DD is writing a story, which if I asked her to think about, she could spell correctly, but her brain power is focussed on other things and of course that's quite understandable!!