Supporting spellings in a five year old

[Tinkerisdead]

I've had some great advice on here in the past. Can anyone take a moment to help me get my dd's spelling on track?

Bit of scene setting - she's 5, started phonics at 3 and reads quite well (turquoise) although reads stuff like Rainbow Fairies or Magic FarawayTree at home. She reads mostly by sight and rarely sounds out now but has a good grasp of phonemes etc.

Back at Easter the teacher advised me her spelling seemed to be sliding backwards and that her reading skills are more of a 7yr old but spellings are worse. We'd done some practicing over long and short vowels and how an "e" on the end affected the sound. This lead her to putting back instead of bake for instance and probably confusing her.

Now I realise she's spelling not by recalling how it's written but using phonemes. I don't know if this is bad or not? In my day I had a tin of words to memorise each week. What's the best way to work on spellings at home to support her a bit more?

She's written this piece about a my little pony( which will out me...hello mrs k if your out there)
"My poney has appals on its bum. It has two eyes It has a labal. It has a mowth. It has a taaltayal. it is orang it has a mayn the mayn is yellow.

Oh bless her! She is using some phonics correctly eg ow in mouth in phonetically ok, and any is correct but she needs to know it normally goes at the end of a word and to choose ai otherwise.

I would suggest that you write down the words she gets wrong and put them in a little book or something. But I am quite impressed really, please send her to my year 1 class next year!

Oh!!! 'Ay' is correct, not any...

Or a-e as in mane. Sorry, it's a bit early.....

Doctorswife:

First off for a 5 year old this is impressive stuff grammatically and plausible spelling attempts -which if Year R/ 1 would be all one could expect really. Her reading level sounds way ahead - and perhaps this is making the teacher treat her as if her writing/ spelling should follow. Conceptually I think it is but the 'spelling' side can be slower.

I personally wouldn't be that worried at this stage. And I wouldn't go into overkill mode and write down every misspelled word and point it out to her. It could make her feel she's not good at writing - which clearly isn't the case. She just doesn't know all the 'rules' (and their pretty loose let's face it) yet - and it will take time so I'd chose battles.

With DD2 - there was a tendency to spell all words starting with 'w' with 'wh' - so with became WHITH. Drove me crazy. We've been working on it quietly in Y3/ Y4 - and I think we've got there.

I do agree that habits can form - you start to see a word written a certain way and end up writing it that way yourself.

You or the teacher may feel differently, but I would let your DD enjoy discovering the vocabulary and encourage learning spelling through having her write down new words she likes (encouraging her to faithfully copy it) or new words she doesn't know the meaning of.

Buy a little notebook and maybe a nice new pen and have her do that when she reads to herself - then you can look through her special words together, discuss their meaning/ multiple meanings and check on the spelling.

From Y2 I'd start to chase consistent mistakes - so always spelling tired as tyred, etc...

English borrows words from so many languages that spelling rules are very loose and as soon as you teach i before e you find an example of a word that doesn't follow that rule (heir was the example we hit upon when Prince George was born which DD2 followed with interest for some reason - but there is a long list: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_words_not_following_the_I_before_E_except_after_C_rule

I actively use the St. Ambrose spelling pages (free) for KS2 but this is the link for KS1: www.saintambrosebarlow.wigan.sch.uk/Infant_spellings/infantspelling.htm - which seems to really take off from Y2 level. - we've found this type of game useful for reviewing spelling patterns and checking what DDs know and don't know and where there are gaps spending a bit of time on it.

KS2 St. Ambrose spelling games here: www.saintambrosebarlow.wigan.sch.uk/spellingpage.htm - just a health warning most of the games to correct themselves - but a few don't appear to be working - so you may need to be around to check your DC's work.

The other thing we found useful at YR/ Y1 was the jolly phonics workbooks which included traditional practice writing out phonemes/ words (so handwriting practice within lines and showing you how to form letters) and in the process of writing words out you get practice seeing them spelled properly. Amazon & other big shops sell these - amazon link here: www.amazon.co.uk/Jolly-Phonics-Workbooks-Books-1-7/dp/1870946502/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

HTH

Firstly she is making phonically plausible attempts to spell words which is exactly what you would expect from a young child. You say she has a good grasp of phonemes but does she know/has she been taught the alternative spellings for sounds? - if she has only been taught that /ae/ is spelt that is how she will write it until someone teaches her there are other ways ... and in this word the /ae/ is spelt or please don't teach at the end affects the sound - give, have, love, come, some etc teach that the spelling is in bake but we split the spelling and the last sound goes in the split.
and personally I wouldn't talk about long and short vowels

I would encourage her to look closely at the words she reads and find the different ways we spell /ae/ etc.

There are over a million words in the OED so memorising them in a tin isn't possible or necessary. Compare that to 44 sounds with 180ish alternative spellings.

Research shows words memorised for spelling tests are rarely retained after the test.

Doctorswife

just to clarify in light of what mrz posted - I tend to use the games bit of St. Ambrose spelling pages with DDs (1- to see how they do and 2- to see if there are issues). I do not use the spelling lists with my DDs but I do look at them for my information to see what notionally a Y5 pupil, for example, might be able to spell.

I agree with mrz spelling tests often are more about testing memorisation skills.

Didn't really articulate it but I think mrz's point that appreciating there are options for sounds (a number of different combinations) was picked up by DD2 through the jolly phonic books (didn't know about them in time for DD1 - and interestingly DD2 has less issues with spellings - aside from the WHITH thing, which is getting annoying).

Forgot to mention alphablocks - CBEEBIES programme has the tv shows available and some resources - mainly for building word decoding skills but again feeds into supporting more accurate spellings. link here: www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/

Wow, thankyou for such hugely comprehensive responses and resources. Im going to sit down later and work my way through it all.

She has been taught alternatives for sounds, i asked her this morning to spell mail (i wanted to see if she could identify that it would be the same as tail). Immediately she said mayl and I asked how else we make the ai sound.

Phonics i used jolly phonics at three when she started asking "what does this say?" Once she mastered that we moved onto tricky words lists and hfw etc and it all felt easy by using the letters and sounds pack.

This is a whole new ball game for me because spellings as you say deviate so much from the phonic "rules". Some great tips there and thank you for the reassurance shes doing ok.

I would avoid the "what does it say" and the idea that there are rules

Sorry that may have been me, i meant at three she was asking me "what does it say?" Pointing at things so i started with the jolly phonics songs for the sounds s,a,t,i,n,p and so on...

I think i focused so heavily on helping her with phonics and she is reading nicely(albeit without much intonation) but i have no idea of how to do spellings aside from learning by rote. Those games are a good place to start.

Mrz i realise i confused her with the "magic e" concept (which i also knew was done away with) i asked at school how can i "teach" her the concept without resorting to magic e? But they shrugged at me and i admit i often find myself asking her what makes "ay" become "a" in have for example.

How do i convey it? In her work recently she kept writing jake and the beanstork (sic) because clearly i confused her having done back,bake, sack, pack, bake....

I should add that this isnt particularly stressing me, I completely understand that the eyfs focuses on play/confidence building. But at home when shes writing little stories i'd like to be able to help her constructively and not set her back. School just often shrug and say "thats for later on."

I don't correct my just 5 year old if things sound out right in writing. He seems to have learnt some words at school eg the, was, but others are rather lovely I think!
grampar
sweeteez
taibl
iz [eyes]
You get the picture!!

Ideally spelling and reading should be taught together as two sides of the same coin.

Early spellings are cute and always praise her effort - Well done that is a way to spell the sound /ae/ can you think of another way? That's right in this word we spell /ae/ this way ....

Split diagraphs (magic e) my class call them split spellings we teach by writing the spelling ae on a square and physically splitting it and inserting another sound. When blending always say the sound on the first letter of the spelling.

I wouldn't worry, in your shoes. I also had an early good reader whose spelling lagged behind (she was reading at a similar level to your DD in Reception but I think her spelling was actually quite a bit worse). I just kept praising the effort and plausible phonics where appropriate, and then saying 'would you like to know how grown ups spell this word' and sometimes she said yes and sometimes she just wasn't interested. If she said yes, I would split the word down and give her the sounds and letters for each part. Two years later and I would say her spelling is somewhat better than my husband's, though she still occasionally mixes up their and there or similar things (this is slowly improving). As her reading material has got wider, she's encountered more and more words and more and more alternative ways to spell things and has got more confident about predicting the right choice. Like you, in Reception I did wonder how she would get from there to here. But she has.

It's perfectly normal for spelling to lag behind reading

Sorry, yes, I might have explained badly. My point was that I didn't do anything other than offer her the correct spelling and then only if she wanted it, and sometimes she really didn't. She hasn't had spelling tests at school and I haven't done anything else apart from buy her a dictionary and teach her how to look words up. So the 'problem' (which wasn't really a problem) just fixed itself with time and more experience on her part.

I'm so glad I started this as I've got such tangible advice. I tried those games with her this afternoon and she rocketed throughout them all getting ten words wrong in total so that was good. When it came to words like mare she chose the option Mair. When we discussed it she said "oh it's a split diagraph." Breakthrough!

It seems like when she sees the word she can identify it straight off but recalling it is completely different. The only words she got stuck on we're words that she didn't understand like boil (kettle picture) or mare which she obviously thought was plain horse.

Sorry but mare isn't a split digraph it's two sounds m + are (/m/ /air/)

An enjoyable and useful book (for child and parents) can be found on the MN book reviews, "children's educational books and courses" section, Oxford Phonics Spelling Dictionary.

It will support a child right through primary, and in to secondary, and clarifies many spelling difficulties. You can view sample pages from the MN article, and link to Amazon if you want to buy.

Whoops quite right Mrz see why i'm on here

I think her spelling is pretty good for a 5 year old, especially if she is still in reception. (BTW, love the spelling of tayal, which she is obviously saying as a 2 syllable word, as many people do!). It is quite common for DC's to forge ahead in reading but their spelling to take some time to catch up. DS picked up reading really quickly but didn't write anything for a couple of years, so his spelling couldn't be judged because it just didn't exist.

I would just be pleased that her reading is at the level of an average 7 year olds and, while her spelling may be worse than an average 7 year old, it is almost certainly better than an average 5 year old. Looking at what she has written, the one word I would be tempted to correct is 'mayn' as the ay spelling usually only appears at the end of words. Othewise, I would just take Fin's advice and let time fix the 'problem'.

I got my 5 year old reception child to write it... kept him busy for a while whilst I drank wine

My ponee has apls on is bum. it has to ayes. It has a lebul. It has a mane. It has a teyl It is oring. It has a man the man is yellow.

School said he's not great at writing, also turquoise reader. Not sure if phonetically it's poor but they haven't done any writing with him so not sure what they expect.

I'm giggling at quaffing wine dictating the work of five year olds.

What I didn't know was the whole look, say, cover, write, check thing? I asked Dd and she instantly explained how she normally does spellings so I gave her a list of words. The ten she got wrong yesterday. All were right today except boil she wrote boile. Later in the paddling pool I asked them all again and she did the lot. I feel much more empowered in helping her now thank you to everyone on here. And I've also ordered the dictionary too.