My fairly bright 9 year old DD just can't spell

[amidaiwish]

She's pretty good at maths, a great reader, a lovely creative writer but just can't spell. She got all level 3's in her yr2 SATS and is doing well in school yr4.
but her spelling is atrocious. i have emailed her teacher this morning to talk to the special needs team to see if they can assess/help her. (tbh i am not hopeful, dd will be a long way down their list of priorities)

a year or so ago someone linked to a website where you could buy a book for about £25 which was to help kids who can't spell, i can't find the link, does it ring a bell with anyone.

Could have written this post myself!- so shamelessly jumping on your thread to get the name of the book if anyone conjures it up.

for my ds, spelling has only just clicked, he's in year 5. last year he was in the bottom set for spelling, this year he is in the top set.

i don't think she is dyslexic, just has a recall/processing issues when it comes to spelling.
for example her spellings to learn this week include underestimate, unsuccessful, unstoppable

and last night/this morning her efforts included
underestmate, underestimeat
unssuccesful, unsuccsesful
unstoppible, unstopable

the strange thing is at some point in the week she'll get them right and i'll think she's cracked it, then the next time i test her she'll get it wrong. she has already written them out every day using the read/write/cover method and has used them in sentences.

Well I'm using the apple and pears books to help with spelling - it's a series of books and you need the teacher copy and work book - but were you start depends on how they do with the placement tests which are downloadable.

www.spelfabet.com.au/about-spelfabet/ went down well with my KS1 DC not so much the eldest yr 5.

the strange thing is at some point in the week she'll get them right and i'll think she's cracked it

This was a prominent feature of my spelling - and I was eventually diagnosed with dyslexia - though there are lot of other off things about my reading and writing.

It's a feature of my eldest spelling as well - partly why I like apple and pears as the same words come up again and again - so the get the practise - so the thing with the muscle memory thing kicks in - plus they do a lot of dictation within it which I think helps them remember words in ordinary writing.

If there are more good spelling books out there I'd be interested in knowing about them.

Not clear sorry multitasking - prominent feature was sometime I could spell a word in a piece of work but next day I would be spelling it wrong and next day week a different wrong.

Made it very hard to help me - as there wasn't a set list that I was struggling with which could be made and then I could then be made to learn - which is first thing every one tried with me. It was more randomly everything - mainly as I didn't get how words were put together - so was trying to remember word shape and all the letters in words - rather than seeing prefixes and suffixes and groups of letters making sounds within words.

Possibly why I like apple and pears morphemic strategy.

hmmm thanks DazzleU
maybe she does have some dyslexia then. that sounds exactly the same. can you tell me what other things are "off" with your reading and writing.

she will have a spelling test and get the words right and then a few weeks later will have no clue how to spell it again. no recall.

What u need to appreciate is that half of English-speaking adults have spelling problems. They can't cope with the amount of rote-learning involved. To become a good speller of English, u don't just need a good memory, but a good visual memory.

Over 4,000 quite common English words contain one or more irregular letters which have to be memorised word by word, from any, many to speak, seek, shriek and xylophone. Children of average ability take roughly 10 years to learn them, but many need much longer and many don't ever quite get there.

The main thing is not to let poor spelling stop children saying what they want to say and to write as much as they want to. Those of reasonable ability and enough determination usually get there in the end, as my son did.

For words that keep causing trouble, that just won't stick, writing them out carefully a few times tends to help, but for some pupils learning to spell is just a beastly hard slog. And this is entirely the fault of English spelling inconsistencies.

Ditto re the lack of recall for my eldest on year 2. Is that a sign of dyslexia then?

i appreciate that but her issue is the lack of recall and the random letters she puts in/misses out. even "un der est im ate" which is completely phonetic she got wrong this morning.

she has learned her times tables fine
she dances 6 hours a week, learns the routine like a pro.
it's just her spelling. it is out of character and definitely odd.

Spelling tests - cover and look and say are notoriously bad ways of learning spellings as children don't apply them to normal writing and forget them very quickly.

So it's perfectly possible that she doesn't have dyslexia - she just hasn't learnt the spellings in a way that is sticking for her.

My dyslexia symptoms were quiet varied - slow to pick up reading - very bad at pronouncing unfamiliar words even as an adult ( no idea of complex phonics code to apply ) relied heavily on context to work words out - skipped lines and worst read what I thought was on page and what wasn't - but by late primary and early secondary had reading wasn't registering as a concern - it was spelling at a much lower level than my rest of my ability. Organisation skills - I was taught these explicitly - so I do have them but there are described as brittle - and poor coordination. I was finally diagnosed late at uni by educational physiologist and a series of tests.

If it's just spelling - I look at a good comprehensive spelling program like apple and pears -see how your DC gets on - that what we are doing with ours at the minute.

Obviously see what the school take on the situation is as well - my DC school can't make up it's mind about DD1 - whether she has dyslexia - so we are working though apples and pears at home and a few other things and see over period of time seeing great improvements and keeping an eye on her progress and an open mind.

thank you so much. i have bought the full set A-D of apples & pears to work through from the beginning.

How is she at spelling everyday words that, at 9YO, she is likely to use in her own writing, because your 3 examples don't sound like words a typical 9YO would use. They are very long words to learn via letter strings, so no wonder she forgets. Her wrong attempts are all phonically plausible, and the target words do seem to be aimed at improving spelling by adding prefixes and suffixes to the root word. Has this been explained to her, as her extra 's' in 'unssuccesful' suggests she hasn't understood this. She may also find it helpful to count the syllables in words, which may enable her to avoid mis-spellings like 'underestmate'.

CecilyP terrible. but i always put it down to her not really trying, just writing what she thinks and moving on. her teacher doesn't correct as she doesn't want to put her off using good words. I get that approach but it means she is learning them wrong. The teacher said if she uses words like gigantic, enormous etc and spells it wrong that is better (level wise) than using big correctly.
it's difficult isn't it. the teacher is right, if dd got a page back full of corrections she would be very despondent, even if the writing was great.

When they are writing - they are doing a lot of stuff at once - handwriting, spelling and concentrating on what they want to say and doing all that at some speed.

So the really need the practise of spellings things - so they automatically write the correct words without having to think very much about it.

It's muscle memory and long term storage.

If they have spent many years - as my year 5 - writing the word/words incorrectly possibly being corrected but especially when first starting writing pretty much not being - they have many years of wrong spelling to over come.

Why I think apple and pears is helping my older DC - same words again and again coming up being written out - then she has to remember them correctly when we get to the dictation part - and if she can't when it gets to the end of the section test - we go back and do section again till she does.

So yes - I can see where my DC aren't applying phonics to words they really should be - as they aren't think spelling and have spent time incorrectly spelling these words so that what automatically comes out.

that's exactly it. in a nutshell. let me know how you get on!

My dc use the dybuster programme. It's a computer programme using musical tones, colours to help with spelling. They offer a one month free trail. It's 15 mins 3-4 times a week. I have seen an improvement in their spelling. Oldest Dc his problems with spelling and has a speech and language disorder. Youngest is nt but does need help with spelling.

thanks heather1 will take a look

You might find this helpful:

www.ontrackreading.com/phonics-program/multisyllable-method-overview

Even if you didn't use the programme it might give you ideas on how to help her deal with multisyllable words.

Look, Say, cover, Write & Check isn't a good method of learning spellings. I suggested an alternative version on this thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/2277813-Success-For-All-teaching-children-to-read

It's on the first page.

Thanks MaizieD will take a look

Usually the problem is that the child has never been taught to spell
Or encouraged to really look carefully at words and consider roots/meaning

An inexpensive and easy to use book, that can encourage children with reading, spelling and writing, and really help them to understand Phonics, is reviewed in the MN Book Reviews section. Just search ‘Phonics’.

This is one of the most reliable resources, and has an easy explanation of MANY aspects of spelling, and is suitable for primary age, up to early secondary, and even for adults who are confused with spelling.

And as mrz says, you need to LOOK at the combinations of letters that form different sounds.

roots/meaning
are of no help at all, because some words, such as French 'beef, pork, battle, enter' or Germanic 'sister, milk, butter', have sensible English spellings, while others don't: double, centre, group ... brother, mother, through....

Getting in the habit of really looking carefully at words helps, but it really comes down to just word-by-word memorisation of irregular spellings instead of the main ones.

Perhaps you need to ask yourself why you consider English so difficult Masha ...

My 8yo is the same, its 50/50 whether she gets even common words right.

I find it difficult to know how best to help her and she is easily frustrated, not an ideal combination

trt-for-teachers.com/2015/01/08/word-building-versus-spelling/