Year 5 boy - good speller but not when writing! Help.

[DamnBamboo]

Hi all,

I am just wondering if anybody has any advice.
My eldest boy is year 5, so will be starting year 6 next year and as such subject to the new and apparently harder curriculum tests at at the end of it.

He is very bright, well above average and does well in all subjects! He always gets good feedback from his teachers and has been excelled in several subjects including Maths, so on balance they do try to differentiate as well as possible.

My probem is this. His spelling. He gets 100 percent on all of his spelling tests and when you ask him to spell complicated words, he can do it no problem.

But, in his written work, he still makes very basic errors that you would normally see in much younger children and the school don't seem to do much about it.

So for example, a piece he may in topic will have a lot of basic incorrect spellings (think lite insead of lite and hear instead of here) etc but they don't seem to point this out nor challenge him on it.

Clearly he has trouble using correct spellings in written work, although as I've said, when tested verbally, or told to go back (by me) to correct a piece with obvious errors in grammar and punctuation, he does it not problem.

It drives me a little bit crazy because he can do it but yet doesn't seem to when writing.

Does anybody have any techniques (other than repeatedly reminding him to check his work, which I'm not sure the teacher is doing) for him to pay more attention and not make the silly mistakes in the first place.

Any advice would be most welcomed as I would like for him to nip this in the bud given that his teachers have been saying he needs to slow down since year 1.

Thank you

Reading a lot, learning new vocabulary, maybe keeping his own notebook 'dictionary' of new or problem words, having a thesaurus so he can learn alternative words for common ones, might help.

Books by Lynne Truss are very useful for getting a new 'slant' on words, spelling and grammar. "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" is her best known one, but are several. She also does some for children, but DS could probably cope with an adult one (then you can enjoy it too!)

www.lynnetruss.com/

Something I often suggest to younger children, but it might clarify any 'confusions' he has and it really is suitable for all ages is this:

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’ and my name.

Great Ferguson. Thank you so much.

I should add it's just the speling. Not anything else.
Just spelling and when you ask him 'how do you spell initiate' he spells it verbally correctly and an write it down correctly too, despite sometimes spelling it with a 'ch'

Drives me potty!

Still, could be worse

xxx Thanks again xxx

Hi Camel, Thank you. I agree with both of what you're saying.
Problem is, as much as I get him to check it, it's his coursework and the stuff he does at school that doesn't seem to be picked up on. I'm on it, at home and his homework is way better, although, still not great.

He understand all the prefixes - he knows how to spell. There are very few words that he can't spell when asked, but for some reasons it just doesn't translate into decent copy!

Very bizarre indeed. I guess I'm looking for a strategy to encourage him to think about it before he writes it down in the first place! Actually whilst he's composing his piece.