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Original poster

Can anyone tell me if this is 'normal' spelling for a year 6?

78 replies

berylbainbridge · 07/12/2015 10:02

Lisining
diddn't
Creid (cried)
Tiket (ticket)
Streched
Comeing, likeing etc

But then spelling things like sauntered OK. Teacher doesn't seem to think there's a huge issue but dd is upset about her spelling ability and it's dragging her confidence down. She is a brilliant imaginative writer. To my eyes (and I don't say it to her at all) she should be able to spell some of these words. Thanks in advance for any views!

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Mashabell · 07/12/2015 17:24

Some children who are very good writers, in terms of language use, find concentrating on spelling very difficult.

I would ask if she would like u to help her. If yes, i would pick out just a few of the words which break regular patterns (ticket, comeing, likeing) and ask her if she can see where she went wrong herself. She may well do so.
If not, remind her what the rule is.

Leaving out irregular letters (streTched - touched), or writing letters the wrong way roung (creid) is common, because English spelling keeps throwing spanners in the works (e.g. kaleidoscope). This tends to get better over time.

mrz · 07/12/2015 18:17

is common representation of /ch/ watch, match etch, fetch, Witch, hitch, hutch, Dutch, switch, botch etc etc

Mashabell · 07/12/2015 18:41

Sorry about my message appearing 3 times. I have no idea why.

Mrz,
tch is common. What confuses children sometimes is that that the very common words rich, much, such, touch, which use just ch.

mrz · 07/12/2015 19:04

Which is why you teach spelling masha and don't say in one post irregular and in another common

Mashabell · 07/12/2015 19:25

Often u have to learn word by word, rather than by pattern, regardless of how it's taught:

Rich - stitch, which - witch, such - hutch... .

For some children that's very hard.

Many common words have irregular spellings.

Ferguson · 07/12/2015 22:47

Encourage her to pay attention to spelling of words, in books as she is reading. Particularly those spellings that have 'caught her out'.

This book will help a lot, if she looks at it carefully, and tries to recognise things she is finding difficult or confusing:

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.

calzone · 07/12/2015 22:57

A y5 boy told me today he is so good at spelling because he watches TV with his Grandad who has the subtitles on all the time.

Tis a fair point! He sees the words coming up on screen and reads them.

user789653241 · 07/12/2015 23:14

Wow, I'm glad to hear that calzone.
Second person to recognize subtitles can be good after Mashabell

mrz · 08/12/2015 06:50

Of course we spell each word on an individual basis masha but that doesn't mean we have to learn over a million words, word by word. We can group words that have the same spelling for the same sound (not just containing the same letters in the same order) and learning to relate new words to those we know already certainly helps.
And yes frequently seeing words spelt correctly also helps, although not all good readers are good spellers. Being able to read a word doesn't automatically mean you can write it.

Mashabell · 08/12/2015 09:52

I established 15 years ago, that if u don't include derivatives and compounds (e.g. come - comes, coming, income, shortcomings), learning to spell just 7,000 words is enough to become an outstandingly proficient speller of English.

And only 2,650 of those 7,000 words contain irregular spellings, but some of those make another 1,400 unpredictable as well, like the 103 which don't use oo for the long /oo/ (group, move, rude, shrewd...) make the 94 which do unpredictable too. This means that 4,000 of the most used 7,000 English words contain one or several unpredictable letters.

They can be taught in little groups (mole, hole, pole - coal, foal, shoal - roll, scroll, stroll...) but for most children it takes a long time and oodles of practice to pick right one when they are concentrating on what they want to say, rather than just the spelling.

And i think it's a great shame that we put generation after generation of children through such utterly pointless hard labour when we could easily decide to put an end to this nonsense, if we really wanted all children, not just the ablest, to become reasonably well educated.

TeddTess · 08/12/2015 09:56

so what do you suggest mashabell? we change all the english spellings?

Original poster
berylbainbridge · 08/12/2015 10:47

Thank you Ferguson I will look for the book.
I feel embarrassed to admit that I don't have a clue about how children are taught to spell. I'm a mostly very good speller myself and I don't know if that had made me complacent about dd's spelling - thinking it would 'come right' on its own (stupid of me I know). We've been aware something's not been right with her spelling since about year 4 but teachers have always been quite dismissive because she reads and writes so well. This is the result of that I suppose. Now I am here with a dd who probably needs to go back to basics and a mother who hasn't got a clue how to go about it! I sat down with her briefly this morning and asked her to spell out some of the words on the list - she still got most wrong (although that was spelling out loud not writing). She was genuinely bemused that diddn't should only have 1 d. She claimed she was self editing as she was writing which is alarming as it is absolutely riddled with mistakes.

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Original poster
berylbainbridge · 08/12/2015 10:50

There was also the dreaded 'could of' and 'should of' instead of have which I know is grammar...
She says the teachers always tell them just to spell things phonetically if they are stuck but surely in year 6 that's just going to ingrain bad habits further?

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TeddTess · 08/12/2015 11:02

get the list of top 200 high frequency words. make sure she can spell all of those. any she can't every day test her on them. i did that with dd last summer and it made a big difference.

get her a little address book and make her a dictionary. go through her work, put in the dictionary any word she is misspelling. make her use the dictionary when she's writing. if she spells the words she commonly uses correctly she'll be half way there.

how does she feel about her spelling? does she shrug it off or does she know it needs sorting out? until dd started to want to make it better herself i was getting nowhere.

TeddTess · 08/12/2015 11:03

hfw

Original poster
berylbainbridge · 08/12/2015 11:09

Thanks Ted. She is aware her spelling is not right. She's very sensitive and is already having input from the school for low self esteem so I have to tread carefully. I think she'll be open to help though and I told her I was going to try and help her with her spelling when I chatted to her this morning.

OP posts:
Mashabell · 08/12/2015 11:47

Teddtess ... change all the english spellings?

Changing all would be silly and pointless, but making it more systematic would be a good idea, by amending some of the rogue spellings in the 2,650 words which are chiefly responsible for making learning to read and write English exceptionally slow and difficult. Especially the ones that don't just make learning to spell difficult, but learning to read as well, like 'couple, group, move'.

What few people realise is that for 400 years (1350 - 1755) English spelling was being constantly changed, often deliberately for the worse, with no thought to how it affected learning to read and write. That's why a lot of children take a very long time to get to grips with it.

What i'm mainly saying is: be kind to children who have more trouble than most with learning to spell. Most of them feel bad enough about it. They are made to feel stupid by the many stupid English spelling conventions.

mrz · 08/12/2015 12:31

She needs to spell things phonetically CORRECTLY and if they don't teach her how to spell words correctly using phonics then she will keep getting them wrong! [grr]

maizieD · 08/12/2015 14:07

You might find these sites helpful:

www.syntheticphonics.com

alphabeticcodecharts.com/

Crash course in phonics!

VenusRising · 08/12/2015 14:27

Sometimes we have to accecpt that our kids aren't good at something.

For us it was the realisation that DS has a wooden ear, and with dd it is that she can't spell for tofu. Not even to save her life, and certainly not if she thinks about it.

We have her chanting and writing spellings, but as her teacher has a northern accent and we have PR and I have a slight west country brogue it's not as easy as you might think to get the pronounciation correct.

Spellings are never going to be a strong point, and for some kids maths isn't - it is my belief that we have to accept that some children may never ever be able to spell fluently.
In these days of typing and not relying on vellum and ink, a few misspelt words isn't going to ruin the work. They will never have to scrub at the ink on the page with the grey rubber and/ or have to start over, as it was for us.

If your dd is doing well in all other respects, I would lay off about the spellings, and ask the school to lay off on them also.

Sometimes we need to concentrate on the bigger picture. Having a love of learning, good self esteem and being fluently expressive are far more valuable skills than being a spelling bee.

Tell the school that concentrating on spellings is making your dd miserable and damaging her self esteem, and that you'd like her to accepted for who she is rather than some one size fits all.

In the long term, spellings are not that important as when we wrote in ink with quills on expensive paper. Spell check is your friend, so long as grammar is ok, and similar sounding words with different meanings like there, they're and their are known.

Stop worrying about her spelling - accecpt that it's not her strength, and move along.

Celebrate your DDs positives!

Mashabell · 08/12/2015 15:10

Well said, Venus!

BarbarianMum · 08/12/2015 15:14

I have a son who is similar (latest offerings include whith, shure and veary Confused). He has a fantastic vocabulary and can't spell for toffee. I accept he's not a naturally good speller but equally, I think he needs to learn to spell common words correctly. So we work on them again and again and again

mrz · 08/12/2015 16:42

No one is a perfect speller but that doesn't mean we should accept poor spelling.
I wonder how many parents would be happy with teachers writing off children as incapable of learning! Shock

titchy · 08/12/2015 17:12

Spell checks aren't allowed at GCSE or A level, and losing SPAG marks can mean the difference between an A and a C. But hey it's not like these are important.