Helping DS with spelling

[WidowTwonky]

DS is age 10, yr6. His spelling is really quite poor. I think I realise this more now as his brother (age 8) is miles ahead of him.
Examples are mistaking ‘site’ for ‘sight’ or ‘look’ for ‘luck’. Those I can understand, though it’s still frustrating. But another example is ‘axedent’ for ‘accident’.
I’m worried as we approach SATs and high school. Teachers advice from over the years has just been to read, read and read more. He’s a good reader and reads plenty.
He normally gets full marks on his weekly spelling tests.

Is there anything else I can be doing?

One of mine is like this too. She's 11 and a great reader, very articulate etc...but spelling is hideous. I'm hoping that spellcheck and using a laptop will improve things!

I don't know what I can do either...no use telling me to encourage her to read as she already does. She's not dyslexic either...no other signs of it such as backwards letters.

My older DD is like this, very clever, big reader, very academic, but horrible spelling. My feeling is that reading alone does not do the trick for the moment. But Y6 teachers said she believed her spelling would improve later (Y8 or 9ish). In the meantime, we try to use visual memory clues to help.
I heard about this method being great for dyslexia (but haven't tried it myself) www.easyreadsystem.com/index.php
We use something similar in French (we're French):
DC can create his own ones and put them in a "word box". (TBH ... box does not get opened very often...).
I also find that tiredness (and thus concentration) impacts greatly on her spelling.
good luck :)

birkenstock that's interesting...DD"s teacher describes her as "very capable indeed" but her spelling has worried me so much. It's nice to hear that academic kids can also struggle...not NICE...but you know what I mean!

My DD12 can't spell.
She has a much higher than average reading age, a great level of comprehension, is a high flyer in everything else academically. But she just cannot spell. It's her only weakness and something which frustrates her so much. We've done extra classes, daily spelling tests etc...nothing has helped. She can memorise words for spelling tests but when it comes to using them in written work, it all goes out the window.
Her y6 teacher was amazing. Allowed her to do any written work on a laptop enabling her to use spellcheck. She was also given extra time for her SATs.

She takes her time when writing now, goes over work and edits mistakes. Uses a laptop when she can.
She's just gone into y8 and had a glowing y7 report so it doesn't seem to be holding her back.
Some people just can't spell 🤷🏻‍♀️

Wow, slavetothemoney, what an accommodating Y6 teacher!
Same here, spelling tests were all good, but written work is the problem. And yes, time to proofread helps to a certain extent.

...Y7 and 'different' is still spelt half the time as 'difrent'... (and it's the same word in French so no excuse here)

In my experience, spelling test are the worst way in which to learn spelling long term. Have written before about my DS who is dyslexic. The first big indicator to us was his poor spelling. Absolutely did not correlate with his verbal understanding, vocabulary and reading. Lovely to hear of such accommodating and understanding teachers at primary, sadly that was not our experience😯

My DD does Spelling Tutor ( dyslexiagold.co.uk/spellingtutor ) and it’s really helped.

Her written work has really improved.