How do you teach your DCs spellings - please help at my wits end

[cottonwoolbrain]

DS tries so hard...

copy, copy, cover

Writing them out

Trying to put them in sentences

saying and even singing the letters out loud...

Me and dp go over them with him every night and morning

yet at the end of it all he's lucky if he gets 4/12.

He's year 3 now and so despondent. He said this morning I'm not trying anymore because I always do badly anyway and then burst into tears.
The spellings seem much harder this year. They have an easy list and an optional hard list which I don't dare touch with him beyond making sure he knows the meaning of the words.

I've spoken to his teachers who tell me to just carry on what we're doing. They don't get cross with him or pressure him but he still sees the mark :(

I don't think its dyslexia as he reads quite well though needs help with the odd word (he's on lime band which I think is about right for his age - July birthday so he's 7) He clearly understands everything he's told but he's struggling so much with spelling. His hand writing isn't very good but its rapidly improving.

Please help, he's so sad and really wants to succeed but I don't know how to help :(

What are the spellings? They should follow a pattern? So for eg my year 2 child has come home with range, charge, change, etc this week. So you're not really learning 12 different words, you're learning a word pattern?

I will say though, the spellings are generally a lot harder than they used to be. I am 100% anti spelling tests. Completely pointless in my opinion. Even 12 words a week is still only 456 a school year. Even IF he was able to spell all of those words, that would not make him a great speller.

Reading is key. What's his reading like? Most spelling is visual.

Personally, I would tell the school that he is either not to take part, or not to see the mark. I used to hide marks from some kids in my class as it distressed them exactly as you describe. Seriously, what's the point?

Spelling is important, but it's not more important than his mental health.

I gave up with practicing spellings with one of mine, like yours it didn't work and the stress made him more likely to get it wrong.
Instead we went back to year one work and practised sounds, looked at word links, ie what letters can follow ou. We told the teacher this is what we were doing and we stopped working on spelling lists (how could he learn physio when he couldn't reliably spell which/who etc) we worked on the core 200 most used words.
He stopped worrying about his score as he knew he hadn't practised so knew it would be poor.
Now 13 and certainly not the best speller but he will check words frequently. In tests now he is average for his age.

You might find it helpful to try and figure out what his learning style is as there are many ways children (people) learn.This website should be helpful: www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/

Also, memomrizing spellings doesn't necessarily work in my opinion. The one thing I will do it read, read, read. The more he reads, the easier it will be to improve his spelling skills as you unconsciously memorize words the more you see them in a text . I would also go back to basics and look at phonics again.

Some tips here as well: www.theschoolrun.com/teachers-tricks-make-spelling-easy

My daughters in year 4 and gets 5-6 words a week to spell so 12 seems like alot. Could you perhaps practice 2-3 words a day to break it down a bit. Could you also maybe write each word in a different colour, draw a little symbol next to each word... Makes it fun and might trigger his memory.

I think spellings are useless too, my daughter normally gets them all correct.... Does that translate to her written work....nope!

Absolutely agree that if his reading is going ok, focus on that and don't fret about spelling.

Can you have him read to you or start reading together out loud and then let him take the lead ? Or read a sentence each? Then talk about what you have just read so you can (stealthily) check his comprehension.

Spelling in English is particularly fraught

For example, 'yacht' is the same in English and German, the English pronunciation obscures the spelling while the German makes it crystal clear. I use the German pronunciation to check the spelling, regardless of which language I am using.

I read all the time, with good comprehension and speed. When I write, I mostly use an (online) thesaurus to check my spelling, as that avoids the mistakes which come with a spell checker.

Learn spellings? Pah.

Oh god no that sounds so much effort.

I screenshot them on my phone. And then no matter what we're doing we do them (out for walks, bathtime, cooking dinner ect)

I say the word out loud and then I say the phonics out loud like

Village
V I l l a g e

He copies, and then I say the words out loud and he says the phonics himself and I keep giving him them in different orders trying to catch him out.

We don't actually write them down at all, it's all verbal and he still gets 10/10 most weeks

Agree with PPs. My 8 year old is an avid reader and always gets 9 or 10 for spellings which we rarely look at beyond a rushed read on the day before the test. The key is in reading, reading and reading some more.

My son (now 10) used to struggle the same way OP- he would practice look, copy, check all week and get 2/10 and feel disheartened.

He has slow processing and is dysgraphic- diagnosed by edpsych (privately paid for). He has one to one help from senco once a week in school.

Some of the techniques we use (in their recommendation)

• an app called A+ spelling test, which you speak that weeks words into and there are unscrambling games, tests and other activities.

• making up rhymes for that weeks sound- last week the words were ough words. My son came up with old unicorns get help as his way of remembering

• once/twice a week I test him and he writes the words down.

• most days I test him verbally while doing another activity/in the car/preparing dinner

• lots and lots of praise when he practices, when he gets a tricky word right, and even if he doesn't do well on the test I praise the effort put in

My personal opinion is that spelling tests are a waste of time- most children can learn ten words by rote in a week and then promptly forget them when writing sentences etc but I can't change the system so these are the ways we try to make it more bearable

So, what do you do if your child reads reads and reads, and age 11 still cant reliably spell before, make, great??

We are going back to the 200 most frequently used words (again), and focus on those, with a look say copy write check for sone of the spelling words that come home - I won't do words he is very unlikely to need, or half the list when 20+come home.

Its sole destroying, isnt it?

Spelling is something that builds up, so if he's not mastered the easiest of words, he's also going to struggle as they get harder. Any chance you can go back over previous ones to try to find what level he started to struggle?

Also, is there a pattern to what he gets wrong or is it random?

Can you give him all the letters and ask him to put them in the right order? Scrabble or toy letters in a pile and ask him to put them in the right order?

Two things that might help and that haven't been mentioned yet:

• Do not try to memorise spellings as a string of letters. That is exceptionally hard and ultimately pointless.

Instead, first ensure your child can segment the word into its individual sounds. If they can't figure out that e.g. 'house' is made up out of three sounds, /h/ /ow/ /s/ then that is what you need to work on first and foremost. Go right back to phonics and practise, practise, practise segmenting words into their individual sounds. Second, ensure your child knows the various common spellings for each of the ~44 sounds. Make sure they know not just the various vowel spellings, though they are important of course, but also the various consonant spellings, as these are often neglected in phonics teaching. E.g. common spellings for the sound /s/ are s, ce, se, ss, z (of the top of my head). /l/ can be spelled l, ll, le. If first and second are ok, then you can start tackling the words. So for each word the child needs to learn, rather than looking at the letters and trying to memorise which letters appear in what order, you look at the sounds and look at which graphemes are used for each sound in this word. So for 'house' again, you've got the sound /h/ spelled with h, the sound /ow/ spelled with ou, and the sound /s/ spelled se. Discuss which parts are tricky. Perhaps your child finds it easy to remember that in house, the /ow/ sound is spelled /ou/ but harder to remember that the /s/ sound is spelled se. Perhaps you can make it easier for them by pointing out patterns, word roots, similar words in other languages, etc.

THEN you start with the look, cover, write stuff, and any other strategies for repetition and memorisation. But now your child is not memorising a string of letters. Instead they are deducing from the word they hear, which sounds are in it and in what order (no memorisation required) and then merely remembering which spelling is used for those sounds in this particular word.

• The second idea is to use a 'spelling voice'. This is basically an aid to work out which sounds exactly are in a word, and to remember which spellings are used. It means enunciating every syllable very carefully, avoiding any 'schwa' sounds that derive from unstressed vowel sounds. In conjunction with the above first strategy, this can be very useful.

Hope this helps. It is a shame schools basically leave the teaching of spelling to parents (parents teach, school tests e.g. weekly test). I think this is often a problem where phonics teaching was not great, and /or stopped after Y1 phonics screening - or for children who for some other reason didn't really master phonics. They can do phonics for reading, but not for spelling, and that makes spelling really, really hard.

brilliotic that's exactly what DS does : h/ow/s = hows for house.
How do you know if its /ou/ or /ow/? l, ll, le, el, al?? Everything is phonetically plausible, just not right.

I know what you mean op

Personally I think spellings are a waste of time. They remember them for the test akd then forget them after and fir what?

Certainly with dd2 I dont know why we spent so much time bothering. She either didnt really know what half of them meant and given the fact you couldn't read most of what she writes anyway stupid cursive writing it all becomes pointless.

Personally od probably tell school hes not to do them and concentrate on lots of reading to expand his vocabulary and his phonics.

just a quick thought, being able to read doesn't mean dyslexia isn't a factor. Dyslexia is very complex and many children with dyslexia can read well.

I think the gov could do with breaking down the words into their phonics. Which they seem to have done for some words but not others.

Also there are so many words that adults can't do like
Its/it's

Even on here
i think it's soul not sole (of shoes).
And i dont get affect/effect and practice/practise.

I think most of us will memorise the look of the whole word. But for eg i cannot remember double letters. And trying to read the guidance appendix for spelling makes my head hurt.
Maybe the key would be to make them remember the rule.

I think some apps are good as in 30min you could test so many and it highlights and will retest the ones you dont do well on. So much learning is based on how good your memory is.

We had the same issue with 2 of our DC. Both dx with dyslexia (1 not until university). Both could read well but struggled with writing and spelling.

weasels

Any idea what finally made someone make the dx?
What exactly has to happen before they send someone out?

Are you doing them all in one go? If you are, it might be worth doing, say, three a night. It’s boring but it might be easier to learn them (particularly if he’s had a busy day at school).

Just because he can read ‘well’ does not mean that he cannot be dyslexic

Does he get a spelling rule? Do you explain/practice that first? What words can he think of that follow the rule etc.

If he spells a word wrong do you explain to him what happened? What he can think of next time etc?

Does he practice similar words together? I used to do that for DD so house,mouse,louse etc would go together. As long as she knew one,the others would be the same just first letter different.

Emphasise syllables and sounds when practicing.

Focus on the ones he finds the trickiest.

Its likely that by year 3 if he has that much trouble with spellings by year 3, that there's something else up. Its one thing to forget them after the test and not use them in writing, that's pretty common. As he has been practising and working hard, its a different thing to not be able to remember most of them for the short time until the test.

If you could stretch to paying for an independent assessment, you will get more insight than you will get from the school.

Fully support the comments about dyslexia above. Just because he can read well does not discount dyslexia. Dyslexia is not solely or purely difficulties with reading. A bright DC will read well without the ability to phonetically decode correctly as they infer words they cannot read by applying common sense based on the rest of the sentence. Photographic memory is poor, so despite seeing the word again and again, my dyslexic DS will not remember it when he needs to use the word in his written work. Poor spelling and handwriting were our first indicators for dyslexia. Hate spelling tests. They just don't promote long term spelling memory for all kids. Sadly, not all teachers get this. It's horrible to hear how this is frustrating him. School need to fully understand the effect on his self esteem, as I've seen with my DS just how this can affect a child's whole attitude to school. I hope you find a teacher there to understand this. My son only regained his confidence at secondary. SATS do not support good readers/poor spellers

Time for a chat with the teacher I think. They need to know how hard he is working at the very least, and how much he deserves praise if he gets a 5. Ask about his reading progress too.

A spelling app worked for us, I think not least because there was no embarrassment if DC make a mistake - only the tablet "sees" the mistake. We used one where they earned coins for correct answers and could spend them on a game so even if they get less right, they can still get some reward. And it being on the tablet just makes it less of a chore. But only alongside other strategies such as brilliotic's ones. It's obviously not a substitute for breaking it down and understanding the constituent parts. I still mis-sound some words deliberately to help me spell them Eg friends= fry-ends.

Thank you all so much, you've really made me feel there are other strategies that I can try.

This week he has ee sounds - ee, ea and e^e (e.g. compete)

Last night I went through the list and picked out just the ee ones. I sat him down and explained today we were only doing "ee" words. I sounded out each individual sound co-ff-ee, th-r-ee .r-ee-f and 2 others and he managed to write them all 5 down correctly. I didn't discuss any of the others with him... just gave him great big ticks for those 5 and a hug.

I know its still a long way to go from sounding out to a spelling test but I wish you could have all seen his smile.

We used a green pen. Tomorrow morning we will do the ea ones with a pink pen.

I don't know how well this will work and I will certainly be trying some of the other strategies but its hopefully a good start.

PS can anyone please suggest a good spelling app? I don't mind paying to ensure its going to do the job properly. He's got a kids kindle fire and also access to my phone (android)