Year 4 with dire spelling! Help!

[HamCob]

My son in Year 4 struggles to spell even basic common words. E.g 'move' is 'moov' 'whant' instead of 'want', 'jumpt' not jumped etc.

I noticed his spelling was an issue at the end of year 2 but I thought it would sort itself out. Some of it is laziness as he can sometimes correct his mistakes but he just doesn't seem to have improved since Year 2.
He missed a big chunk of year 3 due to lockdown. On his return to school he has been having phonics teaching instead of SPAG lessons. I feel that this is making things worse as he already over uses phonics instead of applying spelling rules and remembering words from memory.

What can I do to help him? Should I hire a tutor? Does anyone know of a programme he can follow?

Just for context, he is an excellent reader, no SEN and pretty average in most other areas, just an appalling speller!

One of mine is like this. Teacher isn’t overly concerned as he has an excellent vocabulary but his spelling is as bad as mine awful.

We’ve had some success with the Squeebles app, because he enjoys the competition. Otherwise just keep him reading as much as possible so he learns to recognise what looks wrong.

@peapotter

One of mine is like this. Teacher isn’t overly concerned as he has an excellent vocabulary but his spelling is as bad as mine awful.

We’ve had some success with the Squeebles app, because he enjoys the competition. Otherwise just keep him reading as much as possible so he learns to recognise what looks wrong.

Thank you! Your son sounds really similar to mine. I was hoping for the same regarding reading. He loves Harry Potter and anything by JK Rowling so I'm hoping the exposure to books will help. He also has a great vocabulary and what he actually writes is really good...when I can actually read it!! I haven't heard of sqeebles but I'm off to have a look!

We found Spelling Tutor a really good programme, my 10 year old, he has Dyslexia and really struggles but this really helped us, can be used by everyone. Good Luck :) xx

I find it hard to explain my child when she spells museum as myooseeyum. Thats a perfectly legit spelling - if you look at it as sum of its parts; when you sound out its alright. How do I reason with my child about this?!

English spellings is challenging to teach if not to learn :-) After all there are just 26 letters in the alphabet unlike some other languages that have 100s or even 1000s of letters in their alphabet.

https://www.teachwire.net/news/spelling-strategies-how-not-to-teach-spelling

[quote Norestformrz]https://www.teachwire.net/news/spelling-strategies-how-not-to-teach-spelling[/quote]
Thanks, that's an interesting link

That Spelling Thing is good but he may be a bit too young.
We use Doodle Spelling with my DS- I'm actually relieved he's about the same as your DS- he's also in Y4 and he's on Y2 spellings on the app. He likes the hangman game too.
And don't use look and cover. Or the totally random sets of words DD comes home with.

Drspouse you might like the spelling lists Charlotte, the author of the article, has produced. These are fir Y2 https://linguisticphonics.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/revised-national-curriculum-y2-1.pdf

Thanks!

I hope you don’t mind me crashing your thread OP.

@Norestformrz what is a good/the best technique for a parent to teach spelling to their child from scratch?

I have a year 2 with ASD working about 12-18 months behind. He is reading level 5 books. We were using Squeebles so he could concentrate on the spelling, not the writing but he won’t use his iPad at the moment. Should I try a different online programme or is there a better method we can use? Thanks.

Handwriting helps with spelling but I know as a parent that it can be difficult to persuade your own child to do this. It is much better for memory than using a keyboard.
I'd always ask the child to say the sounds (not the letter names) as they write them. Again helps retention.
https://www.udemy.com/course/help-your-child-to-read-and-write/ is a free course for parents explaining how to help and Charlottes blog offers excellent advice.

This is the thing I’ve found most difficult about home learning. The teacher says to let the child spell the words phonetically themselves and to leave them too it (my DS is a bit younger than yours).

I find it so difficult to sit next to him while he writes ‘lowd’ (loud) and is proud of himself for using the sound mat to work it out! I guess I just have to bite my tongue and hope it works itself out.

I think it's really sweet when they do that so I just take a picture and show it round!

DS uses Dyslexia Gold even though he doesn’t have a diagnosis. He’s always been a big reader and was reading Harry Potter aged 6 but this has not helped with his spelling. He’s 11 now and at a grammar school so he’s a bright lad but he still really struggles with spelling.

Norestformrz thanks. We do get him to practice his handwriting but separately to his spelling, and not to learn those words. There is only so much we can get him to write daily as he finds it difficult so using Squeebles for spelling was intended to be an additional thing to help.

Do you still rate Apples and Pears?

Writing the spellings by hand has been shown to support memory ...it doesn't need to be in best handwriting.

I like Apples and Pears. It basically follows the principles mentioned