Another spellings question

[hennipenni]

Can anybody offer any ideas? DD age 6 (yr 2) is struggling with her spelling tests. She will take all week to learn the spellings as they are and then we try to get her to write them in a sentence as this is what they do at school, however she just can't seem to grasp this concept and will then get most of the spellings wrong. She has been flagged up as possibly being dyslexic if this has any bearing on this, her teacher takes into account that she writes most of her letters the wrong way round and more often than not swaps the blending sounds around (not sure if this is where she is falling down), however most of the way that she has spelt these spellings will bear no resembalance (sp) whatsoever to the actual word. Any tips or advice greatly appreciated.

The way I was always taught to learn spellings is the 'look, cover, write, check' approach. Not sure if this is what your DD is doing. Basically you look at the word, then cover it up, then write how you think it is spelt, then check you are right.

If there are an concerns over dyslexia I would push for some formal assessment as the quicker you get some extra help and suggestions the better.

Good luck

We almost do what Lori says but for ds2 this has evolved into
Look - read word and spell outloud while looking.
Cover - spell word outloud
Write - write it down and check .

Firstly, I'd check if you your DD actually knows all the letter sounds (not letter names). Can she name them quickly or does she have to think about them for a moment or two? If she doesn't know them really well, it's going to be difficult for her to spell whole words. If she is writing letters the wrong way round, I would say it is very likely that she just hasn't learned them properly yet. This would be absolutely the first place to start. She really needs to look at a letter and say immediately what it is. The school should be able to give you some ideas how to get her to learn them really thoroughly.

Secondly, see if she can orally break words down into their sounds. You do not need to show her a word written down to do this. For example, see if she can break down simple consonant-vowel-consonant words such as cat, log, man, nap etc. Give her an example so she knows what you mean. E.g. "The sounds in cat are c-a-t. Listen, cat c-a-t. Can you tell me the sounds in log". If she can do three letter words, see if she can do regular four letter words e.g. lend, hand, song, flip, pens etc. If she can do four letter words, see if she can do regular five letter words e.g. flint, crisp etc. Your DD will need to be identify sounds in words if she is going to use "sounding out" to help her spell. If she can't do this, she needs to learn. Go and talk to the school about how she can be helped. It is a skill that can be taught.

Thirdly, see if she can read the words she is being asked to spell. If she can't, she really needs to be given other, more appropriate, words. Otherwise it is a pretty pointless exercise. Again, go and talk to the school.

Look, say, cover, write, check can work well but I would really recommend doing the little investigations I've suggested.

If given 10 (appropriate - must be appropriate - words) to learn a week, on day one learn two words. On day two, recap over the two words and learn one or two new word. On day three, recap the three / four words already learned and add one or two more etc. Only add new words if you DD can spell the ones she has already learned. Keep going over them every day.

Good luck with it all.

Thankyou for all the replies. We do the look, cover,write and check.

Noe, DD does know the letter sounds well, she can break down and spell back any length of word as long as it's spelt phonectically and she can read the words (after she's sounded them out). The problem isn't with her spelling as such but putting it into a sentence, she just can't grasp this concept at all.