DD spellings way too hard - Y2

[drspouse]

DD is in Y2 and has mild SEN, she's just moved onto Orange band reading books, passed her phonics check (bear in mind it was in Nov not June) and the Maths app school uses is really hard to manage and doesn't work on a tablet so we pay for Doodle Maths and she's behind Y2 expectations but making progress.
She has a list of spellings from school every week and a spelling test and the week before half term it included effect/affect, and a couple of others.
She doesn't have a clue what either of those mean and we've had words before that she would NEVER use in her spoken language and would struggle with if she saw them written.
I am aware that these might be on the NC Y2 list but I assume they are supposed to differentiate work for her.
We have decided to get her a subscription to Doodle Spelling and did a baseline assessment for her, she was struggling with -ue and -ew and similar which are Y1 spellings so it gave her them to learn and she's done very well over half term so far.
How would you put this to school? They have put her in an extra spelling group at the end of the day and told her to keep asking Mummy and Daddy to practice her school spellings but she just didn't get them and/or wouldn't remember them because she'd never use them (We have been trying to practice them but we have to explain what many of them mean, and they just make no sense to her, so we get tears. We haven't been completely ignoring the school spelling lists, just so you know).
DH suggested saying "we noticed she's struggling with spellings so we're using an app that takes her back to basics a bit" but I'm worried they will still try to emotionally blackmail her to "tell mummy and daddy that you MUST do the school spellings".
What else could we say?
I'm not sure why they think it's OK to give her reading books that are at her level but not spellings!

(PS an academic friend told me she'd marked a student essay that didn't know the difference between effect/affect...)

Would the school be willing to do differentiated spellings if you asked?
We did ask before, but maybe not firmly enough.
In Y1 DS could do the phonics but couldn't write any recognisable letters and they wouldn't let him do the test with manipulables. They aren't that flexible

So surely you go through her spellings at the beginning of the week, making her aware of things such as ff. she then has the rest of the week to practise them before her spelling test.
As she doesn't know either of the words "effect" or "affect" and wouldn't be able to work out which one they were asking her to spell from the sentence the teacher read out. So this would be entirely pointless. They give no marks for partially right words (e.g. when they are teaching -ay they use "today" so if she doesn't know how the "to" part is spelled she doesn't get a mark even if she gets "ay" right).

They don't use straightforward words to teach a spelling pattern e.g. I'd expect play, pay, day, say and may for -ay but instead they will give them words where you have to know another spelling rule like "today".

How are you helping her learn them? There are lots of ways and some kids will learn them better if you try a different way. Some ways could be:
Look, cover, write, check
Write it in the air with different body parts
You write in on her back for her to guess the word
Use play dough to make the letters
Letter cards spread on the floor, race to make the word
Hangman
A paintbrush and water - write them big on the patio / fence.

Also, you mentioned "today" not knowing the "to" part. If they all have for example "ay" she doesn't need to focus on that part of the word. Go through them with her abd highlight the tricky parts and focus on those bits. So for example in "every" it's the second e that is often forgotten. She could try saying it aloud with that sound emphasised. I still say wed nes day in my head whenever I write Wednesday.

I've been thinking about this and comparing it with maths.

In maths, the teacher wouldn't set homework to practice the 7x table if the pupil couldn't yet do 2x or 5x. There wouldn't be any thought of saying well we can't close the gap if they don't try to learn 7x.
Similarly, the teacher wouldn't give a child 4 digit numbers to add if they hadn't mastered adding single digit numbers.

So why in English is it thought acceptable to push complicated spellings when a child hasn't mastered basic ones? Why did my y5/6 DD have to be taught (note not learn) about recognising fronted adverbials when she still hadn't really got the hang of using full-stops and capitals?

Maths recognises a spiral approach, cumulatively building on the basics. Why is English teaching so backwards?

I realise they aren't the same as everyone uses English day to day. But a child can write expressively even if they can't spell certain words yet. What I am concerned about is jumping ahead on the same skill set before the basics are mastered, especially on something like spelling and spelling tests.

How are you helping her learn them?
It is totally irrelevant how we are helping her learn them if she can't work out which out of "affect" and "effect" goes in the sentence the teacher reads out, is it?
Cover/check etc has been shown to be incredibly ineffective.

And that's why I gave you other ways to try and help her!
You're welcome!

OP, I think you need to recognise that you have a role to play here. Do you read to her? If so, are you reading books that are too tricky for her to read herself? I'm surprised that she's never encountered "affect" and "effect" but if she hasn't then why can't you show her/tell her? The difference in spelling those words is minimal- all she would need is to understand the context and how to use them? Surely you can help with that at home?

If there is weeping and wailing over homework then you need to talk to the teacher. She needs to work at her own pace or she will simply be put off learning.

all she would need is to understand the context and how to use them?

boom I think you underestimate how difficult that 'all' really is in a y2 child with SEN.

And remember, it's not just that word, it is all the others, every week.

I'm surprised that she's never encountered "affect" and "effect"
Find me a picture book appropriate for a slightly delayed 7 year old that has these words in, with the difference clear from context.
Or did you not read the bit where my friend's adult students can't tell the difference?

I don't underestimate it at all but it is important to expand a child's vocabulary surely? Making use of such words in your daily speech and reading more complex books TO your child will absolutely help with this.

She may not have read them herself but surely she has encountered them in conversation or books she has listened to? If not, that is your starting point.

Throughout primary I kept raising the difficulty my DD was having with spelling. i kept being fobbed off 'she's not as bad as others in the class' etc. Well she should have been a lot better given the amount of reading we did, and talking to her, and helping.

When she got to secondary, low and behold, aural processing difficulties and working memory issues.

My Y2 child has significant Sen and delays (so much so that he is repeating a school year next year) and his spelling is differentiated for him by the senco so he can make progress at his own speed, since they have been doing that it's really helped his confidence. Absolutely no chance would spell affect or effect at the moment but we have accepted that he will always be working behind his chronological age.

You seem very closed to any poster trying to help you. Maybe get this moved to the SN section?

There's no harm in talking it through, saying to dd: affect and effect are very different words, one starts with an a, one starts with an e, can you hear that? When I say affect and effect.

I think that with a child who is struggling there is a relentlessness, week after week of trying to do the impossible that wears you down.
And then being told that rather than accepting it is just too hard if only you did x or y or z things would magically improve.
It is easy to pick up one small thing and say you could solve it with a bit of work, but it isn't just 1 small thing, it is 1000.

When my DC were in KS1 they were all given two sets of spellings to practice: up to 5 common exception words, plus up to 5 words that they had tried to use in their own writing. So they might come home with a list like one, said, there, they're, treasure, sausage, break. It seemed a very sensible way of doing spellings, as it worked with the children's interests and understanding.

'One size fits' all fits no-one.

My dd1 is severely dyslexic has an extremely low working memory and ADD. She's now 11 and still struggling with spelling but it took an awful lot of polite and then me really digging my heels in to get her differentiated work at that age. Once she was older it wasn't an issue. (Now I Home Ed as my own circumstances changed to accommodate that). By the time dd2 came to begin they were ready to be more accommodating because they knew we wouldn't quietly drop it (never rude but very persistent). I'm seeing many of the same issues regarding dyslexia in her too although her working memory doesn't seem to be an issue. You are right to want it addressed imho, we had years of anxiety and stress and it's put her off even wanting to attempt a lot of new work which left her further behind.

@boomwhacker

I don't underestimate it at all but it is important to expand a child's vocabulary surely? Making use of such words in your daily speech and reading more complex books TO your child will absolutely help with this.

Reading more complex books to a child is great, but it’s not a guaranteed cure for problems with spelling.

DC1 is in Year 5. His spelling is terrible. His spelling has always been terrible.

He’s had at least one bedtime story read to him every night since he was a baby. We’ve read a wide range of books to him, both fiction and non-fiction.
He also usually reads himself to sleep after his bedtime story, and his teacher told me that reading was one of his strengths during the most recent parents evening.

Yet his spelling is still terrible. It’s better than it was when he was in Yr1 / Yr2, but it’s still way behind average for a Yr5 child. For whatever reason, the correct spellings just don’t seem to stick in his head properly.
And we’re talking even easy spellings here.
He had a letter writing task for homework a few weeks ago, sort of thing where you have to write letters from the POV of the character in the book they’re doing in English, and he spelt “dear” as “dear”, “deer”, “deere and dere* within the same piece of homework. Despite “dear” being spelt correctly in the instructions.

We went through very similar with DC2.

Learning spellings and times tables.

She was so determined to learn the set work.

She would work so hard and get spelling and times tables correct for the test - then immediately forget them. She could not apply what she had worked so hard to memorise to her general school work.

She's an adult (mid twenties) and still does not recall times table facts. She still can't spell.

She's dyslexic and dyscalculic (sp) ; ) among other things (spectrum).

We all howl with laughter at some of her text messages.

It doesn't seem important now - but we had tears and frustration every week when she was 'learning' spelling and times tables.

She recently messaged: can you pick me up a loth while you're at the shops.

I knew she meant loaf 😬

She has a young family and a house (which she keeps pristine) with mortgage with her lovely partner.

Wish we hadn't been bothered to learn the spellings and times tables in the first place. Would have saved lots of tears.

But it was important to her at the time.

I feel your pain OP
My DD went through the entire of year 2 getting 0 or at most 1 out of 20 for both spellings and maths
One memorable occasion got 0 out of 50

She is now in year 9 and still absolutely hates school and struggles soooo much with confidence

If I could go back, I would raise my concerns MUCH easier and be MUCH more prepared to escalate

Have a quick look on the SEN boards for excellent advice

Good luck

@Oblomov21

You seem very closed to any poster trying to help you. Maybe get this moved to the SN section?

There's no harm in talking it through, saying to dd: affect and effect are very different words, one starts with an a, one starts with an e, can you hear that? When I say affect and effect.

Do you not get that to answer these correctly in a spelling test, or to use them correctly in writing, YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT THEY MEAN?

Affect and effect are on the year 3/4 spelling list. I teach year 4 so have been setting the spellings this year.

She is getting distressed so please talk to the teacher. Homework should not be distressing and they should not be giving that message to your daughter to pass on but having a word with you.

She can stay in the spelling sessions with the rest of the class and still have a separate list of words to learn that would be more meaningful for her.
Yes there is no point in Yr 2 giving these words if they don't understand them.

The list of spelling words set for year groups goes back to the stupidity of Micheal Gove. As they go up in year groups the words get more ridiculous.

To those saying "you seem very closed", yep we are.
We have decided the school spellings are pointless and too hard.
We are not alone, going by other posters.
We just want to know how to make this doable for DD without her getting upset - the app we are using has already taught her a great deal just over half term.
We're going to have a word with her teacher but from experience the school always thinks they know better even when they don't see the child in tears and even when they won't take a therapist's advice (DS OT said he should do writing/spelling with movable letters, school wouldn't listen).