Spelling help

[ilkleymoorbartat]

My year 2 son has just started getting spelling tests at the end of each week. There's 6 spellings that he needs to learn. He's very very resistant. So far we're spending limited time on 2 spellings a night .

But wondering if there's a strategy that works for this kind of thing? Do you get them to write it over and over. Do you ask how they think it's spelled and then get them to correct it? Help please?!

I use the Squeebles spelling app for my son.

You can make a list of his spellings and record yourself saying them - he then practices them and it tells him which he has got right or wrong.

There is a cost for it but we’ve been using it for three years so far and it’s been worth it.

Make it fun (bit obvious, sorry!). He could write each word in bubble writing and colour them in, write the word and then around it draw a picture to represent that word, find a way of saying the word in his head that helps (eg. saying skizzors instead of scissors), write a mnemonic. I work with a year 3 who is learning words by sight (Deaf so can't learn phonics) and they draw a picture of the word on one bit of paper and write the word on another, then play games like snap and matching games, games showing him the picture and he has to write the words etc.

I think the method they recommend is

Look
Cover
Write
Check

Do that daily and then test towards the end of the week.

The more your DS reads, the easier he will find spellings, but that's a longer term plan.

Look
Say
Cover etc.
Sometimes saying the word (and even exaggerating pronunciation to help spelling) can help.

Look say cover write check.
It’s old and boring but it’s still around because for many children it works.
I think just practicing 2 a night is a good idea.
You can try the coloured and bubble writing stuff but I find children don’t particularly take notice of the letters when they do this. It takes a lot longer and is less effective.

Ok thank you all, this is really helpful. He's so resistant and unfocused it's hard to remain chilled and fun!

If he’s really resistant - bribery all the way. Immediate rewards or have something to work towards at the weekend, maybe with a sticker chart? And maybe bonus points for getting them right at the end of a practice session to keep him focussed.

Another good app for this age is Spelling Shed.

Mine (yr2) like rainbow writing - write the word correctly, then go over it multiple times using a different coloured pencil for each word.

They also do pyramid writing, for example
p
pe
peo
peop
peopl
people

Or use/make up rhymes eg. Big Elephants Can't Always Use Small Exits for 'because'

I find if I feign disbelief that he could possibly know how to spell this really difficult word that gets at least 3 or 4 done.

YY to Squeebles. Well worth the cost.
DS used to get 6 spellings a week, so we did “word of the day”. Just concentrated on one word, but wrote it, read it, used it out loud etc a lot for that day. We stared with the trickiest. Day 2, we’d do the next hardest and refresh on the day 1 word etc.

https://linguisticphonics.wordpress.com/2020/03/08/how-not-to-teach-spelling/

Five minute mum on Instagram is amazing for games to play for things like spellings.
My Dc love all the games and don’t even realise they’re learning half the time.
If he has a poppit you could write the alphabet on there and then write the spellings words on little scraps of paper and he has to ‘pop’ the word.

fiveminutemum.com/games-and-activities/spellings-the-five-minute-way

Another vote for 5 minute mum spelling games, especially the poppit.
Also, try Roll and spell / Roll a spelling. He rolls the dive, you say a word and he writes it as stated by the number of the dice. Lots on Google but this one is a favourite in our house / good for a Y2 child:
www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-Study-Game-Roll-and-Spell-4505392

Ha ha, the irony of spelling dice as dive on a spelling thread!!

We've tried various games etc, for DC anything that gets him thinking more about the letter selection process really helps him learn them much better than writing. We've done stamping, circle the correct word, writing in different colours, scratching the words on black Scratch art paper. As someone above said, five minute mum has loads of ideas in her school book and a few suggestions on the blog. I've also seen idea like creating word searches and wordart to find them in, or using bath crayons.

We've ended up going with a free IPad spelling app called A+ spelling test. I can create lists, recording me saying the words, and there's a few different types of activity. DC accepts it and it's less effort to plan than the more fun Thor stuff above, would something like being allowed to use your phone for spelling get you at least a couple of days practice a week?

Amazing ideas, I'm so grateful thank you! And do you keep repeating until they get it right? It's so hard to know how hard to push!

On her blog post FMM recommends spending the first few days just recognising the words and not getting them to write them down, so playing all the games (or on the app) and then only the last few days actually writing them.
Maybe your DC is so resistant as he’s worried about getting it wrong, if he spends time recognising the word he may feel more confident

Different places to write them? Whiteboard stuck to a kitchen cupboard or magnetic letters on the fridge - do it while you're serving up the dinner (or pudding).

We've been using Spelling Shed with my son since Reception year. He thinks of it more as a game as it's on the iPad. We work through the easy to extreme levels with his 5 weekly spelling words every evening and on the Friday morning before school we do a written "mock" test with his whiteboard and pen. Works well for us.

Oh, and when I say every evening I don't include the weekends. We give him a break from and and all homework at the weekend, with the exception of guided reading.

Our school gave out a spelling book. A bit like this one below but couldn't find the exact one - seems like this does the same thing though

https://www.primaryteaching.co.uk/products/rbs1/spelling-book-look-cover-write-check-record-a5-56-pages-?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9ceMxKX8wIVB-vtCh3S9wg1EAQYAiABEgLGgvDD_BwE

Definitely helps us having this structure.

We had refrigerator magnets that were letters of the alphabet.
I had them put up a few of the spelling words in the morning before school and then I’d scramble each word into a nonsense word while they were at school and they’d come home and correct them by dinnertime. It made it into a fun game. They’d laugh at what I would come up with.

Are they mainly phonetically regular?

We used foam bath letters and spelling out loud quite a lot. In return I pronounced a lot of ridiculously long nonsense words spelt in foam letters.