How to help child's spelling & grammar

[meddysam]

DD is a good & avid reader (7.4 on the accelerated reader thing) but is struggling a bit with spelling, grammar & punctuation. How should I support her?

Is there anything specific within SPaG that she struggles with?

She's a bit careless so I think a lot is lack of attention to detail. She does know how to spell & has a wide vocab (hence reading score) but not so great at transferring to paper. She's in yr 4

My dd was like this, especially spelling and initial caps for proper nouns.

her teacher never corrected her spelling so she was just reinforcing wrongness over and over.

The only thing that worked for us was homework on top of what school was setting:

• we actively learned and tested at home every word on the ks2 list over a period of 2 years
• We used online spelling tools provided by school
• we read lots together and when we met unfamiliar words I would write them in my special “book of new words” so she could learn the meaning and spelling
• we talked a lot about word derivation and “roots” of words to help unlock spelling in word families
• often for written homework she did a word bank of “special” words she would like to use, and I would check it over first and make her try again or look up in her dictionary any words she misspelled.
• I would review any written work she had done at home and I had an exercise book in which I wrote every word she spelled wrong. Then we would learn those together and we would test 10 spellings off that list every day. We would frequently go back to words from weeks or months ago so she got confident and didn’t forget
• I bought her a thesaurus and a dictionary
• after she had mastered a spelling it went into our weekly game: “which one is right” - in which I would give her a pile of bits of paper with some words spelled right and some wrong and she had to sort them into two piles of wrong and right spelling. Just to really get that instinct what looks right and wrong.
• we did active learning - spelling words out loud on the walk to school as she likes thinking on the move (and it is harder spelling aloud)

this sounds incredibly heavy handed and awful but it was only a few words a day, and I didn’t hammer it home (eg often we would just read, and I wouldn’t bleat on about new words)

She got 118 in her spelling and 120 in her grammar test at ks2, this was after being told her spelling was so poor she wasn’t meeting expectations in Y4.

with grammar: we loved BBC bitesize

she is still DREADFUL at spelling tbh but now she is 13 I’ve given up!

@BestServedChilled thank you, that's really helpful.
What's frustrating is that we can do a spelling test and she gets 9/10 then I look in her workbook from school & she's spelt the word right & three sentences later wrong 😣

“cheats” really helped my dd with spelling

1. adjectives ending -y become adverbs ending -ily like happy/happily

Except the rule isn’t perfect eg ruby

2. when a word ends -ant it will come from a very close relative in a word family

eg accountant, occupant, buoyant
These are closely linked to account, occupy, buoy

whereas ending -ent there’s rarely a close relative:

Eg confident, incident, experiment
there is no word family here. You might think “oh, but what about confide” - but that is a totally different meaning and related to “confidant “ which in fact proves the rule!

DD spent a lot of time trying to find exceptions and prove my rules wrong… as she is basically awkward and likes it when I’m wrong! when she succeeded her prize was feeling smug, and either way she learned something!

I get mine to write their favourite characters comics and short stories. They do the accompanying art work also.

@Marblessolveeverything does it work? My dd was just so captured by phonics I had to break her out of those rules - she would default back to phonetic spelling of left to her own devices and had no clue she had the spellings wrong.

When she was 9 and still perfectly happy to spell “sosij”, “litul”, started to panic a bit!

she also had a habit of running words together like “incase” and breaking words like “what ever” which she still does an awful lot.

@meddysam yes! I recognise that. They haven’t internalised that spelling. So as soon as they are trying to think about 6 other things the spelling is the easily lost - and there is SO much to do all at once - eg be creative, deploy a fronted adverbial, use “powerful adjectives”, focus on handwriting, use full stops properly etc.

I tried all sorts of things but my dd rebelled a lot, in the end old-fashioned rote-learning was her preference really.

and then once you’ve learned a word you have to KEEP relearning it and using it until it is imprinted on your mind, so you can instantly look at it and go “yep, that looks right.”

when my dd got a spelling wrong repeatedly I would ask her to write it out correctly every day for about two weeks - because you have to see it spelled right, over and over, to get that secure instinct in your head.

anyway that’s what I think!

@BestServedChilled you make a lot of sense so I will copy your methods. Although it's a bit exhausting! 😆

Sounds a lot like my DD who is dyslexic. What do school say?

If your DD is dyslexic it will require a different approach as she may have limited phonological awareness, or an issue with her working memory which would both impact her spellings.

school haven't said anything. She did have a speech delay & was behind in reading but now is advanced.

@meddysam there’s a great app where you can preload your word list and then it tests you and lets you play a little game if you get your spellings right - cannot remember what it is called but my dd hated it!

i was so disappointed as outsourcing spelling tests to an app just seemed so perfect.

We had so many arguments about her spelling. To this day she genuinely thinks it doesn’t matter if she spells things wrong.

Homeschooling during Covid made it all much worse of course.

It will feel hopeless at first and you will get exasperated when she’ll forget words you spent ages helping her to learn. And she will hate you sometimes 😂

ooh i need apps!

@BestServedChilled it was a slower progress but it felt more organic. I am in education myself and am very concerned about killing the joy and curiosity of learning.

So I was the editor and limited my input, to a couple of advisory points to bring to the next edition.

The school provided the more traditional activities so it wasn't isolated.

I always think children retain more while engaging in a passion.

Read, read, read. That reinforces what’s right.

Illustrated dictionary for browsing and fun. DC cherish them. Get a slightly too complicated one, she’ll love it.

Keep all the arguments for why spelling matters (and why it doesn’t) in your back pocket.

I always think children retain more while engaging in a passion.

Absolutely.

One thing that's annoyed me a bit is school have said dd should be reading more challenging books but dd tells me the books in her higher band range are boring.

@Supersimkin2 could you recommend an illustrated dictionary?

There is a dictionary you can use to look up spellings according to their sounds called ACE dictionary. It's useful if you want children to independently look up spellings that they need to check when they are writing. It doesn't contain definitions. It takes a bit of practise to use it properly but it's great for bright, motivated children who want to be able to correct their spelling.

Thank you

I remember reading that children retain the spellings better if they learn through play rather than learning by rote. We are trying the Spelling Bee app to help our daughter. We also try to use real creative ways when she gets lists home from school. We suspect dd2 is dyslexic so try and work on her spelling at home.

Thanks @IkaBaar

My DD is also an advanced reader and has always been greater depth. She can follow complicated written instructions (avid baker) but struggles with verbal instruction.

It is literally only spelling that she notably struggles with. She appears careless and could spell the same word wrong 2-3 different ways in one piece of work.

school would tell me she just couldn’t spell. In lockdown it was clear after 3 days it’s more than that

My daughter is dyslexic and has an advanced reading age, nose in a book constantly. She's a terrible speller though. Gets a high score in a test if she's practiced but a day or two later it's gone.

Dyslexia manifests in widely differing ways. She definitely struggled to learn to read and phonics were the bane of her life. We finally met a teacher that simply said they don't work for everyone and some kids just need to learn a spelling on sight. Writing it repeatedly (which worked for me) didn't for her at all,

What made a difference for her aside from the sheer volume of reading was weirdly lockdown. Classes went online (yr 5) and she had to start typing in answers. Every time you get the spelling wrong you get a little squiggle underneath so it prompted her to go back and correct it. Over time her spelling has become vastly better though it goes to pot a bit when she is under exam pressure. She's just finished year 8 so just class tests

DD2 is not dyslexic, above average reader and speller but careless. There's been a big jump in punctuation and capitals etc in Year5. They get constant reminders by the year end. I think in year 4 they are more concerned with content and getting them to get it down on paper so I wouldn't stress too soon.
There's also a big difference still between Autumn and summer born kids.