Pushy mum alert - dd2's spelling is nowhere near in line with her reading - she is a girly swot so how can I help her at home?

[Enid]

Yes yes I know pushy parent - she is only in reception. ORT level 5 (which she finds pretty easy). Her spelling is pretty rubbish and SHE has asked me if she can have spelling tests every week (like dd1 has). Is there a good way/book to help 5 year olds with their spelling?

MI - your 4 year old wrote that, wow!

Mine can barely draw a circle [slighty worried]

My Miriam wrote a story in reception about 'wunz rpon tim der wer 2 monstres'...

some of the letters were the wrong way round, too.

It appears to have done her no harm in the longish run. I don't worry about spelling. Actually they get no spelling tests whatsoever at school but they do learn about how a narrative works. I find this rather reassuring. Although it has to be said that their father is quite dreadful at spelling and he is nearly 43 and should know better.

Mercy, she's in reception and very nearly five!

Yes yes its all lovely.

well you have no idea what it is like to live with dd2 so I can forgive your assumption that I am a pushy parent

lolol

I want shepudspy

and I love the sign MI, that is so sweet!

I came onto this thread because my dd2 has the same issues but she is 9.5 so not really got anything useful to add really.

dd2s spelling is perfectly charming. But she wants to improve it, not me. Believe me, it is not my idea of fun to set 4 x 10 lots of maths questions during teatime either. But, as with dd1's difficulties, I am quite happy to help teach my children anything they want to know without worrying that it is going to stunt their emotional development, or indeed our long term mother-child relationship

enid I promise I don't think you're pushy - for similar reasons to you dd and ds1 have 'trays' in their bedroom, with exercise books with sums in, workbooks for spelling and essay books for stories. They wanted to turn their bedroom into a 'school'... Try the Wizard Whimstaff books - WHSmiths in Cribbs Causeway have LOADS of them!

thanks torty

we are off to cribbs on saturday (gawd help us), so I'll grab some of those

Good luck! I was there today, it's not TOO Bad at this time of year!

The books are by the entrance to Smiths from the outside which is the middle entrance to the mall. I might have to take the kids there on Sat as well to get dd some new sandals [sigh] so if you see someone with 3 MANIC children looking utterly stressed, it's probably me!

or me

bet my children are more manic than yours (yaaboo)

well sometimes mine all look angelic

and walk along holding hands like the von trapps

lol

Every so often my children walk, one on each side of the buggy, ds2 beaming in the buggy. It usually means they are repenting of some BIG crime following a good bollocking...

It doesn't appear so charming or cute when they're still 'inventing' spellings at age 8+, as is so often the case.

I hear you maverick

prob my experience with dd1 (8.5, struggling) makes me 'pushier' with dd2

Ds is at the emergent spelling stage and it is charming. But his interest in punctuation has a downside. He asked me about exclamation marks while we were reading and now SHOUTS any lines containing them at the top of his voice. And the three-dot ellipsis pause lasts for about a minute, which makes the bedtime story much longer.