How do you help them with spelling?

[Toffeepopple]

DS now getting ten words and I think they are quite hard compared to what he had last year and he wasn't consistently spelling them all then.

Any tips on helping him remember them? People keep saying to me that they "so them on the way to school". What does this mean? Repeating them back and forth?

How often in a week do you practise? In what form?

Our school say that you are supposed to show the child the word, then cover it up and they try it and then the crucial part is that the child checks their answers to see where they went wrong, you don't tell them yourself.

Thanks Tinkjon, yes that is what our school has too (this year and last). There is no
way that that is enough for him now though.

Thanks though. Does your little one remember these just by that process?

DS has words like shriek, complain, straight and he isn't even remembering them as he writes them on the worksheet so clearly needs practise in some other way.
Or should I let him fail and go down a level or two? What do other mumsnet kids need to remember theirs?

DS, Yr 2, Gets 10 words on a friday to be tested the following friday.

Sometime during the weekend he will copy out the spellings. Then I take the list away and test him. Let him check them himself.

Then on the 10 minute drive to school everyday I Read them out one by one while he writes them down. Then again he marks them himself.

Was just thinking the other day, this is the only advantage in having to drive to school. Would be much harder to write and walk!

they use the 'read, cover, copy, check' (or something like that) method but it works best if you do it every day - or better yet but this doesn't work with the tests - do it every few days over a few weeks. sinks in then

LOL, yes, LuckyJess - he uses his scooter on the school run. I think scooting and writing together is probably lethal!

toffee - i write my DCs spellings on paper and white-tack it to the wall where their pictures/drawings/paintings are in the dining room.

we practise them twice a week [once at w/end and the night before test] and it works for us.

DD is yr 1 she has 10, DS is yr 3 he has 15.

If you scroll down on this page there are a number of spelling tips:

www.aowm73.dsl.pipex.com/dyslexics/spelling.htm

The 2 following are perhaps the most important ones:

Do get children to write down the words that they need to remember how to spell. The physical act of writing helps to bind words in memory. Experimental studies have shown that copying letters is the best way to learn them...copying spelling words halves the learning rate compared to using letter tiles or a computer keyboard . 'Writing helps in many ways. First the physical act of forming the letters forces the child to look closely at the features that make one letter different from another...Second, writing letters (left to right) trains the ability to read left to right. Third, saying each sound as the letter is written helps anchor the sound-to-letter connection in the memory.'

Do encourage children to say the sound (NOT the letter name) as they write down each grapheme. Hearing their own voice acts as a powerful cue.

HTH.

Ds2 gets spelling word that he has to learn.

I get him to copy them out, then I 'test' him, then I get him to correct the answers. He can't sit and do it for longer than about 10 minutes.

Last year, his words were ridiculously hard, and I ignored them, as he couldn't even say them, let alone read them, understand them or spell them. He needed to go down a group for literacy but because we have a lot of books his familiarity with books fooled the ta into thinking he was better at literacy than he actually was. This year he is six, not five, and more able to sit and learn.

dd is a nightmare, insists she knows it on sight then gets cross if you test erh and she gets it wrong !

As for whether DD remembers them using this method, she has a brilliant short-term memory for these things - I show her once and she remembers pretty much on just that one time. However, long-term she doesn't remember them as well - if I asked her now some of the words she was given last year she wouldn't remember, so I'm not sure how useful this all is as a whole.

Look for patterns and learn them - eg: igh words.

Look for prefixes or suffixes and learn - eg: bionic / biology/ biopsy.

Teach them to break the word into syllables and learn in parts.

Think of mnemonics for really tricky ones.

Say it's like it's spelled and then learn - eg Wed/NES/day or BUSiness

Oh you little darling for should could would endings. My dd taught that to me.

Yeah my 14n yr old still remembers the mmnemonic he learned for a Y3 spelling

OFFICIAL 'Ogre's Farting Frenzy Contained In A Lavatory'

sorry should have been
OFFICIAL 'Ogre's Farting Frenzy Is Contained In A Lavatory'