Learning to spell?

[NeuroTypical]

How did your kids learn to spell? By what age could they write a few sentences? When could they spell well enough to put together paragraphs and papers and whatnot?

My girl is years ahead in reading and writing, but spelling is slow going.

LM

[Gwen]

i still can't spell. spelling in the end means nothing. especially with all the word processors out there. i honestly wouldn't stress it. i spent so many yrs stressed over spelling that it prevented me from doing so many things. i was always afraid to write anything. i was afraid of embarrassment and the ridicule that came with it. i never thought i would ever feel comfortable participating in an environment that was all written. some days i still feel paranoid and it gets to me but for the most part i have finally gotten over this idea that i had to spell perfectly to be allowed to write something or share my thoughts.

if it really is bothering you then address it in a way that does not make her feel less because spelling is hard. she may have a learning disability (most of my spelling issues stem from this). i would suggest focusing on phonics. letter sounds, how those sounds come together. when reading pronounce the words properly not with the accent of your area. for example there is a difference in "pin" and "pen". if you read and say your words correctly you are more likely to be able to spell them.

i have some other suggestions but i would need to understand what she is doing wrong first. is it letter reversals? is she leaving out vowels? how old is she? can she tell it's spelled wrong even if she doesn't know the right spelling? can she pick out the right word from a list (like a spell check would give you)?

[Dravin]

i still can't spell. spelling in the end means nothing. especially with all the word processors out there.

Not quite, homophones can get you in trouble even with a word processor. Also in class essays and short answers can rear their ugly heads. I agree it probably isn't quite as important as it used to be, one does not write term papers or business proposals by hand, but it still matters. For the record what I tend to type up still has plenty of red in it, so I'm far from perfect and talk of business proposals and theses are quite afar off when talking about kids.

Also, in an informal environment such as this minor errors don't matter as much as they would for school or work, but errors still matter as one has to be able to get one's point across. Definitely and defiantly is one such case. Definitely telling the bishop something is different than defiantly telling the bishop something (You usually get a melding of the two, "definantly", to mean definitely but could be mistaken as an intended spelling of either word).

for example there is a difference in "pin" and "pen". if you read and say your words correctly you are more likely to be able to spell them.

Growing up I noticed a marked improvement in my spelling as I seriously started to read. I know when a word looks wrong, the only problem is I don't always know how to make it look correct. Same applies to general grammar, most of what I know is intuitive from reading books (which means some incorrect conventions sneak through).

Edited April 12, 2010 by Dravin

[marts1]

I wonder if someone's spelling was bad enough, if it would affect reading skills?

[Dravin]

I wonder if someone's spelling was bad enough, if it would affect reading skills?

I've notice a correlation between poor spelling and a lack of reading skills (not a statistically valid sample). Though such could just be a general disinterest/lack of ability in English language skills manifesting itself in two ways as opposed to one leading to the other (correlation != causation).

Edit: Also, as in LM's progeny's case, one can be good at one and poor at the other, though in my experience when it isn't both it's good reading and poor spelling, not good spelling and poor reading.

Edited April 12, 2010 by Dravin

[Guest]

My kids learned to spell phonetically in pre-K. Like this:

I luv mae mami.

The more they read, the better their spelling got. My kid in kindergarten can spell "sight words" pretty good now. He still has trouble with big words with lots of silent letters like "caught" or "bright" but he's pretty good with "eight" because he sees it all the time in his books.

My kid in 3rd grade is reading constantly (he's reading Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief right now) and his spelling is very good. But man, his handwriting is TERRIBLE! I think it also helps that he writes "reader responses" for almost every book he reads. It's just a game we play in our house that we learned from his reading teacher. I won't count the book he read in his "book list" for school (they get a prize from the Mayor if they reach x number of books) unless he writes a reader response about it.

[Wingnut]

I wonder if someone's spelling was bad enough, if it would affect reading skills?

Not so much reading skills as comprehension of what is being read.

[hordak]

How did your kids learn to spell? By what age could they write a few sentences? When could they spell well enough to put together paragraphs and papers and whatnot?

My girl is years ahead in reading and writing, but spelling is slow going.

LM

Spelling is overrated:)

I still can't spell. It it wasn't for spell check...

I have actually been losing my ability to write, I went to write a check a couple of months ago and told the banker i was having trouble. She made a joke about the amount of money making it difficult but it was actually a hard time making my hands work in that manor.

Writing will be a lost art form in 20 years.

[Dravin]

Spelling is overrated:)

I still can't spell. It it wasn't for spell check...

I have actually been losing my ability to write, I went to write a check a couple of months ago and told the banker i was having trouble. She made a joke about the amount of money making it difficult but it was actually a hard time making my hands work in that manor.

Writing will be a lost art form in 20 years.

Do you mean write as in cursive or are you including printing? I can't write (cursive) worth anything, in fact about the only thing I can write is my signature and it is horrible. Printing I can still do, but I'm in school so that helps.

[marts1]

Not so much reading skills as comprehension of what is being read.

I thought about that and mentally included that in my def. of .... :)

[marts1]

Spelling is overrated:)

I still can't spell. It it wasn't for spell check...

I have actually been losing my ability to write, I went to write a check a couple of months ago and told the banker i was having trouble. She made a joke about the amount of money making it difficult but it was actually a hard time making my hands work in that manor.

Writing will be a lost art form in 20 years.

I'm getting close to writing an X for my signature myself.

[NeuroTypical]

is it letter reversals? is she leaving out vowels? how old is she? can she tell it's spelled wrong even if she doesn't know the right spelling? can she pick out the right word from a list (like a spell check would give you)?

She's 9. It's not a very big issue, I'm just throwing out my line to see what other people are doing/have done.

She is very good at reading - yes, she can pick the right word from a list, or spot the wrong word in the sentence. It's just figuring out the next letters. I guess the only reason I'm asking is she picked up reading in a flash (we did the Teach Your Kid To Read In 100 Lessons deal, took one year). That was 3-4 years ago, and she hasn't really progressed in spelling much at all.

It's good to hear that it's hard for people, but of course I'm reading what you're all writing, so I see y'all picked it up somewhere...

LM

[Dravin]

It's good to hear that it's hard for people, but of course I'm reading what you're all writing, so I see y'all picked it up somewhere...

LM

Well, I do have a 17 year head start on her. :)

[Elgama]

I learned to read and write using phonics once you have the basics of them reading is easy, and spelling is easy as well as you can then work most words out, learning the other idiosyncrasies of the English language takes a little time but most words have various rules attached to them.

My daughter is 6 and just learning but I find because of the phonics I can then just explain to her which words she can work out and which need to be learned

[Guest]

She's 9. It's not a very big issue, I'm just throwing out my line to see what other people are doing/have done.

She is very good at reading - yes, she can pick the right word from a list, or spot the wrong word in the sentence. It's just figuring out the next letters. I guess the only reason I'm asking is she picked up reading in a flash (we did the Teach Your Kid To Read In 100 Lessons deal, took one year). That was 3-4 years ago, and she hasn't really progressed in spelling much at all.

It's good to hear that it's hard for people, but of course I'm reading what you're all writing, so I see y'all picked it up somewhere...

LM

LM, I may have an insight into this. My ex-boss in the company I worked for before have terrible spelling. She used to send me her emails to make sure she has all the words right before she sends it out to everybody. She's a very smart woman and a very well-read person.

She told me that when she was in school in Cleveland, Ohio, she was in the "gifted" program and the school decided to use them as guinea pigs for this new reading program they wanted to try out. See, normally, you learn to read by putting letter sounds together like buh- ah- tuh bat! This works well for Filipinos because the Filipino language do not have "multiple" pronounciations of a letter - the letter a when found in ANY word will always sound ah (short a sound). So, we learned to read in Filipino first. Then we added the sight words like ah-puh-puh-luh for apple and just know by memory that the e is silent. But, I can see how this is difficult for the American language where a lot of the words are not phonetically pronounced (completely useless in French that has more words that is spelled phonetically differently than it is read).

Anyway, this new program that she was in (she was in 2nd grade) taught them to read by "sight" and not by phonetics. So, they got trained to look at the word as a picture and not a combination of phonetics.

They got rid of the program after 3 years (5th grade). But she said, everybody in that class - including her - are bad spellers.

Now, I can't tell you why that would cause bad spelling. This is just what she told me. I would think if you are trained to look at a word as a picture, then you can "draw" that picture right back...

There's this new program now (somebody selling it on TV) where they teach 6-month old kids how to read... it's going to be the same thing - sight words. So, hey, maybe we're raising a new generation of bad spellers.

By the way, even if you can't write with pen and paper, you still need to learn to spell properly - spell check can only get us so far. Lots of times you choose a "spelling suggestion" that is a completely different word than what you wanted to say...

[NeuroTypical]

The phonics/whole-language pendulum tends to swing back and forth around every 10 years. It's coming back to the phonics side right now.

THe 100 lessons deal we used is phonics based. Silent e and all that.

[Gwen]

She's 9. It's not a very big issue, I'm just throwing out my line to see what other people are doing/have done.

She is very good at reading - yes, she can pick the right word from a list, or spot the wrong word in the sentence. It's just figuring out the next letters. I guess the only reason I'm asking is she picked up reading in a flash (we did the Teach Your Kid To Read In 100 Lessons deal, took one year). That was 3-4 years ago, and she hasn't really progressed in spelling much at all.

It's good to hear that it's hard for people, but of course I'm reading what you're all writing, so I see y'all picked it up somewhere...

LM

did the reading program incorporate any phonics? are there particular letters (like vowels or specific sounds) she is having trouble with or all in general? can she pick out the sounds in a word and break it apart?

try involving other senses with the words. movement, touch, writing imaginary letters creates a different kind of visual.

throw a ball back and forth spelling words. together say the word, spell the word, say the word. each letter on a toss, do with word again with the sounds.... (as you are throwing the ball) "cat" (toss ball) "see" (tb) "A" (tb) "tee" (tb) "cat" (tb) "k" (tb) "ah" (tb) "t" (tb) "cat".... wow that's hard to explain in writing, never done that before. lol DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT add the "uh" to the end of every letter sound. that will mess up spelling later. the letter "c" pronounced "see" makes the sound "k" not "kuh".

form the words/letters out of clay. always saying the sound of each letter as you make it.

"write" using the finger as an imaginary pencil on a textured board (like masonite). this one improved my spelling a lot. i did private tutoring for yrs with children with learning disabilities. we would use this method to study their spelling words. i would have my own board and do everything they did. (when i was in elementary school i only passed one spelling test and i cheated on it.) when doing this one if she starts to feel upset to her stomach or disoriented in any way take a break any efforts after this point are wasted.

not sure if all that made since, never tried to write it down before.

[Elgama]

The phonics/whole-language pendulum tends to swing back and forth around every 10 years. It's coming back to the phonics side right now.

THe 100 lessons deal we used is phonics based. Silent e and all that.

I think it works better second generation if that makes sense - I was lucky to have been taught that way 30 years ago and its second nature to me helped by the fact my Granded in eary 1900s was taught that way, and I teach it without thinking we do a lot with word endings and adding letters to them this morning it was -ight because she was spelling night - nite which is phonetically correct. I think both styles of teaching have their advantage

[Gwen]

you answered one of my questions already lol something fun to try just to test yourself on letter sounds. say (don't sing) the alphabet with the sounds not the letter names. some ppl find it harder than they think it will be.

[Elgama]

you answered one of my questions already lol something fun to try just to test yourself on letter sounds. say (don't sing) the alphabet with the sounds not the letter names. some ppl find it harder than they think it will be.

I actually find it easier with the sounds lol

[hordak]

Do you mean write as in cursive or are you including printing? I can't write (cursive) worth anything, in fact about the only thing I can write is my signature and it is horrible. Printing I can still do, but I'm in school so that helps.

Both. Aside from signing my name (and usually i just use a pin #) i haven't written anything by hand in years. I'm in school also but it is online so everything is typed.

[Dravin]

Both. Aside from signing my name (and usually i just use a pin #) i haven't written anything by hand in years. I'm in school also but it is online so everything is typed.

All my papers are typed, but I tend to outline and draft by hand. I just think better with pencil in hand for some reason. I imagine though I'd do a lot less writing if my classes were online, aside from the aforementioned outlining it's notes and math homework. *shrug*

[pam]

Spelling to me is extremely important. It's a basic learning that enables us to do things in life.

While unemployed and seeking work, 2 places that I applied had a section where I had to hand write a business letter. I had to draft it and write it. No word processors to check spelling. It was all on me. Luckily I know how to spell so I wasn't worried. But for those that don't think it's all that big of a deal...you never know what situation you may find yourself that it because very much a big deal.

[Elphaba]

My girl is years ahead in reading and writing, but spelling is slow going.

This is not all that unusual. Spelling is an intuitive ability, as is reading and math, and for those who do not spell intuitively, it can be a life-long challenge.

I rarely misspell a word, and always won my schools' spelling bees, but I never studied a single word. It just came naturally to me. Math, on the other hand, baffles me, so much so that I had to hire tutors to meet my college math requirements. (This actually turned out to be not true as my SATs in math were high enough to meet the requirement. I have NO IDEA how that happened!)

Anyway, I made it through to radicals, but from then on, no amount of tutoring sufficed. In fact, my second and last tutor would get extremely annoyed with me. He was a prodigy with a 4.0 GPA in math, and it was so intuitive for him he couldn't comprehend that it was completely unintuitive for me.

However, this math prodigy's spelling sucked big time.

How is your daughter with grammar? That is a much more difficult issue, and if she has no problem with it, which most good readers don't, spelling is the lesser difficulty. Grammar is also intuitive, and most often extremely difficult for those who do not catch on early in their lives. Boys struggle with this more than girls.

You can always look up words to make sure you've spelled them correctly. However, if you don't have an intuitive ability for grammar, it's very difficult to know what rules to look up, and very easy to misinterpret them. Additionally, the computer programs that are supposed to catch grammar errors are notoriously faulty.

Another issue: What kind of learner is your daughter? There are visual learners, auditory learners and kinesthetic learners. Visual learners are excellent readers and written curriculum best suits them. Auditory learners need to hear concepts to comprehend them, and kinesthetic learners best comprehend tactile, hands-on and in-the-present curriculum. If she is primarily one of the three, but the spelling curriculum is a different one, no matter how hard she tries she will probably struggle with it.

Unfortunately, it's often difficult for classrooms to meet all three learners' needs in that most curriculum is visual, and for auditory and kinesthetic learners, it is almost impossible for some of them to learn from the materials.

This, this, this and this are links I found with a quick search that explains the three types of learners. (The last one calls them "listening," "seeing," and "experiencing," but they are the same things as auditory, visual and kinesthetic.) I know a more thorough search would give you some good ideas how to determine what kind of learner she is, and what kinds of practice, and materials, you could provide to supplement her schooling if it is not meeting her learning type.

Elphaba

PS: After I bragged about my spelling I hope I haven't misspelled anything. I'm too tired to proof this tome I've written, so if I have spelled a word incorrectly, feel free to make fun of me. E.

[Elphaba]

Something went wrong when I originally posted this, and I don't see the edit button to fix it, so I'm posting this again.

My girl is years ahead in reading and writing, but spelling is slow going.

This is not all that unusual. Spelling is an intuitive ability, as is reading and math, and for those who do not spell intuitively, it can be a life-long challenge.

I rarely misspell a word, and always won my schools' spelling bees, but I never studied a single word. It just came naturally to me. Math, on the other hand, baffles me, so much so that I had to hire tutors to meet my college math requirements. I made it through to radicals, but from then on, no amount of tutoring sufficed. In fact, my second and last tutor would get extremely annoyed with me. His GPA in math was 4.0, and it was so intuitive for him he couldn't comprehend that it was completely unintuitive for me.

However, his spelling sucked big time.

How is your daughter with grammar? That is a much more difficult issue, and if she has no problem with it, which most good readers don't, spelling is the lesser problem. Grammar is also intuitive, and most often extremely difficult for those who do not catch on early in their lives.

You can always look up words to make sure you've spelled them correctly. However, if you don't have an intuitive ability for grammar, it's very difficult to know what rules to look up, and very easy to misinterpret them. Additionally, the computer programs that are supposed to catch grammar errors are notoriously faulty.

Another issue is what kind of learner is your daughter? There are visual learners, auditory learners and kinesthetic learners. Visual learners are excellent readers and written curriculum best suits them. Auditory learners need to hear concepts to comprehend them. Kinesthetic learners best comprehend tactile, hands-on and in-the-present curriculum. If she is primarily one of the three, but the spelling curriculum is a different one, no matter how hard she tries she will probably struggle with it.

Unfortunately, it's often difficult for classrooms to meet all three learners' needs in that most curriculum is visual, and for auditory and kinesthetic learners, it is almost impossible for some of them to learn from the materials.

This, this, this and this are links I found with a quick search that explains the three types of learners. (The last one calls them "listening," "seeing," and "experiencing," but they are the same thing as auditory, visual and kinesthetic.) I know a more thorough search would give you some good ideas how to determine what kind of learner she is, and what kinds of practice, and materials, you could provide to supplement her schooling if it is not meeting her learning type.

Elphaba

PS: After bragging about my spelling, I'm too tired to proof this tome I've written. So, if I've misspelled a word, feel free to make fun of me.