Master Spelling - How many practices required?

[yorkie]

Despite daily practices her son hasn’t been able to score > 90%.

[Joy of Learning 111]

yorkie:

Hi mummies


Asking on behalf of a friend about mastering English spelling or tingxie. How many practice(s) is/are required for your child?

In respect of English, sometimes drill and kill does indeed kill.

English is an alphabetised sound-based language. The principal key to successful spelling is phonics, supplemented by awareness of syllabication and morphology. The danger of practising by writing out repeatedly is that the child will come to view English words as whole words or pictures, and hence it becomes a visual memory exercise rather than a decoding of sounds.

JoL111
http://www.learningwithteachermartin.com

[Nebbermind]

Depending on whether your child is beginner, intermediate or advanced level.


If beginner, ie, slower learner, start with just the first 3 words. Get them to copy 3~5 times each before testing them. Do correction if necessary and add 1~2 words and repeat.
Do this few days before the spelling day so you or your child donch panic. Also, you can choose to do only a portion, say, 5~6 words on the first day and gradually increase to complete all by the day before spelling day.

Just donch let the whole list overwhelm the child if he’s a slow learner.

For intermediate, start with half and increase accordingly.

For advanced, ownself test ownself!

[jetsetter]

yorkie:

Despite daily practices her son hasn't been able to score > 90%.

Is he having some form of learning disability, first of all? Dyslexia? Dysgraphia?

Spelling: Break word up into syllables like Joy and NBM said. Draw lines between them.
I think it's not just re-writing/copying a few times. Copying is look-register-write. Mom also needs to sound them out and test if he has prob discriminating the sounds when words are visually absent. Spelling and dictation hone our note-taking skills. Note-taking is a very important lifelong skill to acquire. You need to take down professors' lecture notes, customers' orders and bosses' verbal instructions!!

Tingxie: Break it up into radicals 部首. But sometimes, the laoshi might randomly utter a word and asks for the HYPY, so that's another prob to tackle altogether.

Not sure if he's exposed to phonics in preschool, so you might have to ask mom to go back to preschool phonics basics if his case is severe. Many lower primary teachers are already testing Moxie and Dictation.

[yorkie]

This child has been exposed to phonics and is quite intelligent with good cognitive skill. The parents are very frustrated and highly stressed about with his academic results. They are pretty sure it’s a concentration or poor memory issue rather than dyslexia. Hmm… sounds like ADD now.

[yorkie]

This child has been exposed to phonics and is quite intelligent with good cognitive skill. The parents are very frustrated and highly stressed about with his academic results. They are pretty sure it’s a concentration or poor memory issue rather than dyslexia. Hmm… sounds like ADD now.

[yorkie]

Nebbermind:

For advanced, ownself test ownself!

I like this! :idea:

[Jennifer]

Does the child read storybooks?


My boys did not have issue with English spelling, usu. go through the list once or twice would do, though not always full marks. I believe their reading habits played a big part.

[MrsKiasu]

Dd is poor in the lang. Learn can get up to fullmark and if forgot to learn then 0 to 30% I remember I read to dd then she looked at it for few mins and I test her ..dd will decide how many to be tested at one go. She will grouped them into the easier ones (more) and more difficult ones (fewer) and asked me test her separately. I seldom test her this semester..she will learm it in school.