How to help my child in spelling

[burp]

My son learns (or not) his spelling lists himself. Sometimes, the spelling worksheets come back and I have to sign. Once, he was given the sentence, "We should be ______ to our parents." He filled in the word ‘failure’. Obviously hadn’t been studying. (Answer is ‘filial’.) Or did the teacher pronounce badly?

[MMM]

Hi,


My K2 learns her spelling fairly fast. We usually use phonics to breakdown the words for her. I would sound out and she will decode and remember that way. She completed her phonics program at Jan & Elly and is currently doing her lcentral program. But I agree that retention is a challenge as I think she probably retains 70% of what she learnt. I feel that 100% is achievable through revision however unfortunately, we do not have so much time given that I have 2 older kids.

My 2nd child used to be a challenge for me when he was K2… He would learn and forget the next minute. We almost vomit blood teaching him. Fortunately he picked up in P1 and is doing fine now.

[beanbear]

One of the key challenges you’ll face when your child hits primary school is that several words on the spelling list are actually not phonic-based but sight words eg one of the most difficult words in English is Neighbourhood - this can come up in P1. My DS1 had delayed reading and could barely go beyond 3-letter words at K2 but eventually caught up in late P1 (now he’s in P5 and is a voracious reader - thank goodness!). As I was worried he might be dyslexic, I actually signed up for a 2-week dyslexic intensive course at the Dyslexic Association of Singapore on how to teach my kids to read and benefited from learning some spelling strategies. A great takeaway from the course was the the strategies I learnt from the course would help "normal" kids as well and that’s what I’ve been doing for my kids who turned out not to be dyslexic.


I’ve used the following steps to help my kids learn spelling when they started primary school and shared them with other parents as well. May you benefit from these steps which i’ve adapted from my course at DAS.

Learning Sight Words

1.\tParent says the word aloud eg shoe. Say the each letter of the word as you write the word on the board (use a small white writing board because erasing is easier for children). Say out the word "shoe" again.

2.\tChild says the word. Child says each letter aloud as he copies the word (this is technique is called Say as You Write - this will help the brain to remember). Child says the word. Child checks to see if he’s copied correctly.

3.\tTalk about the meaning of the word. Explain how it’s used in context.

4.\tTrace and sound the word with finger on the table 3 times. (this is very important as the finger tips are very sensitive and will help in retention)

5.\tSay the letters & Skywrite (skywrite means to look into the sky and write the word out in the air - child may close his eyes to do this).

6.\tChild looks at the word on the paper. Child covers the word. Child writes the word on paper. Check. (this procedure is called Look-Cover-Spell-Check) Do it 3 times.

7.\tDraw a picture and write a short sentence with the word. Alternatively, play games to reinforce learning.

(Parents need to remember that sight words can be very difficult to go into long-term memory and it’s expected that your child forgets even after a few hours or after a day of learning - of course there are some children who may have better memory than others. For my DS1, he had very short-term memory and every list of words had to be learnt over 2 days - 2 days before the spelling test and then again on the eve of the test) Eventually when my DS1 improved, he only relied mainly on Skywriting & Look-Cover-Spell-Check steps and does only 5 repetitions for every word.

Learning Phonically consistent words

1.\tSay the word. Eg Cat.

2.\tAsk child what’s the first sound. What’s the 2 nd sound? 3rd sound? Anymore sounds?

3.\tChild uses non-writing hand and shows one finger for every sound he identifies.

4.\tChild recaps all the sounds, starting from the 1st sound to the last sound.

5.\tAsk child the letter name for each sound.

6.\tChild writes out on paper. Write it 4-5 times (Use the Look-Cover-Spell-Check technique if you wish)

[phtthp]

Thanks, beanbear for your generous tips and sharing.


i had pm you.

[krazy]

You can try these methods.

1) http://preciouscheryl.blogspot.com/2011/04/letters.html
I adopted this method cuz I found it really a tiring exercise to have my girl write out the words endlessly. You know how we remember images better than individual words, we got her to picture the word as an image rather than just letters on their own.

2) http://preciouscheryl.blogspot.com/2011/04/spell-in-colours.html
We broke the word into \"parts\"/ syllabus and it is also effective.


More importantly, these activities made Spelling fun and my girl doesn't reject them as compared to the traditional methods of copying.

Oh yes... for the \"testing\" we would use the iPad.

[phtthp]

Thank you so much dear parents, for all your precious advice and valuable tips!


my friend's son is dyslexic, entering P1 soon. She said she is very tired & exhausted, tearing her hair out everyday just to get him recognise simple basic words.

all your precious advice & valuable tips - come in very handy, useful and in time for her. I'll ask her to come here this forum to read, once she create her KSP account. :lovesite: :imcool: :rahrah:

[pojo]

krazy:

You can try these methods.

1) http://preciouscheryl.blogspot.com/2011/04/letters.html
I adopted this method cuz I found it really a tiring exercise to have my girl write out the words endlessly. You know how we remember images better than individual words, we got her to picture the word as an image rather than just letters on their own.

2) http://preciouscheryl.blogspot.com/2011/04/spell-in-colours.html
We broke the word into \"parts\"/ syllabus and it is also effective.


More importantly, these activities made Spelling fun and my girl doesn't reject them as compared to the traditional methods of copying.

Oh yes... for the \"testing\" we would use the iPad.

We have been using the spellinganddictation.com website for testing my DD1 on her spelling and dictation. Just need to enter the spelling list and let the website take over the pronunciation of the words during the test. Not sure whether it will work on ipad though as the homepage said that it needed Flash to hear the pronunciation.

[pojo]

pojo:

krazy:

You can try these methods.

1) http://preciouscheryl.blogspot.com/2011/04/letters.html
I adopted this method cuz I found it really a tiring exercise to have my girl write out the words endlessly. You know how we remember images better than individual words, we got her to picture the word as an image rather than just letters on their own.

2) http://preciouscheryl.blogspot.com/2011/04/spell-in-colours.html
We broke the word into \"parts\"/ syllabus and it is also effective.


More importantly, these activities made Spelling fun and my girl doesn't reject them as compared to the traditional methods of copying.

Oh yes... for the \"testing\" we would use the iPad.

We have been using the spellinganddictation.com website for testing my DD1 on her spelling and dictation. Just need to enter the spelling list and let the website take over the pronunciation of the words during the test. Not sure whether it will work on ipad though as the homepage said that it needed Flash to hear the pronunciation.

Sorry, forgot to give you the link. Here it is: http://www.spellinganddictation.com

[buds]

Here's an article I shared sometime back.

http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/fun-spelling-resources

More on forum thread.
http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19725

[jimmyphillips]

Hi,

We have been using the spellinganddictation.com website for testing her spelling and dictation.