spelling in context

Hi Connie,

My dd has a similar problem (although her context spelling isn’t quite as good as your son’s yet). We got the same gains in reading from PACE, but I’ve spent the last several months researching spelling.

The chapter on spelling from “Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills” ed by Judith Birsch was a revelation. I got the book first from inter-library loan because it’s expensive ($60 from Amazon). Using the approach outlined in that chapter, dd went from grade level 1.8 in spelling to 3.5 in about two months. We used word sorts and a spelling journal as described in “Words Their Way” by Bear, et al to implement. Since that chapter on spelling is basically only an outline, we ran out of things to do. (Dd loved this approach because her spelling improved almost immediately.)

My next step was to examine a number of commercial spelling programs. (Spelling Power did not work for us.) I looked at Rudginsky’s “How To Teach Spelling” (a very OG approach), “Tricks of the Trade”, “Natural Speller”, and several others.

The approach I have settled on is Wanda Sanseri’s. It requires purchase of her “Teaching Reading at Home and School”, “WISE Guide to Spelling”, and phonogram cards as a minimum. It’s the most structured, comprehensive approach I have found. One thing I really like is that it includes very good assessment tests, so you can determine both general grade level and specific areas needing review. It includes a simple diagramming system that teaches how to analyze words for spelling (which is quite a different process than word analysis skills for reading). Website is http://home.integrityonline.com/backhome/BHI_Catalog.html

Wish I could report success with this method, but I am still awaiting some of the materials to start. I do think we will need to go beyond even this system and study morphology as well. I have Language! Roots for that, but I think “English from the Roots Up” would work very well also.

From the examples you gave above, the approach I am talking about would teach that “ow” almost always occurs at the end of a word, not in the middle (“showlder”). The need for morphology comes in because root words retain their spellings when combined with endings (e.g., “show” becomes “showed”, which would seem to put the “ow” in the middle of the word unless you understand that the root is “show”).

Mary

If he’s like most of my students who fit the profile you describe, tHe content of what he is writing will suffer immensely if he’s expected to also spell things write *while* he’s doing the writing part. You’re right — he’s putting whatever comes to mind down. But for him, spelling is a separate task from writing — so expecting proofreading to happen at the same time would be like walking up to him in the middle of the writing task and saying “hey, do you know how to spell cucumber?” It’s going to interrupt his thought flow and the organizatoin of what he’s trying to say. IT’s quite possible he’ll get better at this through time. It’s also a completely reasonable accommodation (and one of the mroe common ones) that spelling doesn’t count on things that you hand in on thefirst draft (essay questions on tests, that sort of thing). For other kinds of assignments, he can learn to proofread his work or get someone to do it (reading what he’s written from back to front is one good way to separate the meaning from the words.)

The kiddo may be picking up more t han we realize :) — actually, when there’s an l or n after it, ow is fairly common, though usually when the l or n is the last letter (bowl, owl, howl, scowl, own, town, etc.)

Greetings Connie,

So what do you think about MTC? We’re nearly finished too (on Lesson 18 of 23). My 14yo daughter’s spelling has improved tremendously but she is experiencing a few of the same problems you mention though perhaps more vocabularly in nature (is it spelled reign, rain, rein or feign, fain, etc). I have determined that in addition to MTC, there needs to be a more systematic approach to spelling - as Mary MN indicates. I did download from a website a list of some of the most common spelling rules which I plan to teach my dd. I’m also planning on working with word sorts as Mary mentions. I’m eager to hear Mary’s endorsement (or lack) of the spelling program she ordered.

Blessings, momo

ps/ So groupings for shoulder would include boulder but not bolder, colder, folder, smolder…isn’t our language grand?!

That’s exactly why I need a systematic spelling program laid out for me!

Mary

Dd just pulled out a story she started before we did the “Multisensory” work on spelling (and some work on capitalization and punctuation). Keep in mind this is a bright 10-1/4yo who reads at a 6th grade level, can predict plot twists in stories with uncanny accuracy, scores 90% percentile in vocabulary and reading comprehension, and who carefully printed all of the following:

“thars a litll citin and hes nam is Pach. Wack up Pach. And cum owt av the bed room and ete brecfist. im sleping im tird. Git up and ete your pancaks. ok ill git up in five minits. Git up Domino kolld hes cuming ovr in five minits. im Giting up now. Gud sed hes Mom. O and Pik up the toys in the bed room. Latr im hungry. ok But Dont frgit

hi Mom sed Pach as he woct in to breckfist. Ding Dong. hese here sed Pach. Bie. But you bint ete brecfist. sed his Mom. iM not hungry. wut evr Be QWite im eting. sed his sistr.So sed Pach. QWite you to. sed hes Mom. OK Pach you cen leve but tack sum toste at leste. OK sed Pach. O and Pach cold his Mom Dont Be late. But Pach had gon.

hi Domino. sed Pach. wen he and Domino were uwtside. wont to Pla with my noo boll. said Pach. shr sed Domino. Grite. sed Pach. Pach throo the boll. But Domino misd it. it wint into the wuds. uh/oh sed Domino. lits git it seid Pach. Dut wur not post to be in the wu-ds. sed Domino. So sed Pach. OK sed Domino. Dut chust intil we git the boll.OK Domino lits go. seid Pach. Pach and Domino wint into the wuds. Tha came to a cering in the wuds. sudinl-y a flash av lite and it wus ovr.Wut hapind. sed Pach. I dont no. sed Domino. Wutevr hapind sed Pach. We’shd go and se. Wut. said Domino. We shud go back.”

Mary

I do like MTC. We are on Lesson 19 now. After all those vowels, this seems like a breeze. MTC has helped tremendously in reading ad writing—even though my son has had O-G tutoring and therefore has had lots of exposure to sounds and codes. We’ve been relying on the Greek and Latin origins of words, and that does seem to help him to get to the right spelling of words. The piece that continues to be hard is how to choose which of the possible codes. I think a lot of his spelling problem stems from a poor visual memory. He strengthened it a lot with PACE, and I really encourage him now to use that newly developed skill to help him edit and/or choose the right code. I think he and I need to continue to work on the PACE visual memory procedures, too.

So, MoMo, do you have plans to celebrate completing PACE and MTC? I’ve been thinking about it, but so far I don’t have any great ideas.

One of my kids figured out that the letter in front of basically all the words that end in -tute or -tude (attitude, institute, aptitude, verisimilitude) is i (quietude and desuetude being exceptions :)). So she couldn’t spell caught… but substitute was no problem.

So glad you posted that. Our son’s work looks just like that (only he won’t write that much because his dysgraphia just makes it overwhelming for him). Our school doesn’t think working on our child’s spelling is a worthwhile use of their time, yet virtually all classwork and homework is done in a written form and some of his teachers literally circle every spelling error he makes. (As if he had any control over it.) After completing the program, can she rewrite her story with less errors?

She wrote this story (I found the next page, but have resisted posting it!) before we worked on spelling, using the strategies in the spelling chapter of “Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills”. I just tested her with Wanda Sanseri’s assessment (in her “Teaching Reading at Home and School”) and she currently tests at grade level 3.5 in spelling. Looking at the asseessment tests, I estimate dd was at grade level 1.5 or 1.8 when she wrote the story.

I have not had her re-write this story, but her spelling is clearly better now than it was then. Also, the work we did on capitalization and punctuation (using Easy Grammer 3/4) has helped a lot. She now remembers to capitalize the first word of a sentence, and she doesn’t stick periods in everywhere as punctuation.

Step by step we are getting there….

She gained about 1.5 grade levels in spelling in two months, using the strategies in “Multisensory” at home. The school would never have been able to achieve that kind of gain. I am hoping for 2 more grade levels of improvement over the summer, using the Sanseri approach at home.

Mary

Hi,
I am new to this site and board. While I was reading this story from Mary I thought I was reading my own daughters work.
She is a 9 1/2 y.o. third grade student.
I have been trying desperately to get her school to test her for some type of learning problem for the past 2 years. Their response to her difficulty has been “modifications” in her regular cirriculum…such as fewer spelling words.
I have twins that are 12 and are in the gifted program and the school was basically saying that she was normal and that I had expectations that were too high for her. Finally they did a series of tests including psychological evalutaion as a result of weekly meetings I insisted upon with her teacher.
Yesterday, 4 weeks before the end of the year I had a meeting with the “program specialists, LD teacher, psychologist, and her regular teacher to find out the results of her tests. They determined that she had a very high IQ and was capable of 6th grade level math. In the language side however they finally admitted that there was definately a problem.
Their diagnosis was…”a visual perception problem coupled with a lack of short term memory”. At first I was happy because I felt like at last we were going to be able to figure out what would help her. Now, after spending alot of time within this web site and others I feel like that it is just a very vague, general type of diagnosis.
Their plan for her for next year, is simply having her work during her reading time with the “resource teacher”. They also made a comment that with a little luck she will be able to complete a ‘diploma program” when she gets to high school.
From what I have been reading on this board, you all have much better insight and experience that what I am getting from the school. What does this “diagnosis” sound like to you? Also she does have alot of problems even in math with transposing numbers, writting letters backwards( sometimes ever entire words in mirror image) When I brought up dyslexia they told me that there was no evidence in their testing to support that. Does that sound right to you?
I would appreciate all in put any of you would be willing to offer
thanks,
flmom

I think Mary hit a chord with a lot of us because the work looked so familiar. My son is now in the 5th grade. After a lot of remediation, his reading and spelling is much improved. It looked just liked Mary’s daughter’s two years ago. Your daughter’s diagnosis is not very indepth, but it gives you a couple of solid things to work on. Both visual perception and short term memory are processing skills, and your daughter is showing a deficit in those areas. You haven’t asked about programs, but I would strongly encourage you to consider PACE. It works directly with the processing weaknesses. You can either get trained to deliver the program yourself to your daughter or you can take her to a private provider. It’s not cheap, but it’s intensive and relatively fast. You can get very good results with 12 weeks (6 hours per week)of PACE. If you follow up with the accompanying reading and spelling program, it will probably be 4-5 months all together. My son is just finishing 20 weeks of the 2 programs. This week he wrote a very respectable 4 paragraph essay following the DARE program. He probably had 10 or 15 misspellings on the first draft, but he picked up most of them with editing. That’s progress! Good luck and keep reading these bulletin boards. I learn something new every day.

Here’s the link to PACE. http://www.learninginfo.com/ Connie

I agree with Connie about PACE. It is very good at remediating visual processing skills — and that would include “visual perception problem” and “short term memory” problem.

Before doing PACE, however, I would definitely recommend getting a developmental vision eval by a developmental optometrist. This is usually covered by medical insurance in whole or in part same as a regular eye exam, but a developmental vision exam includes about 20 additional tests of visual function. You can find certified developmental optometrists at http://www.covd.org. If money is a problem, you may want to check before making the appointment that the optometrist is willing to supervise a primarily home-based program, if vision therapy is indicated. This is a way to keep costs down.

Reversals are a red flag for developmental vision delays.

Vision therapy is needed to correct visual efficiency skills, which include things such as focusing (accommodation), eye teaming (binocular fusion and fixation), eye movement control (gross pursuits and gross saccades), and others.

The next step, however, is visual processing skills — visual concentration (fine pursuits), fine eye movement control (fine saccades), reversals, visual sequential memory, visual closure, visual motor integration, fine motor speed and precision, auditory-visual integration, etc. PACE is much more efficient at developing these skills than vision therapy. However, PACE assumes the visual efficiency skills are already in place, so you want to make sure VT either isn’t needed or gets done first.

If PACE is absolutely out of the question, you can get some gains with Audiblox, which contains some good exercises for developing visual processing skills. Audiblox website is http://www.audiblox2000.com.

The problem you have encountered is that the school allowed your daughter to compensate for her deficits. They allowed the high IQ to balance out the deficits, and declared her an “average” student. This is a very common mistake on the part of schools. It’s good that you caught it!

Mary