advice on skipping spelling....

You don’t say how old your son is but I am guessing he is pretty little?

There are lots of ways to practice high frequency words with little guys. None of them should take more than ten minutes or so at a time. First check to see which ones he already knows. This is important! Introduce one or two new ones a day- on file cards. Present the word- say this is #### and run your finger across the word, What word is this? Have him repeat it. Then flip the card over so he can’t see it. Introduce your new one the same way. Then take both upside down cards and flip one- what word is this? If he gets it wrong then correct him- this word is ####. If he is right- tell him it is wonderful:) and repeat with the other word. When you have been at this for a while you will have words to review- try not to do more than five or so at a time. This should be short. There are folks that will tell you not to work with high frequency words- some people call them sight words- but IMHO that is a mistake. It is a limited list- and while they are not all phonetically regular, many of them are, And the reality is, lack of regularity (sorry- its early) is not what got those words on the Dolch list. There are there because the occur a LOT in reading material typical for early readers.

For Spelling, my favorite is the spelling flow list combined with reverse chaining. Pick three to five words- however many your child can tolerate. These go on a list- you can write them in the margin of a peice of notebook paper. You will nead to draw some lines so that you have five columns following each word. This is your record sheet. Mastery of a word means that your child has spelled it correctly three times on three separate days. This can be oral or written or with magnet letters- though my preference is to do it in writing. But first you have to learn the words:)

Start with the first one. We will pretend with “night”.

Write the word at the top of a piece of paper. Have him copy it underneath,saying each letter as he writes it. Flod this part back so he can’t see it.

Now write it again- but leave off the last letter. Instead- put a line where it should be.

NIGH_

Have him copy the word again, saying each letter, and including the missing one. Repeat the process, leaving off the last two.

NIG_ _

Keep going in this manner until you have just a line for each letter- and then have him write the word on his own- without looking and without lines.

After he has learned some words- he can have a “spelling test”- and get some mastery marks. If he misses a word after you have taught it too him- and he probably will at some point- just repeat the chaining procedure.

When he masters a word on his list- three consecutive times on three separate days- cross it off and pick a new word. It has to be consecutive though- if he misses you start mastery again. You should only have about five that you are working on. Play with them too- highlight them in magazines, play concentration, hangman, whatever.

Take care,
Robin

Another thing you can do,is use everything in your house. When my two were in kindergarten and 1st grades,everything in my house had a card with the name of the object written on it. Because they were also ADHD,walking helped thinking,and learning. The Lamp,was also a Light. The plant was also in a pot. I made these hunts when they got older. I would write down a clue,which brought them to the next clue,which brought them to the next clue,until they found the treasure. ( a box of beads) it didn’t matter what the treasure was. The idea was to have them see words,use it in language. They eventually started to read. I checked out books on tape for my youngest. I allowed them to read anything. I mean anything! Comics,magazines,any subject of interest. I had a friend at work bring me all of their national geographic’s. We have a whole library of them,and my kids still pull them out and look at them. I kind of waged a war on words. Just figured,if they were there if they saw them enough,maybe it would help. My kids started reading,and now reading above grade level,but they STILL fail a common spelling test. Their disability is in writing. Robin,the poster above gave me an awsome idea,years ago! We had a specific night of the week were we didn’t speak. We had a little dry erase board where we did nothing but write to each other. They spelled phoneticly,but they got their point across. My kids still have a hard time with spelling,but it’s is getting better. of course they are now 11 and 12 years old. Come up with ways to play games with the words. Play hangman,Play the memory game,play scrabble,have fun. Learning is supposed to be.

We had a little dry erase board where we did nothing but write to each other. They spelled phoneticly,but they got their point
across.

That is very cool- I like that. Spelling just involves so many subskills that it poses a whole different level of challenge for many children- especially one’s like yours with the visual processing issues. You really need the visual part to whole/visual memory piece at some point to check if your phonetic representation matches the orthographic one. However, you also need the motor memory- it is possible in many instances to train your hands to do it for you.

Your guys may do better when they can start spelling morphographically also- from word parts with meaning. That is one of the places where the metacognitive/metalinguistic (working with the rules) piece may be helpful.

Robin