Question about Spelling from a still new SPED teacher

_How to Teach Spelling_ by Rudginsky and Haskell ( http://www.rlac.com has it). It has tons and tons of examples for different spelling patterns and dictation practice. (There are also workbooks sold — you might be able to get by with just hte book though, and make your own exercises, or get one of the books and make up your own like them, whihc is what I usually do :))

You might want to take a look at Sequential Spelling (http://www.avko.org ). It was designed for dyslexics, but works well for most students who are very poor spellers. It is very inexpensive. As a teacher, all you would need is the books (which can be purchased one at a time, if necessary) and a steno notebook for each child. The steno books work just as well as the more expensive workbooks you can purchase, since the only requirement is that the student have a new sheet of paper for each lesson. When a student reaches the end of the steno book, he/she simply flips it over to use the reverse sides.

Nancy

Definitely go for AVKO spelling. I am using it now with two (and three when his summer job ends) older students ages 13-19. AVKO is starting to help them realize that spelling is actually rule-based and learnable, when eight to twelve years of prior education has only taught them to hate and fear the idea of writing.

As with any sequential program, you’ll get a lot more out of it if you actually follow the directions and the sequence - there was one poster here a while ago whose school had bought the books but ignored the reasons behind them and taught the same-old same-old test to frustration technique; AVKO didn’ t fail, the school did.

There is AVKO for children and AVKO for adults. I’m using adult with ages 11 up, although for an elementary class it would be worth getting the children’s version. It is very cheap; all you need is the teacher’s manual.

It is certainly not overnight and not magic; time and hard work are involved. But it is really nice doing spelling and seeing these guys succeed and learn for the first time.

With elementary kids, I feel that the spelling program should be tightly tied to the decoding program you are using, and the regular ed. curriculum is certainly the wrong thing to be using for the LD kids. Apparently the administrators don’t understand the meaning of “special” education.

Janis

Hi, Are the admins insisting that you use H-M? Sometimes one system is all they want you to use…
I have been using a multisensory decoding program that helps with spelling as well as reading. I was even able to use it to “make sense” of the spelling lists in the H-M 3rd grade reading book (book 2 of the new series), while teaching LD students this year.(The year before, the challenge was “word wall words”…)

I find that when the students “do the decoding” to get from the written spelling to the “sound spelling” of the word they need to know, it “makes sense” to them, and they are able to learn to spell the word, in most cases.

So, if you are blessed with admin that are insisting on that one thing, helping your students make sense of it is helpful.

If you would like to know more about what I am doing, contact me at [email protected]. I will send you copies of 3 letters I exchanged with another teacher. Anita Landoll

Having the spelling tied to the decoding program or the general spelling program is nice when you can do it, but not always practical.

One particular student I am tutoring right now is age 13, entering Grade 8 with passing grades (totally faked, but that’s what they put on his report), reading at a Grade 2-3 level (finds Boxcar Children quite challenging) and spelling at low Grade 1 level (can write “hit” but leaves the double t out of “hitting” half the time, writes “tree” for “three”, “car” for “cat”, etc.). In math he is very bright, sees number relationships, but because of the reading issue has been allowed to get very behind; last week forgot how to borrow in subtraction, although he does it very wel with a simple reminder. He needs totally different levels of work in each subject and in each subject area. It just isn’t practical to tie them tightly.

If you have students in Grades 4 and up, they have almost always been exposed to some form of phonics already. Often a mass of confusion, but some sort. So what you are doing is remediation and unteaching misperceptions rather than teaching from the ground up. In this case, using a couple of different programs in parallel is actually a *good* thing because each re-teaches and reviews material met in the other.

I am likeing the AVKO spelling more and more as I use it because it works as a stand-alone program from the ground up, something that is good for kids who have had bits and pieces of many different programs for years and years, and it has lots of repetition until the ideas get settled in. Also if done right it takes fairly little time. AVKO can be used in parallel with regular spelling lists from a class and the skills used will transfer after a while building them.

I totally agree with Sue on the Rudginsky/Hall book. It is a great asset in helping to build a spelling program. You might also take a look at The Spel-Lang Tree. There’s a lot of information on the website (Free Resources) along with teachers manuals and supplementary materials available at low cost. While the manuals were designed for primary grades, they’ve been used for remedial work with students at the high school level.

http://www.spellangtree.org

For that age group, take a look at Looking Glass Spelling. It’s designed for older LD kids and helps improve decoding and vocab. too. It’s really easy to use and encourages the kids to work independently. you can see a sample chapter of level 1 on my website www.gwhizresources.com. If you email me I can give you more information, including a scope and sequence. Level 2 and 3 are much more sophistocated in terms of vocab than the sample.