trouble spelling - 15 yrs old

It looks as if he’s spelling phonetically. Some children do not automatically pick up on or retain visual patterns in words.

I would recommend trying Sequential Spelling. This program is easy to use (takes about 10 minutes a day) and really helps kids start recognizing and using the correct spelling patterns in words. The website has some sample lessons so you can see the approach. We have been using it for about 4 weeks now and am very happy with the results. It is the easiest spelling program we have used and also the most effective.

Website is http://www.avko.org

Mary

He’s spelling phonetically — and spelled attic just as he would have spelled brick or stick or truck. He could stand tolearn about all those -ic words like logic and public and static and cosmic.

If he learned to spell by learning a list of words from week to week, he may not have learned the patterns behind the spelling. “Schedule” is a good example of a word that a good speller has no trouble with because it’s got fairly typical patterns — but they’ aren’t the *most* typical patterns, so a kid who’s not a natural speller will forget how to spell it, especially if he’s writing something he’s got to really think about. You & I have learned, probably without realizing it, that the “j” sound is spelled with a d in words like educate and schedule, and /k/ is spelled ch in a fair number of words.

He’s probably hopelessly normal :)

You don’t say how he’s been taught spelling; current education practices go very light on it and hope it happens naturally, and that happens less often than reading happens naturally.

You’ve got what is called a good kind of problem and a high-quality error.

The first time I heard the phrase “good kind of problem” was from some Native American leaders. They were having trouble retaining their kids in college — far too many failing and dropping out. A serious problem, obviously. But the previous generation had almost entirely dropped out of elementary school, so having a generation that got to high school, graduated, and got to college before dropping out was a heck of an improvement. Certainly something to work on, but also a sign of real progress.

This is what you have. Your kid has learned phonics, can read, and can write at least so that people can read it. True, spelling is something you want to get right, and something to work on. But you have a great success in that you can even ask this question.

The phrase “high-quality error” is one that is used and often badly misused by the whole-language folks. I have absolutely nothing positive to say about the way whole language has been watered down and used to justify incompetent teaching in the school system; it is a disaster. However, the “high-quality error” concept is very valuable. The concept is this: in every activity in life, there are several kinds of errors and reasons we make them. There are errors made because the person simply doesn’t care or is trying to sabotage and is deliberately making a hash of things. This is extremely hard to deal with. There are errors made because the person is sloppy and not paying attention. This is also hard to deal with. There are errors made because the person does not understand at all and is guessing wildly. This requires fundamental re-teaching. Then there are errors made because the person is applying the rules and applying them correctly; he just doesn’t know some of the advanced wrinkles in the rules or some of the exceptions — these are the high-quality errors. This is easy to deal with because the person is already well started on the right track and is willing and able to learn. All that is needed here is to expand on the system that the person has already learned to include the next stage.

Your son is spelling phonetically, and doing a quite adequate job of it. Good start!! This is SO much better than what we have to deal with in many of our students, who often can’t read at all, and some who spell at random as if they tipped out the Scrabble letters and copied what fell, and some who just refuse to write at all.

You didn’t say in your letter how and when he learned to read, and if he has learning disabilities, and if so what kind. As this is an LD board, that’s what we expect, but then you write “normal fifteen-year-old”, so I’m not sure what’s happening here.

In “Why Johnny Can’t Read”, Rudolph Flesch has a most interesting and valuable chapter about spelling, noting that our modern spelling is just an accepted convention, and a relatively modern agreement at that, since after Shakespeare’s time.

You do certainly want to teach your son standard spelling — and if at all possible, get him to do it by himself, not use computer programs as a crutch or a cop-out.(further note below). Exactly how soon he should learn the standard depends on whether he has a learning disability and whether he still has some unresolved reading issues.

As you have just conclusively demonstrated to yourself, memorizing spelling lists is generally pointless and a waste of time. The student will just go back to spelling any way he is used to as soon as he is not in spelling-class mode. Spelling lists are too disconnected from reality.

The only effective methods of teaching spelling involve a unified reading-and-writing-and-spelling-and-vocabulary approach. You meet a word in reading; you discuss its meaning; you write it down and spell it and discuss its phonetic structure and any irregularities; you use the word in some spoken sentences; and you try to incorporate it into some meaningful written work (*not* the usual “use this word in a sentence” and copy the dictionary definition as ___ means ___ ). This kind of approach, used steadily over a period of a few years (this is not an overnight problem, and there’s no overninght cure) will lead to a sensitivity to spellings that he is presently lacking.

A necessary even though difficult practice is editing. He writes something totally by himself, no help, no computer corrections, by hand. You take it and underline each and every spelling error and grammatical error, and he re-writes it correctly. It is even more valuable if you discuss with him why the grammar needs to be corrected and what spelling patterns you see. Obviously you wnat to start small with this, short paragraphs of a couple of sentences to start, so he doesn’t get swamped with corrections all at once. After he’s doing well on short paragraphs, you move up to one-page essays and later, down the line to full-length essays. This is a realistic exercise and highly valuable — in real life, we have to come up with memos and letters on the spot, and in advanced education we have to write long essay exams.

I once had the experience of having to write a letter for a student of mine, on the spot in the classroom after class, a rented classroom in another school so I didn’t have any computer equipment to lean on, asking for him to have special permission to borrow some things from another campus. This of course in a normal real-life request, the kind of thing any professional person might have to do, to write a quick on-the-spot memo or request. What was amusing was that, while watching me write this formal letter by hand and without any sense of the irony of what he was saying, the student was complaining bitterly to a friend about how terrible his English class was, that the teacher had them write essay tests right off the top of their heads without any preparation at all or any chance to take the work home and edit it, and “everybody knows” that isn’t what writing is about, that writing involves planning and outlines and a rough draft and re-writing and editing … I did try to point out to him what I was doing *for him* right in front of his nose, but don’t know if the message got through. The point of this anecdote is that good handwriting and good grammar and good spelling and the ability to come up with a decent memo off the top of your head are important and valuable skills, and the “write an essay cold and have it edited” system is a painful but very necessary part of becoming a good writer.

Having said that, all in good time; if your son has a learning disability or other reading problem that has to be untaught, and since he obviously didn’t catch on to whatever spelling has been taught, take it easy and go one step at a time. Start with single new vocabulary words, work up to sentences, and work up to essays gradually.

I really agree with Victoria’s comments - I especially like the explanation of “a good kind of problem” (thank you for that wonderful story about the Native Americans!) - but I’m not sure exactly what “not use computer programs as a crutch or a
cop-out” means.

I do want to point out that with my own son, working with a computer word processor really helped to improve his spelling. He first started using a computer at about age 11, and I admit that I assumed at first that the improvements were merely due to the spell checker. But then as I watched him type, I realized that over time he was making less mistakes in the first place.

The computer spell checker gives immediate, non-judgmental feedback. It also requires the user to develop some awareness of spelling conventions, as you have to get close to the correct spelling in order to be supplied with an appropriate word list. I think overall it also raises the student’s expectations for himself, and willingness to write using a more complex vocabulary. My son also used a dictionary and thesaurus in conjunction with the word processor - he liked Microsoft Bookshelf — so he could quickly look up words to find their meanings.

A few months ago, when my son was in his senior year of high school working on a paper, I heard a great whoop of joy from the computer desk in our dining room. I asked my son what happened - he told me that he had spelled a difficult word correctly on his first try. To my son, typing his best effort on a new word and having it “pass” the spell checker was like a golfer getting a hole-in-one.

Of course, the computer spell checker has many limitations. The most obvious is that it cannot distinguish among homophones, nor can it tell when the child has typed in letters that spell an entirely different word than the one intended. So of course some words will need to be studied.

But I don’t think that a computer spell checker is a crutch at all. I think it’s a valuable tool that provides an opportunity for learning as well as support.

Just my thoughts.

-Abigail

However, I’ve heard too many people say “oh, don’t worry about spelling, that’s what spell checkers are for.” Unfortunately, too often this is with kids who don’t spell well enough to use a spell checker (even if you spell phonetically, “wuns” isn’t going to be pegged as “once” by any spell checker I know).

And crutches aren’t bad things when they’re what you need to get you where you need to go.

On dependence on outside help, a very fine line to draw:

If you have a broken ankle, as I did this spring, you use a crutch. If you have cerebral palsy, you may use crutches all your life. If they’re needed, they’re needed. But ask anyone who uses them, and they will tell you they would be very very happy to be able to throw the things away and never use them again.

Then there are people who give kids more help than they need and make them dependent on crutches when they don’t need them, and the kids are too young to know any better. One child in my own family liked his little baby walker and had temper tantrums if he wasn’t put in it. Our side of the family has rather strong personalities (stubborn as mules, all of us) and he inherited the trait. His loving and gentle mother gave in to him and kept him in the walker far too long each day and far too long by age. Of course he never learned to crawl — far too much work when you can just yell and get your crutch. Then he was very late learning to walk, and had an awful time of it because he hadn’t developed the appropriate strength in his upper body and couldn’t hold his head up. Luckily he worked things out after age 2 — the young human is pretty resilient. But it was a difficult year for the whole family, and he has had certain problems in later life that I think are related to his expectations that he can always fall back on someone else.

Similarly with mental crutches: is the person really handicapped, absolutely unable to get by without this aid? Or has this person simply been trained to be dependent? It’s a hard line to draw. But most people value their independence, want to do things for themselves, so it’s important to try working without the assistance for a while and see what you can do on your own. Many people who have been trained to be dependent surprise themselves when they have to try to get by alone, and succeed better than they imagined possible.

The student who is trying to spell independently and has a personal competition with his spell checker is doing exactly that — trying and succeeding. Wonderful!

When I mention using it as a crutch, I am thinking of the hundreds of college students I have worked with who have no severe learning disabilities, no other real problems except learned laziness, who won’t handwrite anything because they have never bothered to learn to write or spell so they have to go home and have the computer do the grammar and spelling for them; who hand in unreadable trash when they do have to do tests; who get angry when corrected, because that isn’t their job to write properly, the computer does that.

When I am trying to teach math, there is an impossible gulf to cross. In math accuracy is vital, and the computer won’t do your thinking for you. Students who have learned that it isn’t their job to try anything difficult will fail in their first real math class. Or any other real-world class. They are frustrated because I am interfering with their right to be served and demanding they do something for themselves, and I throw my hands in the air because I can’t teach somebody who thinks that learning is pushing the right computer keys.

I actively encourage all my students to learn to spell and write as much as possible on their own, and to do their own math too. If I have a student who still fails after an honest long-term try, than I’ll look for substitutes, or else I’ll wait a while for maturity and try again. But I do feel it’s important not to cop out and label yourself as handicapped at a young age, not to limit your options and tie yourself to a baggage of assistance to drag around after you.

Sue says: “You don’t say how he’s been taught spelling; current education practices go very light on it and hope it happens naturally, and that happens less often than reading happens naturally.”

Well, I’m embarassed to say that I didn’t teach spelling consistently enough to be effective. He is bright, an early reader, but he doesn’t pay much attention to details like spelling. Sometimes he seems a little dyslexic. He spelled “iron” this way: iorn. He reversed 2 letters. He also reverses numbers sometimes. For a twelve, he will write 21. My dh, bright with Ph.D., told me that he was dyslexic as a boy, and still has trouble with spelling.

Son was always homeschooled. He reads fast. I read aloud very often when he was young, building his vocabulary. I often put off spelling, thinking this bright kid will pick it up fast at a later age. He always hated to write. He had real trouble even at age 10. He had to think so much about how to make the letters, so he couldn’t concentrate well on what he was writing about. We discussed many books, and he did fine orally. (I admit, I should have made him write more often.)

So, I am very much at fault for this situation. Needless to say, we are spending 30 minutes/day on spelling, which is a lot for a 15 yr old, but he is cooperative, and willing to learn. He is not embarrassed about it, because Dad, who is not a great speller either, doesn’t make son feel badly. It’s not an issue. But mom is tearing her heart out over this, inwardly. I never had him tested. I just feel that we should work on strategies that will help him for college. He seems so smart, so I think he will learn to cope, if there are any learning disabilities, like dyslexia or dysgraphia. Thank you all so much for your input, so far.

Testing probably wouldn’t have told you anything you didn’t already know.

What approach are you using for spelling? Sequential Spelling really does seem to work for dyslexics, and I would urge you to give it a try. You could fit two 10-minute lessons into a day (lessons need to be separated by at least an hour). The author says that most dyslexics pick up the patterns by the time they finish the 6th book and don’t need the 7th. We are doing one lesson a day 7 days a week year-round in order to get through two books a year.

We tried Spelling Power first, and actually liked it, but quit when I discovered dd was still mis-spelling her SP words when she was writing. Sequential Spelling takes less time and seems to work better.

My 11yo daughter is dyslexic and somewhat dysgraphic — can write, but slowly. The best decision we ever made was to homeschool her.

Mary

Oh I agree with you - my son is the kind of kid who never thought of himself as handicapped. He refused accommodations in school, and understood his own strengths as well as weaknesses.

In high school he decided that he wanted to take AP English, despite lackluster grades his Freshman year, so he completed extra credit work for a year in order to qualify for placement into the class, earned A+ grades throughout, and a passing grade on the AP exam at the end of the year - the exam is handwritten, with no dictionaries or computers available. This took a lot of dedication and hard work. (But I also think that if he had been able to use a computer, he would have scored a point higher on the exam, as he probably did get marked down for spelling mistakes.)

But dyslexia is also a very real — and even if you don’t look at it as a handicap, the balance of strengths/weaknesses can’t be denied. A bright, motivated student like my son can improve spelling tremendously, but probably is always going to have some questions or difficulty. Recognizing your weaknesses and using readily available TOOLS to enable yourself to perform higher quality work is not a “crutch”. A student who cannot read at age 11 but goes on to earn academic honors in high school in not “lazy”, no matter how bad his spelling is.

My son doesn’t use the spell checker or dictionaries as an excuse - he uses these as tools to enable him to reach a higher level. In a few days, he will start college at a small liberal arts school with a national reputation for its intensive writing requirements - he will do much more writing at that college than at a typical university, with very close scrutiny from his professors — but he is ABLE to make the choice to attend this college because he knows he will have tools like the computer word processor and spell checker, as will every other student there, dyslexic or not.

It’s not fair to pretend that a dyslexic student’s problems are due to “laziness” - they aren’t - dyslexic people process information differently in their brains, and it honestly is much more difficult for most dyslexics to spell correctly than nondyslexics. You wouldn’t expect a nearsighted student to do his work without wearing his glasses — you’d recognize that even though he could see without his glasses, he didn’t see as well as other students, and the glasses were appropriate and necessary.

I’m sitting here typing this message on my computer screen. Without the “crutch” of the computer, I wouldn’t be able to communicate with you at all - because you need a computer to visit a website. My kids routinely do work for school papers and projects that is far more comprehensive than anything I could have done at their age, simply because they have all the resources of the internet at their fingertips, and they know how to use it. Even at age 9, my daughter could write a history report using primary sources — historic documents posted on the internet — rather than simply relying the books in the children’s section of the library or parroting articles in an encyclopedia. (Yes, she uses the books too, but it is amazing how often the information in those books turns out to be oversimplified or just plain wrong).

Yes, the kids who are using their computers to produce this kind of work probably also tend to get a little lazy on the spelling - they type faster, and less carefully, knowing the spell checker will catch their errors - the smart ones may even program that “autocorrect” feature to automatically correct their common misspellings. But the tradeoff is that they are thinking and exploring at a much more complex level than the kids who don’t have access to or understand how to use the tools. A spell checker won’t fix a paper that is devoid of originality or mistates facts and misapplies concepts - and my son’s A+ in AP English wasn’t because he learned to spell well, it was because he had a teacher who was delighted at the quality and creativity of the ideas expressed in the work.

-Abigail

Thanks, Mary. Yes, I will look into the Sequential Spelling. It is definitely worth a try because I have been using Spelling Workout this year (book E & F) which is about 5th and 6th grade. I don’t think it’s been extremely effective. It wouldn’t surprise me if something better was out there. He also tried Calvert Spelling CD-ROMS but he just didn’t like them. Carol

We are using Spelling Power and my son is doing well with the program. At first, the spelling skills didn’t transfer over to his writing, but after the first year I could see that he was using his spelling skills in other writing. It always takes a while for stuff we do in lessons (grammar, spelling, handwriting, math) to become automatic enough that he uses it in other situations.

Also, studying vocabulary using a program that emphasizes root words will help with both vocab and spelling that he needs for college. Word Power Made Easy, Vocabulary from the Roots Up are two good vocab programs.

Jean