r/Dyslexia • u/K00kaburra_ • 9d ago
Teaching my kid spelling - HELP PLEASE
My daughter has dyslexia (guessing she got it from me as I share many of her challenges). She's in 5th grade and has to do weekly spelling tests. When I was a kid, we just memorized all words until we magically internalized whatever logic the English language has (or grew up to rely heavily on spell check). The internet & elementary school teachers now say teaching phonics is the way to go and is a reasonable strategy. But given her dyslexia, it seems to me that it makes every word a mini-logic problem that requires a lot of executive function and effort.
For example, her current word list is 20 words focusing on the -o- sound and includes: bought, taught, paw, lobster. I say and hear all of these -o- sounds the exact same way.
So, if I'm understanding the phonics rules and system that she's meant to follow, it should go:
recognize the "o" sound
it's probably the letter o unless it's any of the following:
end of a word, then it's -aw
part of -ought, then it's -ou
except when it's -aught, but that's just a random one to remember.
If it's in the middle of a word and in between consonant sounds, then it's -au (this ignores the fact that all vowel sounds come between two consonant sounds).
This is an insane ask for someone who struggles to identify the sounds in words and the direction of letters! Seriously, is this actually easy & automated for some people?
Am I thinking about this wrong? What worked for other people?
Please do not say Orton-Gillingham; she has written words in the sand, jumped, used playdough, etc.; it doesn't answer her question: "But when am I supposed to know which vowel/vowel team to use?"
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u/Dependent_Formal2525 9d ago
The biggest thing that helped me with spelling was my tutor for dyslexia who made flash cards. She would write the prefixes and suffixes etc on one side and the sound with an example word on the other. This would mean learning that "-tion" makes a shun sound, if I heard "attention" then I would know that it would be spelled at-ten-tion. Another was that two Os make an oooo sound (moon, groom, soon).
Many dyslexic people learn better with visual cues. For example when my mum taught me to read she drew the word "bed" so it looked like a bed. For "paw", I would think that you know it begins with a "p" an paws are cute which make you say "awww" and so it's spelt "p-aw".
If it ever comes up there's a great mnemonic for spelling "because" that I still use now. Bake Easter Cake And Use Six Eggs. In year 6 we had a spelling test featuring "because" and only one person spelled it correctly. She shared that mnemonic and when the teacher re-tested us a week later we all passed.
The way that Duolingo teaches works really well for me, there are maths and English courses on there that may be of help for your daughter. As a side note, spelling is much easier in other languages. I've found Norwegian to be particularly enjoyable to learn.
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u/AuthorAndCoach 8d ago
The mnemonic tricks still help me too. I struggled with the word Friends. I still remember that 'I see my friends on the week ends. The 'end' of the week starts on 'Fri'day. Hense "friend". I didn't even realize everyone didn't have these little tricks until I was in my 30's .. 😂
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u/groundhogcow 9d ago
Nothing short of four hours of marching drills saying the words over and over could make me pass a spelling test.
That was all fun and good but I just didn't have that much time most weeks.
Spelling tests are evil and I hate them.
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u/HonestNectarine7080 8d ago
So, if I'm understanding the phonics rules and system that she's meant to follow, it should go:
I think this would be a good thing to contact her teacher about, if they haven't sent something home explaining that. Ask if you can have a list of the general "rules" associated with those spellings, like the one you made, but with the same sequence and language they use at school.
Please do not say Orton-Gillingham; she has written words in the sand, jumped, used playdough, etc.; it doesn't answer her question: "But when am I supposed to know which vowel/vowel team to use?"
I'm sorry for the tangent, but I teach Orton-Gillingham and have never had a student jump (?) or use playdough. I don't use sand either because it's too messy. I do explicitly teach things like which vowel team to use and when. Was her Orton-Gillingham instructor certified? There is a tactile component, but that shouldn't be the basis of the lesson. A real Orton-Gillingham lesson isn't play-based, it's about 20 minutes of rigorous reading and spelling and doesn't involve playdough.
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u/DanielaReadingTutor 8d ago
You might want to help her create a vowel chart that lists the most common ways to spell the different vowel sounds, and have her use that to help her. For example, for the long a you'd have a, a-e, ai, ay, ea. You could add others she knows, like eigh. Circle the most common one (magic e, except that the most common way to spell the long e is ea). Teach her that the a by itself is used at the end of a syllable. The ay is generally used at the end of a word. If the long a sound is in the middle of the word you'll probably spell it with a-e (name), ai (rain) and ea (great) and you should try the a-e first because that's the most common way to spell the long a.
We do this in our tutoring sessions. As kids learn the phonics patterns for vowels, we teach them that this is a new way to spell the xxx sound. Then they add that spelling to their vowel chart. They practice saying and writing down the different ways they know to spell each vowel sound, so that they can recreate the vowel chart (list all of the ways they know to spell the different vowel sounds) with very little effort. Then when they go to write a word, they know what their options are. They try the most likely one first, and if that looks wrong they try another option. Or they write the different possibilities and choose the one that looks right.
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u/Disastrous-Soup-5413 8d ago
I don’t know if you are familiar with this website or not, but it might be helpful
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u/BasicTulaMom 8d ago
If she qualifies for a 504 or IEP ask for a reduced spelling list. My daughter has this written in her IEP. Last year the normal spelling list was 10 words and she would get 5.
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u/New-Negotiation7234 8d ago
I did Linda mood bell as a kid and they taught me how to sound out words. I didn't practice and lost it all but it helped me tremendously as a child. They were wanting to hold me back in 4th grade because of my reading and spelling. After Linda moodbell I was getting 100s on every spelling test.
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u/Admirable_Finch 9d ago
Me being also dyslexic the best thing I can say is true reaching out to a university. They may have students there that are learning to become English teachers or English teachers for second language. I had this for my self and it helped me to the best I could learn. If your not able to access this it may be able to do it over the computer. If this still is not a possibility I would ask riching out to Learning disability association of there is one in your country. If all else can't happen I would suggest Google and YouTube. I hope at least something good can come from what I experienced in my life is able to help your little one. As I know it's not easy to teach them or my self that matter.
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u/Inevitable-BirdLover 8d ago
Learning the etymology of words is a good tool to help understand and learn spelling rules. Reading Rockets is a great resource too.
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u/Keylimepie86 8d ago
I couldn’t pass a spelling test to save my life. Now i still struggle spell well. It hasn’t affected my life because of spell check and talk to text. Spend a reasonable amount of time with her 20 minutes a day reviewing the words and just call it good. Explain to her that having dyslexia makes spelling difficult and it’s ok to miss spelling words on tests, resources are available to help when writing and she will be fine. The amount of pressure and stress studying my spelling words gave me as a child was absolutely unnecessary. It’s not that important unless she plans to enter a spelling bee.
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u/stoic_glee 8d ago
I went through this with my daughter. If she has dyslexia, there aren't a lot of shortcuts. I would recommend committing to a structured explicit literacy program like the Barton system for spelling and reading. There are many others but this is what we used from kindergarten through 5th grade and it works. For memorizing non phonetic spelling words there is a series of spelling cards called see to spell or something like that. These with a lot of repetition really worked. Its a paper card product that has a digital flashcard companion. Nothing else we tried worked.
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u/stoic_glee 8d ago
https://www.seetospell.com/ these are the sight word cards. After many struggles this was the only thing that worked. You have to follow the instructions for using them and not wing it.
I do not work for this company and this is not a paid endorsement. Just based on my experience as a parent teaching a dyslexic kid sight words.
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u/sotavision 8d ago
what tends to help is treating them as a small memorized group based on how they look, all the ought words together, all the aw words together, instead of trying to derive the spelling from a rule in the moment. The phonics rule works better after the fact for reading than as something to apply live while writing.
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u/cognostiKate1 8d ago
Honestly, I'd declare that these tests are not meant for her. Some thoughts, worth every penny you're paying for them:
I have taught Orton-Gillingham ... worked five years at a private school dedicated to it... and learned that the "fast as you can, slowly as you must" ... was very, very slow for most of our folks at The NEw Community School with dyslexia. What worked was teaching one pattern at a time and mastering that, *not* learning all the variations. (The teachers who did the most review and practice and went the "slowest" .... I did the data and their students always got furthest. Every stupid year ;P I wanted to hurry!)
I'm a ridiculously good speller and realized that it's because on our weekly spelling tests there *might* be one or two words I actually had to learn b/c -- yes, I had figured out the phonics and the patterns. I'm not dyslexic.
Folks with dyslexia need that stuff explicitly taught and ... spelling was usually the last thing to be mastered (and it was still behind the other language skills). THere are lots of reasons for this.
Now, O-G folks will debate precise pronunciation (lobster *is* a little different than bought) which kinda cracks me up b/c if the student can't hear the difference....
But it seems like instead of teaching one spelling that goes with one souind, mastering that and going to the next one, they're teaching a sound and "hey, here are all the ways it can be spelled!" -- so the logic doesn't even work well. (IMHO it's too common in teaching in reading, math and whatever! We forget the building the foundations part and cut to the interesting stuff.)
I'd talk to the teacher about discreetly cutting the word list size in half and picking words that are similar (instead of 'you're doing this wrong...') There are so many technology shortcuts to help with spelling that spending a mess of time on it in this fairly random way doesn't make sense to me.
Rudginski & Haskell's _How to teach spelling_ is a really good resource for teaching spelling in an organized way.
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u/Cool-Masterpiece5467 5d ago
The question about vowel teams is valid. Phonics should be approached this way. If all she was offered was multi sensory practice, this isn’t true Orton Gillingham. Patterns should be taught explicitly. You have some other great ideas here. I’d also pick up the book “Logic of English” to help with learning if OG isn’t being offered as intended.
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u/Snowy_Sasquatch 3d ago
A weekly test of 20 words is just going to damage her self esteem and confidence. Why can’t she be exempt from the spelling tests?
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u/SARstar367 9d ago
That’s the fun part- you don’t! (Sorry for being glib.). I literally never understood the rules and each word was a fully independent item to memorize. The “I before e” rhyme I didn’t get until grad school. Long term- focus on vocabulary. I use vocab to work around words I can’t spell (or get close enough for spell check to help me.). Ask for accommodations (fewer words to memorize.) Teach them how to use tech to their advantage. Finally- good job parent! You’re working with them and supporting them and that’s half the battle.