Spelling Test - Help needed!

[runnerbrit]

DS has his first spelling test tomorrow. Spelling is a very weak point for him. I mean it is an area where he really struggles. At home we would take about 2 weeks to do a list of 20 new words. He has his first spelling test tomorrow, we have been studying every afternoon, but he is still only getting the words right about 50% of the time.

We have finger spelled the words, jumped on the trampoline while spelling, broken the words into segments. Any other ideas? He really wants to do well.

[Happily Blessed]

It sounds like you are doing a really good job! May I suggest writing the words on index cards, or sticky notes, and putting them all over the house: kitchen, dining room, bathroom, etc. So that he sees the words and when he does, have have him spell them out.

If you figure out what kind of learner he is that would benefit him also. I learned large passages of memorization by writing them out, recording onto a cassette player, then reciting them along with myself. That way by the time I had to write it all down, I could see it (in my head) and write it down.

Good luck!

[snowmom5]

http://www.visualspatial.org/Articles/app2spell.pdf

[Teensy]

My DS #1 is a poor speller also, so I feel your frustration. Each afternoon I "quiz" him on that week's words. He writes them all down, then rewrites all those he missed correctly twice I quiz him orally in the mornings on the drive to school. We try to make up crazy saying for those he has trouble with, for example, this week he has the word "weather" - so I might say "We at her house - it started raining inside! We at her - rain - weather."

There are also websites, like spellingcity.com, that allow you to type in words and play games with your own lists, but my DS didn't find them helpful.

[ecoteat]

Is there any pattern to the list? Are they all ways to spell the long A or something like that? If there is, break the words up into groups that follow the same rule. Go over the vowel sound rule, and then add the other letters in that are probably simpler to figure out on the spot. Like if the list has ate, fate, eight, great--study the a*e, eigh, and eat spellings, then play around with adding other letters to turn those patterns into other words.

I used to hate teaching spelling when I thought I had to give 20 words a week. When I realized I didn't HAVE to do it that way and developed my own way of teaching spelling, the lists were much shorter, more interesting, and fun to teach and learn. I had finally figured out how I best teach spelling, and then I changed grades and subject areas and don't teach it anymore! I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of miss it!

[Linda on the move]

One of my DD's does poor on spelling tests. Her spelling grade is about half based on homework, though, so it averages OK. She is a kid who is good at almost everything, so we've worked as much on accepting that spellling is difficult for her at this time as on learning to spelling.

She has 25 words per week which often have a theme but don't follow the same pattern. It's a stupid list and she finds it overwhelming. She has a lot of spelling homework, but it doesn't teach her how to spelling the words (may be it works for the other kids?).

We focus on the first 10 on Monday, the second 10 on Tuesday, the last five plus 5 I chose on Wednesday, and Thursday is the only day we tackle the whole thing. Breaking it into sections has helped her stay focused and positive while we work, and oddly she is doing better overall, even though we no longer study every word every day.

When we study a word, we start by just reading it and thinking about it. We underline letters that are working together (such as "th" or "ar"), notice double letters, etc. Then I cover up the word and she spells it outloud. If she has trouble spellling it outloud, we go back to step one. Once she can spell all 10 words outloud, we get out a piece of paper and practice with her writting them. This is an important step for her, because for some reason even if she can spell it outloud, it may look funny to her when she puts it on paper.

Good luck and stay positive! And remind him that how he does on a spelling test is not an indication of his value as a person, how smart he is, or anything else that actually matters!

[Alyantavid]

These seem like really long lists of spelling words!

My 7 year old has 1 test a week of 10 words. They go through them at school a few times, at home, we go through them and he writes them down. Then we do them orally.

Spellingcity.com is great, we used that all last year. He had tons of fun with the games and the repitition helped him get the spelling. They have simple word searches (my kid loves word searches) and I think those help alot.

I totally agree with the pp about figuring out how he learns. That will make spelling (and everything else) much less frustrating for him.

[Geofizz]

We have:

Spelled while jumping rope
Play spelling tic-tac-toe (write the word instead of X and O)
Write on a white board -- use different colors for the vowels and consonants or use colors for blends like 'th'
Make the words out of silly putty/playdoh
Alternate letters (She says the first, I say the second, etc)
Sort the words in as many ways as possible (long vowel vs short vowel, number of letters, curvy vs straight letters)
Made crossword puzzles
Made word searches (there are online programs to generate these)
Write sentences -- sometime we try to come up with really silly ones, or try to come up with sentences that use as many of the words as possible
Make a picture out of the word

ETA: If you have been working on 20 words every afternoon for 2 weeks and he still doesn't have it, you might consider bringing this up with the teacher. The list might be just too hard and he might not have some of the basic rules down. It's pretty easy to find spelling lists online for different grade levels. How does your son's list compare to what seems typical for other schools?

[runnerbrit]

Update

Thank you for all of your replies and suggestions. DS got a 50% on his test.

I met with Ds's teacher yesterday afternoon and I LOVE her! She told me that she was surprised he did so poorly on his spelling test considering that he is a very good reader with excellent reading comprehension. I explained to her that spelling has always been a struggle for him and what we do to work on it. She gave me a few more suggestions but also said that if needed we can shorten his list. She agreed with dh and I that we should NOT make it a source of pressure for him. She said that some kids struggle with spelling no matter how much they study, apparently her now adult dd was one of those kids.

Anyway dh and I did not show him his spelling test results and we do not intend to make a huge issue of the spelling tests. We will study for them everyday, review the words, etc. but if he does not do well on the test, no biggie.

[Geofizz]

Groan.

Good on you for trying to keep it low key for your son. Shorter lists will probably help build up some confidence.

My DD reads at a 7th grade level and spells at a sub-first grade level. She's in grade 2.

Her spelling/reading is so disparate because she learned to read so fast while in kindy that she never decodes words. That means when it comes to coding them (writing them down in letters), she doesn't have much practice.

This is a concept that was pretty difficult for my DD's teacher to understand. I had to spell it out. In googling around for ideas and info, I'm discovering that it's pretty common for kids to learn to read and spend very little time focusing on individual letters. We are making a lot of progress by sticking to word families and teaching various rules explicitly.

[runnerbrit]

He does do much better with phoenics based lists. We used ABeka spelling when we were homeschooling him and it suited him well. The school does NOT do this. They use words from the story they are reading that week.

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by runnerbrit

They use words from the story they are reading that week.

The way they teach spelling at my DD's school drives me bonkers. This week all of her words have endings, but they aren't spending any time learning/reviewing the rules for adding endings.

I really like her school and overall she is learning lots. Just not in spelling!

[aniT]

Originally Posted by runnerbrit

She told me that she was surprised he did so poorly on his spelling test considering that he is a very good reader with excellent reading comprehension.

On has nothing to do with the other. I would seriously question the ability of the teacher if she believes it does.

I mean when you are reading you SEE the word in front of you. When you are spelling you are trying to remember how to spell some word that more often than not doesn't follow any rule and cannot be sounded out correctly.

I cannot spell. I never learned to spell. I could do OK on my tests but would forgot how to spell the words again shortly afterwards. I don't know my times tables either. Memorizing random facts is not my strong suit. My reading and comprehension however has always been off the charts. .

[momo7]

A couple of my children have a hard time with spelling too and it can be quite a pain. The thing that I found that helps best is writing them. About 3xs each, maybe take 5 at a time.

Also give it time, because spelling does improve with practice. Once he recognizes how sounds mingle together in one word, he will also see the same in other words too.

Good luck..I hope he did well.

[mom2ponygirl]

My daughter was a super advanced reader and very poor speller until about the age of 9, nearing 10. We did Sequential Spelling which uses word families and is very helpful. However, I think the key for her was typing online. She frequented some online games, emailed friends, and did an online class that required typing to a forum. Suddenly, spelling became much more important to her and with the work she did on Sequential spelling from AVKO it all came together for her. Spell check helps as well! She still will occasionally miss some words you wouldn't expect for a 11 yr old, but overall her spelling is above average now. When she was tested at age 8 her achievement and reading and spelling differed by more than 7 grade levels!