spelling help
Pamela Sorooshian
My 12 yo really wants to become a better speller. She has serious
spelling difficulties. She reads extremely well - even technical
material - can read out loud and pronounce difficult words she's never
seen before - so her poor spelling is not a result of weak knowledge of
phonics. She reads and writes a LOT - her poor spelling doesn't slow
down her writing - she just writes anyway and then gets someone to
correct her spelling later. Her spelling is extremely poor, though -
she spells the same word different ways in the same body of writing,
she sometimes adds and often omits letters, and nearly always mixes up
the order of letters that should be there. In a sentence like this one,
she would have misspelled at least four words. Her misspellings often
are so far off that it is difficult to figure out what word she meant.
Her poor spelling hasn't really been a problem until a couple of days
ago when she did "Horsemastership" testing at 4H and took what was
called "orals" - a test of her knowledge about horses. Turned out it
was not "oral" - they took four kids at a time and the kids had to
answer questions by filling in the blanks on an answer sheet. My
daughter skipped a number of questions, even though she knew the
answers, because she couldn't manage to spell them well enough for them
to be recognizable (there was some time pressure, too - she could hear
that there were a lot of other kids waiting outside to get in and get
their testing done). She got blue ribbons in the other four tests
(grooming, showmanship, equitation, and trail riding) and a red ribbon
on the written one - so if she hadn't had spelling problems, she'd have
possibly had all five blue ribbons, which is quite a remarkable
accomplishment and she'd have been really really thrilled. (Four blues
and a red is a great accomplishment too and she was thrilled by that -
but it does seem too bad that poor spelling played a part in the
outcome.)
Sometimes, if she's at a loss as to how to spell a word, she makes a
list of a bunch of ways it might be spelled, and then she can look at
the list and pick out the correct one. If I give her a list - say I
give her "flwer," "fwler," "floer," "flowr," and "flower" -- she can
always recognize the correct one. This is nice, but when she's having
trouble with so MANY words, this really isn't a feasible strategy.
Anyway - this seems to be a very very specific inability to "output"
correctly spelled words.
If anybody has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them.
Thanks,
pam
PS - I'm going to send this post to a few lists, looking for help, so I
apologize to those who get it more than once.
spelling difficulties. She reads extremely well - even technical
material - can read out loud and pronounce difficult words she's never
seen before - so her poor spelling is not a result of weak knowledge of
phonics. She reads and writes a LOT - her poor spelling doesn't slow
down her writing - she just writes anyway and then gets someone to
correct her spelling later. Her spelling is extremely poor, though -
she spells the same word different ways in the same body of writing,
she sometimes adds and often omits letters, and nearly always mixes up
the order of letters that should be there. In a sentence like this one,
she would have misspelled at least four words. Her misspellings often
are so far off that it is difficult to figure out what word she meant.
Her poor spelling hasn't really been a problem until a couple of days
ago when she did "Horsemastership" testing at 4H and took what was
called "orals" - a test of her knowledge about horses. Turned out it
was not "oral" - they took four kids at a time and the kids had to
answer questions by filling in the blanks on an answer sheet. My
daughter skipped a number of questions, even though she knew the
answers, because she couldn't manage to spell them well enough for them
to be recognizable (there was some time pressure, too - she could hear
that there were a lot of other kids waiting outside to get in and get
their testing done). She got blue ribbons in the other four tests
(grooming, showmanship, equitation, and trail riding) and a red ribbon
on the written one - so if she hadn't had spelling problems, she'd have
possibly had all five blue ribbons, which is quite a remarkable
accomplishment and she'd have been really really thrilled. (Four blues
and a red is a great accomplishment too and she was thrilled by that -
but it does seem too bad that poor spelling played a part in the
outcome.)
Sometimes, if she's at a loss as to how to spell a word, she makes a
list of a bunch of ways it might be spelled, and then she can look at
the list and pick out the correct one. If I give her a list - say I
give her "flwer," "fwler," "floer," "flowr," and "flower" -- she can
always recognize the correct one. This is nice, but when she's having
trouble with so MANY words, this really isn't a feasible strategy.
Anyway - this seems to be a very very specific inability to "output"
correctly spelled words.
If anybody has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them.
Thanks,
pam
PS - I'm going to send this post to a few lists, looking for help, so I
apologize to those who get it more than once.
[email protected]
In a message dated 5/26/2003 2:14:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
pamsoroosh@... writes:
curriculum in their lives, even when using textbooks) so I got the computer
game "Spell It." They all like it, and it really did improve their spelling and
gave them a little more conficence. Ours disappeared a while back so I
ordered another on Ebay and only paid 3.99 for it!
Nancy
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
pamsoroosh@... writes:
> Anyway - this seems to be a very very specific inability to "output"Pam, my kids wanted to work on their spelling (we had NEVER done a spelling
> correctly spelled words.
>
> If anybody has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them.
>
> Thanks,
>
> pam
>
curriculum in their lives, even when using textbooks) so I got the computer
game "Spell It." They all like it, and it really did improve their spelling and
gave them a little more conficence. Ours disappeared a while back so I
ordered another on Ebay and only paid 3.99 for it!
Nancy
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected]
In a message dated 5/26/2003 2:14:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
pamsoroosh@... writes:
Participants will receive two free $1.95 booklets: "The Mechanics of English
Spelling" & "How to DevelopYour Own Sequential Spelling Tests".
This is a Funshop at the conference. He sent me his three
books---fascinating. I'm a good speller (bad typist though! <g>) but I thought many of his ideas
were great.
This is Rosie, right? She might want to check him out. He's doing three
funshops, so she should have no trouble making at least one of them!
~Kelly
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
pamsoroosh@... writes:
> If anybody has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them.English Spelling: The Simple, the Fancy, the Insane - Don & Ann McCabe
>
Participants will receive two free $1.95 booklets: "The Mechanics of English
Spelling" & "How to DevelopYour Own Sequential Spelling Tests".
This is a Funshop at the conference. He sent me his three
books---fascinating. I'm a good speller (bad typist though! <g>) but I thought many of his ideas
were great.
This is Rosie, right? She might want to check him out. He's doing three
funshops, so she should have no trouble making at least one of them!
~Kelly
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Pamela Sorooshian
Yes - Rosie. COOL!!!! Thank you!!!
-pam
-pam
On Monday, May 26, 2003, at 12:11 PM, kbcdlovejo@... wrote:
> This is Rosie, right? She might want to check him out. He's doing three
> funshops, so she should have no trouble making at least one of them!
[email protected]
pamsoroosh@... writes:
<< Anyway - this seems to be a very very specific inability to "output"
correctly spelled words.
If anybody has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them.
Thanks,
pam
really, made easy, hehehe, but it is chock full of rules, explanations and the
like, of how things are spelled, and why.
I have the book right here, I can list the contents for you, or answer your
questions about it, before you buy it, let me know....
~Aimee
<< Anyway - this seems to be a very very specific inability to "output"
correctly spelled words.
If anybody has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them.
Thanks,
pam
>>I have book Spelling Made Simple by Stephen V. Ross. Doubleday. It's not,
really, made easy, hehehe, but it is chock full of rules, explanations and the
like, of how things are spelled, and why.
I have the book right here, I can list the contents for you, or answer your
questions about it, before you buy it, let me know....
~Aimee
Deborah Lewis
Pam,
My brother has a gizmo, it's a few years old, you type the word the way
you think it's spelled and it gives you spelling options for words
similar to what you typed. It's a little hand held thing.
If she can recognize the correct spelling when she sees it maybe that
would help her.
Maybe there's something better now.
My brother has this same difficulty, but manages ok with a pocket
dictionary and his little electronic spelling thingy.
Deb L
My brother has a gizmo, it's a few years old, you type the word the way
you think it's spelled and it gives you spelling options for words
similar to what you typed. It's a little hand held thing.
If she can recognize the correct spelling when she sees it maybe that
would help her.
Maybe there's something better now.
My brother has this same difficulty, but manages ok with a pocket
dictionary and his little electronic spelling thingy.
Deb L
Pamela Sorooshian
Franklin speller - or something like that? That's a good idea - I'll
look around and see if I can find one.
-pam
look around and see if I can find one.
-pam
On Monday, May 26, 2003, at 03:03 PM, Deborah Lewis wrote:
> My brother has a gizmo, it's a few years old, you type the word the way
> you think it's spelled and it gives you spelling options for words
> similar to what you typed. It's a little hand held thing.
Have A Nice Day!
I just found a neat game at yahoo.com called "bookworm". Its really good for spelling but might not be as efficient.
Kristen
Kristen
----- Original Message -----
From: kbcdlovejo@...
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2003 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] spelling help
In a message dated 5/26/2003 2:14:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
pamsoroosh@... writes:
> If anybody has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them.
>
English Spelling: The Simple, the Fancy, the Insane - Don & Ann McCabe
Participants will receive two free $1.95 booklets: "The Mechanics of English
Spelling" & "How to DevelopYour Own Sequential Spelling Tests".
This is a Funshop at the conference. He sent me his three
books---fascinating. I'm a good speller (bad typist though! <g>) but I thought many of his ideas
were great.
This is Rosie, right? She might want to check him out. He's doing three
funshops, so she should have no trouble making at least one of them!
~Kelly
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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Have A Nice Day!
We also use "The Natural Speller". It groups words phonetically that are also spelled in a similar way. I found that my daughter was able to remember better when she wrote them down.
Kristen
Kristen
----- Original Message -----
From: Deborah Lewis
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2003 6:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] spelling help
Pam,
My brother has a gizmo, it's a few years old, you type the word the way
you think it's spelled and it gives you spelling options for words
similar to what you typed. It's a little hand held thing.
If she can recognize the correct spelling when she sees it maybe that
would help her.
Maybe there's something better now.
My brother has this same difficulty, but manages ok with a pocket
dictionary and his little electronic spelling thingy.
Deb L
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
~~~~ Don't forget! If you change topics, change the subject line! ~~~~
If you have questions, concerns or problems with this list, please email the moderator, Joyce Fetteroll (fetteroll@...), or the list owner, Helen Hegener (HEM-Editor@...).
To unsubscribe from this group, click on the following link or address an email to:
[email protected]
Visit the Unschooling website: http://www.unschooling.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected]
In a message dated 5/26/2003 4:38:30 PM Central Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
Patterns of English Spelling" and "How to Develop Your Own Sequential Spelling
Tests." Additionally, he has a very helpful website: <A HREF="www.avko.org">www.avko.org</A>. One other
resource that helped my daughter was "Spelling Power" by Beverly L. Adams-Gordon.
Mary
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected] writes:
> "The Mechanics of EnglishWe, too, found Don McCabe's materials very helpful. We have used "The
> Spelling" &"How to DevelopYour Own Sequential Spelling Tests".
>
Patterns of English Spelling" and "How to Develop Your Own Sequential Spelling
Tests." Additionally, he has a very helpful website: <A HREF="www.avko.org">www.avko.org</A>. One other
resource that helped my daughter was "Spelling Power" by Beverly L. Adams-Gordon.
Mary
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]