HOW DO I KNOW IF A CHILD HAS A SPELLING PROBLEM

Firstly, I know that spelling difficulties are classed into categories – dyslexia (hard to isolate sounds in words and blend sounds in words): Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder - ADHD (difficulty focusing) and Dysgraphia (inability to write neatly, especially at age-appropriate speed). These disorders affect reading and writing and the self esteem of a child.

WARNING: Few children have any one of these disorders, so do not get carried away!

REMEMBER: Children with these disorders are NOT lazy; they are NOTdumb. If they do not have their needs attended to from early years they lose self-confidence quickly.

Secondly, there are signs to look for,

- cannot see words in his/her mind’s eye;

- spellings do not match one of the normally occurring developmental stages;

- uses a hodgepodge of unpredictable and sporadic strategies rather than consistent ones;

- cannot produce spellings appropriate for his age and ability level;

- seems to have lapses in his/her power to represent words;

- seems to be oblivious to which strategies work best (i.e. spelling by ear, spelling by eye, spelling by pattern, spelling by analogy);

- when attempting to spell by eye, frequently uses visual pattern that do not fit;

- uses fragmented spelling patterns;

- writes spellings that are way off base.

- difficulty processing subtle auditory, visual information (skipping letters, wrong order).

I gleaned further information from Peg Rosen, Understood.org, a Poses Family Foundation Portal, directed at children with learning and attention issues.

For example, children with dyslexia often confuse letters that sound alike (e.g. cat (K sound), cent S sound). Words that sound alike but have different meanings (homophones). Vowels can be awfully tricky. They can misspell sight words.

Strategies to try to overcome these difficulties:

Teaching phonic /phonemic awareness. Connect letter sounds to letter symbols. Assess children before beginning on this path; what alphabet letters they can / cannot write and read?

Engage more than one sense – sight, sound, touch.

Word studies:

Elkonin sound boxes (as shown in my book, You may think it is just spelling). A staple practice in Reading Recovery.

                              

Rhyming – Play rhyming bingo

rhyme ... time climb prime mime crime grime

Compound words 

paste tooth ... toothpaste

Focus on meanings and common structures of words e.g. prefixes and suffixes.

Find the prefix Find the root word Find the suffix Put them together, what word does it make?

MISUNDERSTANDING

mis understand ing misunderstanding

meanings... 'mis'    'understand'   'ing' a gerund - changing verb into a noun         

Begin with prefixes and later suffixes. For young adolescents (From Lost for Words, ABC. It brought tears to my eyes!), reading menus, given mapping instructions to follow. Independence and confidence building tasks.

Children with ADHD find it hard to focus, to notice spelling patterns and spelling mistakes. They find it hard to commit words and spelling rules to memory, for the brain to organize information and retrieve when necessary.

Strategies to try to overcome these difficulties:

Squeeze a ball for each syllable, or particular cluster (ake), blend (bl), digraph (ph), rhyme (at, cat), letter.

Children learn to revise - proofread their work and circle spelling they are unsure of (this gives the teacher a view of what the speller is achieving or stumbling over).

Each day have a slow down time, where the class sits still, breathing in-out. Or they concentrate on a picture for 2 minutes (gradually increase the time).

Children with Dysgraphia, a disorder where the child struggles to commit his/her thoughts when hand -writing or typing: May find it hard to write a word: May misspell a word in many different ways.

Strategies to try to overcome these difficulties:

Fine motor skill development (many examples on internet).

Aim for children to be fluent hand-writers. For some children discriminating letters knowing

where to begin a letter and deciding what direction to go after that, is often a mystery

and this can inhibit a child’s writing / spelling progress (in my book 'You may think it is just spelling).

Use tools like pencil grips and slant boards.

Graphic organizers to help writers organize their thoughts.

All difficulties:

Children sit near the teacher.

Teacher schedules a time to work 1-1 with the child, for approximately half-an-hour each day. OK having classroom assistants working with the child but a teacher must know what the child can/cannot achieve and plan accordingly. Children love working with the teacher.

Teacher knows what is age/ability appropriate; has knowledge of child’s background experiences.

Teacher develops a perception of sounds, for example, The same sound may be represented by many letters or combination of letters:

he, people, key, believe

The same letter may represent a variety of sounds:

father village many

Develop active listening skills by reminding the child that it is listening/concentrating time.

Make it a simple sign

- "listening time", "look closely".

PREDICTING HAPPENINGS, CHARACTERISATION and VOCABULARY is a foremost strategy as is MAKING CONNECTIONS to prior learning.

Computer spellchecking (generally, older children) good support but it does not help to build spelling skills.

The reasons for spelling difficulties cannot be dealt with in simplistic ways, they are too complex. There is not one solution to these problems.