My 7 year old is in 2nd grade and hates spelling, and it shows. Then one day she picked up a note book and just started writing a story, and yes there were spelling mistakes but she happily corrected them as I pointed them out. To my surprise she's a wonderful writer(very creative). So, as a parent and teacher what do I do, should I just let her write until the end of the year, and find a different spelling program next year? We have already tried Rod and Staff as well as Modern Curriculum Press, but she retains nothing with these. Has any one used sequential spelling?
First of all, many people believe in waiting for formal spelling programs until 3rd grade, so I wouldn't worry about skipping it for now. My daughter was not a strong speller and really disliked Spelling Power, and the K12 spelling program component of their Language arts. We finally settled on Sequential Spelling when she was about 9. She found it painless to use and her spelling is much improved.
Maybe check out www.spellingcity.com! That changed everything for us when it came to spelling! I would let her write whatever she wants and/or is directed to, and then circle her spelling errors and type them into spelling city as a parent and have her practive them and then test on them later. There are games that make it fun. OR, you could give her a list of words and have her write them into her story several times, correct any errors and then follow the above steps. Of course, you can do whatever works for your child! It is great tht she likes to write, most kids don't!
I've tried spelling city, but she has already started complaining that the games are starting to get boring. She is a strong willed child, and needs constant change to keep things interesting. Although she loves games on the computer, but needs to change it up from spelling city to keep her interest.
You might want to look at A Reason For Spelling. It uses different activites everyday to learn the words.
I wouldn't attempt Sequential Spelling then. You are pretty much doing the same thing every day with different words. Maybe you can get a list of words according to sound patterns and let her choose from some words on that list to make a story. Then work with her on correcting any spelling errors in her story.
My Ds was beginning PS grade one last year when I pulled him to HS. He hated spelling because they made such a big deal out of it. So I let it go. Yes completely. We did copy work and dictation. If it was wrong we corrected it but there wasn't that weekly list hanging over us. Now he is in grade three and eating the word lists up. What I have been doing is giving him a word list of ten words on a whiteboard. Each day I ask him to copy them out once. Then later in the day I will ask him if he thinks he can spell any of them. He usually gets a couple. The next day I will ask him those words he got right again. If he can spell them again sucessfully I take them off the list. And he then only has to copy that day whatever is left. If he is down to a couple of words on the board. I will have him write them out five times each. So far it is working well. Almost done the grade three word list.
