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mamaslearning
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| Posted: March 02 2011 at 12:04pm | IP Logged
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I'm showing my lack of knowledge, please be kind. 
DD is 7 and reads well for her age (even a bit above), but spelling and phonic awareness are horrible. She guesses at words based on pictures or what she thinks is happening in the story (was taught this in K last year); guesses based on the letters but not necessarily on their sounds. Example of spelling: crley for curely, thans for things, kichun for kitchen. She seems to be missing sounds.
So, does this fall under spelling or phonics,? To help her, do I look at programs teaching phonic awareness (like All About Spelling) or focus on spelling rules with grammar lessons?
Thanks for any suggestions.
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Lara
DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
St. Francis de Sales Homeschool
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kristinannie
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| Posted: March 02 2011 at 3:33pm | IP Logged
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I was having the same problem with my son. He is in pre-K and was taught only sight words. He was guessing the words based on the pictures or based on some of the letters. He would see can and say cat, etc. It was really frustrating. I have started him on Little Stories for Little Folks which does word families. I am going to use MCP Plaid Phonics A next year and I am thinking about using AAS. I would love to hear what other people say about this!!!
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setonmom
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| Posted: March 02 2011 at 6:09pm | IP Logged
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mamaslearning: my son went through this many years ago. His school taught him to look at the first letter of the word and then guess based on the picture. He reads well now, but still struggles with spelling, and I think it is because of how they taught him in first grade. Oddly, his school used the MCP PLaid workbooks, it just wasn't how the teacher taught him to attack words. We worked with him a lot with Hooked On Phonics, but even that uses a lot of sight words.
My daughter is in first grade this year. What I am doing with her is BANNING sight words! I am on a crusade against sight words! Once she learned a few sight words she didn't want to be bothered sounding out words, so I have banned them altogether until she gets to the point where her brain is automatically sounding out the words without her having to think about it.
My siblings and I were fortunate enough growing up to live in a school district that taught phonics. Our school used the Sing SPell Read and Write program, and several of my siblings were taught by Sue Dickson. All of my siblings are good readers and good spellers. It is my belief that phonics trains your eye to look at every letter int he word, and this in turn improves spelling. Just my two cents
setonmom
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kristinannie
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| Posted: March 02 2011 at 9:32pm | IP Logged
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setonmom wrote:
My daughter is in first grade this year. What I am doing with her is BANNING sight words! I am on a crusade against sight words! Once she learned a few sight words she didn't want to be bothered sounding out words, so I have banned them altogether until she gets to the point where her brain is automatically sounding out the words without her having to think about it.
homeschoolbookreviews
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I totally agree with you. It has made my son so lazy. He just wants me to tell him the word so he can memorize it. Now that he has started learning phonics, he is getting excited when he can sound out words. I am not letting my daughter within 10 feet of a sight word!
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: March 02 2011 at 10:01pm | IP Logged
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There is a percentage of the population that simply can not learn to read with phonics (a fact I learned in college classes on child development)
Phonics is good but ultimately we all read by sight, not by sounding out every word.
Not to mention all the words that can not be sounded out properly.
A combination can be very helpful though adapting to the individual is also good.
When you get a child who can not read with phonics by the end of third grade and yet within a year have that same child reading at grade level by teaching sight reading. You learn not to be too inflexible.
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: March 03 2011 at 12:56pm | IP Logged
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JodieLyn wrote:
A combination can be very helpful though adapting to the individual is also good.
When you get a child who can not read with phonics by the end of third grade and yet within a year have that same child reading at grade level by teaching sight reading. You learn not to be too inflexible. |
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She was taught phonics in school, but was guided to use information in the story (pictures) to help with new words. I am almost finished with LSLF from CHC, but I don't feel that it has taught her what she needs to know at this point.
The more I work with her, the more I believe that she's just not aware of all the sounds letter makes. I keep looking at AAS and thinking the systematic review might be beneficial along with the spelling rules.
I am also using the Dolch word list for intoduction/memorization of sight and high frequency words.
Adding a more rigorous phonics program into the mix might be what we need.
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Lara
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ekbell
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| Posted: March 03 2011 at 2:21pm | IP Logged
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A combination of phonics and sight reading seems quite sensible. I'd also check the child's ability to distinguish/remember sounds as well as checking how the child actually pronounces the word (for example around here t's in the middle of a word are often not pronounced, so kichen *would* be the expected phonetic spelling - it's one of the words where I'd need to make a point of pointing out the t when studying)
Figuring out new words from context is quite a valuable higher-level reading skill but it sounds as if the school was teaching it too early . Context does make for a useful double-check when the child resorts to blind guessing 'Does that make sense? No? Try again.' However not slowing the child down and insisting that he or she LOOK at the entire word, left to right, is just annoying- it's needed for sight reading, let alone sounding words out.
BTW I'm one of those people who can't learn through phonics.
I remember being in grade three, being extensively drilled in phonics and still unable to spell three letter words because I couldn't remember my short vowel sounds. My mother insisted that I be transferred into a different spelling program and I remember the relief when I realized that it didn't matter HOW I spelled a word correctly just if I could.
I remember being in high school and stumbling over my voice exercises because I still couldn't keep vowel sounds straight (very embarrassing).
For a long time phonics equaled misery and the utter frustration of being completely unable to do what others found simple. It was particularly hard before I realized that it WAS extraordinarily hard for me, when I thought that everyone else must be able to work a lot harder (or at least smarter) then I could instead.
As an adult I've found work-arounds so that I could teach my children phonics as appropriate but I still can't simply sound out a unfamilar word (that's my husband's job  ).
From experience spending all your time working on what's extraordinarily difficult is a quick route to the conclusion that learning is too much frustration, misery and work so it's better to stop trying. If blind guessing seems as likely to yield a correct answer as really trying, then the fact that blind guessing is faster and less work will win out.
So while I agree that it's best to teach phonics systematically and that it's inapproprate to write phonics off before giving it a serious try, I think that it's not a good idea to stop doing what works in the meantime.
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: March 04 2011 at 6:59am | IP Logged
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Erin posted this on another thread:
erin wrote:
Setonmom,
A while back we had a great discussion on remedial spelling for teenagers and another on teaching suffixes, prefixes etc. They were some great discussions along the line of what you are asking for. planning to come back and chat more with you when I have time. |
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Aha! I think I know what's going on! (at least for now). 
In reading through the old posts and watching her more closely yesterday, I think it's more an issue of knowing all the rules along with the sounds. She is reading advanced material and encountering higher level words that have sounds and rules that have not been taught. I just didn't differentiate in my mind between her leveled readers and the other fun stuff she reads.
ekbell wrote:
| So while I agree that it's best to teach phonics systematically and that it's inapproprate to write phonics off before giving it a serious try, I think that it's not a good idea to stop doing what works in the meantime. |
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I will keep this in mind. Sometimes I read too much and latch on to different ideas too quickly.
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Lara
DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
St. Francis de Sales Homeschool
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Educate me on the differences
