TL has always struggled with spelling. Its hard to spell words, when you're phonetically dsylexic. Writing was a chore and one that he easily gave up on. It was frustrating not to be able to put your thoughts down on paper.
This year we tried yet another spelling program. Its basically just a workbook with spelling words. Its from Evan-Moor and called Building Spelling Skills. Each day he does a worksheet to reinforce spelling skills. And I make him memorize four weeks a day for the week. He's doing very well. Last week, we didn't review the words alot and he missed five outta seventeen, however, the other weeks he's only missed one or two. I realized that all this time, I'd been trying to plug phonetic spelling into my non phonetic kid. Poor kid. This year, his writing has much improved and he's trying to sound things out when spelling them, which he NEVER did before. Yeah!
Now, we just need to keep working on the reading. He's doing well and making progress. My problem is that when he comes across a word he doesn't know, he substitutes a different word. Say he comes across the word digestion-he'll say disaster or whatever word starts with d that comes to his mind. He also refuses to ask me to help him with words. When he's doing silent reading, he has not ever asked me about a word. I'm not sure how to fix that. Any suggestions? Arby? Kellie? Anyone?
Dyslexia is a genuine problem. My first question is, “Has this been diagnosed by an expert?” I am not a reading teacher. I have not been trained in teaching children how to read. I do not know the skills for combating dyslexia. I always recommend sending kids to an expert, someone with the knowledge and training to provide real world skills to teaching dyslexics how to read. I have seen the results of children who did not learn to read using phonics. They have no skills for deciphering new words later in life. This is a problem with whole language learners. They skip over new or unfamiliar words completely, or simply substitute their own word, whether or not the substituted word is a synonym for the skipped word. People with dyslexia can learn skills to combat this problem.
ReplyDeleteI commend you for the work that you have done so far. Adjusting his work to match his needs is far better than compounding his frustration by forging ahead with work that isn’t well suited for your young reader.
I was happy to discover your blog today. I was unable to find a contact link. I hope it's OK that I'm contacting you through a public comment. I've developed an educational program for Windows called SpellQuizzer that helps children learn their spelling and vocabulary words without the battle that parents often have getting them to sit down and write them out while the parents dictate to them. The parent enters the child's spelling words into the software making a sound recording of each word. Then the software helps the child practice his or her words. It really helped my children with their weekly spelling lists.
ReplyDeleteI would appreciate your reviewing SpellQuizzer in Eagle Eye Academy. If you are interested in hosting a giveaway of a SpellQuizzer license I'd be happy to supply a free license to the winner. You can learn more about the program at http://www.SpellQuizzer.com. There's a video demo you can watch at http://www.spellquizzer.com/SpellQuizzer-Demo.htm and a community site where SpellQuizzer users can share their spelling lists with one another (http://www.SpellQuizzer.com/Community). Finally, there's a page targeted to homeschooling families at http://www.spellquizzer.com/spelling-software-for-homeschoolers.htm. I'd be happy to send you a complimentary license for the software. Please let me know if you are interested.
Thank you very much!
Dan Hite
TedCo Software
Dan@SpellQuizzer.com
Isn't it great that we have so many options to help our kids with homeschooling? They aren't stuck with something if it's not working for them.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Arby, though, if he is truly dyslexic he would benefit from extra help from a tutor/reading specialist.
We use SpellingCity.com to help our boys learn their words. They love it.