Why does my child spell phonetically

As they advance in age toward kindergarten, children tend to overuse letters from their own names, and letter combinations in alphabetic order, in their word-like scribblings. Unconscious pattern recognition has its limits. First, children have to have sufficient exposure to print and pay attention to it for statistical learning to kick in. In the beginning, this focus requires an adult directing them—for instance, pointing to the text accompanying an illustration in a picture book, or their name on a paper.

And the more complex, contextual, or rare the pattern, the harder it is and longer it takes to grasp subconsciously. Patterns that exist in one circumstance but not another are tricky. Think spelling the short o sound with an a after w or qu—like in swab, squad, or wallet—but spelling it with o otherwise—like in odd, body, or olive. Exposure supports and lays the groundwork for that instruction. Teachers commonly report that the method fails to help kids spell on tests or in real-world writing.

Still, many instructors keep on outsourcing such busywork to parents, asking us to oversee nightly spelling practice in preparation for Friday quizzes. These kinds of copying activities show up frequently in spelling programs, leading teachers to think they deliver key spelling practice in a fun package.

A group of educational psychologists three of whom are parents whose kids had been assigned rainbow writing decided to test the value of copying words in different colors. Phonetic awareness: Accurate knowledge of sounds e.

Attention and concentration: Sustained effort, doing activities without distraction and being able to hold that effort long enough to get the task done. What can be done to improve spelling? Develop phonological sound awareness skills by helping the child to learn about rhyming, syllables, initial sounds, blending sounds to make words and breaking words into their individual sounds.

Sound to letter association: Help the child to develop a good understanding of sound to letter association i. Vowels versus consonants: Understanding the difference between vowels and consonants; and long versus short vowels. Speech Therapy: See a Speech Therapist to correct any articulation difficulties. What activities can help improve spelling? Flashcards: Make flashcards of all of the letters and practice saying the sounds associated with the letters. Read books with rhyming words in them and encourage your child to think of other words that might rhyme with the words.

Clap out the syllables of longer words to help a child to hear the individual sounds in shorter more achievable chunks. Whiteboard: Using a whiteboard makes writing words more enjoyable and enables a child to erase any mistakes. Use rhymes to help teach specific spelling rules e. Sort magnetic letters: Get the child to sort magnetic letters into 2 baskets: one for vowels and one for consonants. Spell words with magnetic letters so that a child does not have to focus on both spelling and letter formation.

Why should I seek therapy if I notice difficulties with spelling in my child? Therapeutic intervention to help a child with spelling difficulties is important to: Ensure that the child knows the foundation skills of letter sounds, letter formation, and how sounds go together to make words. Then, they are ready to learn the rules that govern spelling. Memorization will become a handy tool to add to their arsenal. Additionally, your child may demonstrate significant progress with hearing sounds and matching them with letters, especially when attempting to spell a word for the first time.

The final stage of spelling development is the correct stage. At this point, your child fully comprehends the basic rules and patterns of English spelling. They can handle books at their reading level on their own and have a comfortable vocabulary of words that they consistently spell correctly.

More often than not, your child can correctly assume how words are spelled after hearing them read aloud. They know how to tackle silent vowels and consonants, irregularly spelled words, and other tricky spelling tasks.

They also have the power to recognize and correct their own spelling mistakes. With a larger and more advanced vocabulary, kids in this stage are more expressive, more accurate, and more entrenched in reading than ever before!

Games that encourage an interest in learning letters and letter-sounds are great for motivating your precommunicative stage speller. Refrigerator-magnet letters are handy for young children working through this stage.

Once students were able to orally segment words , we began to practice spelling. With independent writing, encourage them to not be afraid to try and spell big words. I made sure the focus was on what they were writing, rather than how they were spelling.

This always helped my students become confident, independent writers. When students are in the phonetic spelling stage, it is okay for them to spell words incorrectly, as long as it is still phonetic. They should be able to use multiple sounds when spelling. Here are a few times we do want to correct their spelling.

If students have learned the phonics skill and should be able to spell it. If they are missing a sound or have a different sound in place, that is a great learning opportunity to revisit spelling CVC words. Another example of when you should correct spelling is when students misspell previously learned high frequency words or sight words.

You can train students to look around the room to help spell a word or use a visual with words that cannot be spelled phonetically. This one is tricky to explain to parents. They want their child to be able to spell correctly and may feel inclined to correct spelling. If their child asks how to spell a word, they will just tell them, rather than challenge them to sound it out and spell it on their own. We want parents to understand that this is developmental and we want to encourage it!