i have a student who is extremely intelligent...writes well, comprehends reading, etc....but she is horrible at spelling! any suggestions of ways i can help her?
I'd give her a list of common homonyms to go over but otherwise not worry about it beyond teaching her how to use a spell-check on a word processor. I was a terrible speller in elementary school. I spent a great deal of time rewriting words after spelling tests. My mum tried to give me extra work with spelling at home. I still am a terrible speller - in English, French, Latin, and Korean. It didn't stop me from writing a 120-page thesis and various presentation papers, or graduating first in my department. If I had spent all that time my teachers and mother made me practice spelling watching the Discovery Channel instead I'm sure I would have been much better off. I always tell my students to point out any spelling mistakes I make on the blackboard which they're usually quite happy to do. I see it as a fairly trivial disability.
well, i want to be able to actually sit down and get to the root of the problem...that would be helpful, though.
Get Richard Gentry's "Spel...Is a Four Letter Word". It changed the way I approach kids just like the one you are describing!
I was like this as a student (still like this an adult, actually). I can score very high on IQ tests...but I have such difficulty with spelling sometimes. I love the computer and spell check, but when I have to hand write things; I often get really frustrated at myself and have to resort to small words that I know I'm spelling correctly! For me, I feel that when I look at a word, my mind immediately recognizes the "shape" that it makes. I am aware of some of the letters in the word, but mostly I see if the word is flat, or has some letters that go up in the middle or down at the beginning, etc. This helps me to read quickly, but makes it difficult when later I try to go back and recreate a word. Instead of sounds of letters, I tend to try to spell a word based on what "shape" I remember it to be. For example, words with lots of variance, like 'quickly' are easier for me because the q goes down, the i is dotted, k and l go up, then y goes down. It's more distinctive. But words like 'resource' are more difficult because all the letters are the same size, like one line. Nothing is distinctive and I lose letters in there and can't remember the order. This may sound so weird and not at all what your student is struggling with, but if so, try breaking down words into sections. Words like 'resource' could be 're' 'sour' 'ce'. I STILL spell "together" knowing that 'to' 'get' 'her' and "chrysanthemum" is 'chry' 'san' 'the' 'mum'. Ha ha - I'm a dork. But spelling is not my favorite thing. Carrying around a dictionary will work for some, but for me, I need to be able to continue my whole thought process as it comes. If I constantly have to slow it down to look up the correct spelling of a word, I get so frustrated and lost that my original creative thought never makes it out.
Thanks for sharing this, raneydae. Many of the students I work with have real difficulties with spelling and have difficulty identifying errors in their spelling. I often hear, "It does look right". There hasn't seemed to be any consistency to their difficulties--there are some difficult words they can spell correctly and simple ones they can't. I'm definitely going to take a closer look at their work next week.
Another thing you can try is showing her the rules that go with short and long vowels. For instance if a vowel is short, it's more likely to be follwed by two consonants if there are more letters in the word. Thus 'kitten' would have a short i but if you wrote 'kiten' you would expect a long vowel sound. The same goes for e following a single consonant. 'Kit' would be short but 'Kite' would be long. Of course, like all rules to English spelling, there are exceptions. Also bear in mind that standardised spellings are farily new to the English language. Milton wrote Paradise Lost without them (actually his daughter physically wrote it since he had gone blind). Shakespeare used several different spellings for his own name. If they could get by without knowing how to spell I'm sure your student will cope.
if yuo can raed tihs, you hvae a sgtrane mnid, too. Can you raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it. If you can read this, your brain is 50% faster than those who can't.
I try to teach spelling patterns and rules as much as possible such as "c can only make its soft sound if immediately followed by e, i, or y" For some reason my kiddos have either never heard these rules or (more likely) forgot them somewhere along the line. I don't remember hearing many of them. When does the 'f' sound get spelled with an f or ph (Greek or not Greek). I also try to do a lot of work with Greek and Latin roots since so many of our words come from those roots. This is one thing the spelling bee contestants always do-ask for the language of a words origin. If all else fails I make them write out the word spelled three different "logical" ways and then ask them "which looks right (or most right)?" and go from there.
