Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments VS learners and phonetics

DD5 seems to have some trouble with phonetics... If she does not see the printed word she has real trouble spelling or recognizing the different sounds of any word. Mrs Teacher thinks that is because her Dutch is not so good but I am on the opinion that this is only 1% of the problem.

I have the feeling that she will learn to read before she can spell...

Any suggestions on how to help develop phonetic skills? They would be immensely useful because Dutch and Spanish are very phonetic languages.

Does anyone have any suggestions or experience there?

well, I am VS and dysgraphic- and when I was young I couldn't understand phonetics. Actaully at this point I couldn't be called an expert.

As and adult I grew to understand them. But I still can't really spell. I learned to read by memorizing, context clues and by the shape of the word. But not by phonics. Generally when I read quickly, I take in the whole page at one time. I read very well and always have.

I took a placement test for college, it's a test they give to adults who have been out in the world before they start taking classes. I scored in the 99% in all the reading sections. I score in the 10% in writing.

I ended up taking a remidial writing course, the first night we wrote something. The next class the instuctor told me to "always write all assignments on a computer". He wouldn't accept work that was hand written from me. I got an "A" in the class.

I found the computer very useful in learning to write, and learning phonetics. There is a feature on them that will read what you have typed. It's was very useful.

I am sad to say the I tried serveral times to learn other languages, but while I sound great.... I have no idea what I am saying and it has always been a bust. I was able to retain a small amount of french.

I was able to learn a fair amount of sign language and I can carry on short conversations with it. It is a visual language thought, so, there ya go.

This sound sort of funny but DS7 had a toy that he played with for hours and I think was key in teaching him phonetics. It also helped me to some degree. Just because I listen to so much. My spelling has improved. It was a leap pad toy refridgrator magnet. The kid takes the letter and puts it in the base and the magnets says the name of the letter and it's phonetic sounds. DS7 is probably not a visual spatial thinker...... he could be, I'm no expert. He doesn't have any of the ususal earmarks.

I hope this is helpful. I really don't like talking about this stuff, when I do very often people look at me with a half cocked head and squwintey eyes.

Yup - my son learned to Identify the letter sounds from a LeapFrog toy- it was a yellow school bus, and he'd sit in the carseat, pressing the buttons, and the toy would say 'The T says "Tu" over and over and over again. Maybe get one for the baby, and see if your daughter overhears some of it.

Oh Soupy!
My spelling is really really bad. I use spellcheck in emails, but when I started posting here, there was no spellcheck! I had to decide to post here anyway, and hope that people took the time to figure me out, and not 'write me off' as uneducated or stupid due to my spelling. I don't identify as having a LD, just really, really bad spelling.

As a child my handwriting was quite weak, but I was early enteranced, so not sure if my handwriting was weak for age also - but I felt very badly about it. Ha Ha - now we live in a keyboard world! Yippee!

In the future there will be no more spelling problems - ((happy dance!)) Until then, I will type as much as possible.

Smiles,
Grinity

My youngest did learn phonics through a phonics program after only reading by sight words. She seems to understand it, but is a horrible speller.

I've just decided that this is an area she needs a little more help in and will try to come up with fun and creative ways to help her with it.

It's not a reflection of her intelligence at all. It's just the way she sorts info, I think. But because the school focuses so much on this skill, we will work on it together.

Here's a wiki link to phonics strategies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_phonics_programs

For the life of my I cannot remember the name of the program my daughter used but will post if I can find it.

LOL! DS4 got a leapfrog fridge letter game when he was 1, and the song still sometimes gets stuck in my head! "A says ay and A says ah, every letter makes a sound and A says ay....and ah!" sung to the farmer in the dell. Later someone gave him the word whammer from leapfrog, for spelling 3 letter words, and it includes the sounds of letters too. Since it's only 3 letter words, it's pretty limiting. Can't help you with Dutch, though, sorry!

My DS has absolutely no interest in learning to spell. He doesn't want to write. He will draw some, and writes his name in preschool and names on birthday cards as long as it's "MOM" or "DAD" but that's it for now.

We've been reading the Ramona books (beverly cleary), and I see that Ramona, a gifted girl, has always had trouble spelling. She's much harder on herself than others are. It might be nice for some kids with spelling troubles to read these books, with these subtle bits about problems with spelling sprinkled in them. It's definitely not the focus of the book, but it's a recurring theme. (i confess, i loved ramona as a kid and still do.)

here are some things my mother and i did to try to teach me to spell, they sort of worked.

Get a dark black cookie sheet and cover it with salt- have the child write the word in the salt while singing the letters and then singing the word. It is supposed to attack many of the senses at once.

Have the child crawl around while singing the letters to the word.

Hold a mirror up to the child as they are writing the word in thick maker on white paper- have them look in the mirror, they write the word and you say the letters together.

None of those methods were that effective.... when we did them we did notice a small bump in my scores on spelling tests. I would get one or 2 extra words correct. It bummed me up from a "F" to a "D" or "C".

DD and I make up spelling stories. Examples:

Don the donkey has a key. (donkey)
It isn't rude not to include Ed. (include--she had been writing "inclued")
There's a lot of air on the prairie. (prairie)
Icy, icy, Elly. (icicle)

These work much better for her than reciting spellings as strings of letters (too hard to remember) or writing words out over and over. In fact, writing them just confuses her because she will write a word several different ways and not notice, like--does, dose, dsoe, deos, etc.

What do you do with phonetic potholes like 'igh'? Or exceptions like weather or head?

Ren

those vikings...... with there igh...lol

Weather=we+at+her so we would probably make up a story like:

WE looked AT HER weather balloon.

Just something weird that will stick in DD's mind.

Head=he+ad So I would have DD make up a story about that. Having the child come up with the spelling story works much better than me coming up with something for her to memorize.

For "igh" I have talked about how those letters were orginally pronounced. So whenever she sees the word "knight" she also thinks "k-nig-h-t".