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My 5-year-old is bopping merrily along in the 1st grade (skipped K). He's been placed into the highest reading group and exceeded all expectations for math (he should probably be in 2nd grade math but he still can't write 4 or 9 the right way).

But he's having a real personal struggle with the expectation that he should write down words that he knows are spelled incorrectly. He doesn't care if the phonics of a bad word make sense--if he KNOWS it's spelled wrong, he won't write it. Mind, he knows plenty of words that he can usually come up with a synonym that he can spell, but this refusal to engage in the writing of incorrect-but-phonetic words is driving his 1st grade teacher batty.

To be honest, I kind of just wish she'd let it be, because the duration of time during which it's treated as ok to misspell a lot of words is very finite.

I'm curious when he's being asked to write the words and what specifically is driving his teacher batty? For instance, is this happening when the students are being asked to free-write? If so, is he stopping and not moving forward, or is he finding a synonym and using it? Is the teacher going batty because he's asking her constantly how to spell words, or because he's not doing work?

My guess is that the thing to do is to first understand what exactly the teacher finds troublesome, and try to accommodate that. If he's asking how to spell words, can you give him some kind of tool to help him figure it out rather than having him ask the teacher? If he's just not writing anything down, can you give him a list of common words that he can pick and choose from?

If the teacher is worried that it's perfectionism, then think through - are you seeing perfectionism in other areas? If so, those areas might provide an easier place to learn to deal with perfectionism. If not, does it really matter?

polarbear

I am guessing the teacher wants sound spelling. If he is spelling the sight words right, it is silly for the teacher to be upset by them.

If my young kids asked me how to spell a word I gave it to them but I only had two kids not a classroom full...

Can he go with writing it out phonetically even if he knows it is wrong and underlining the word and continuing to work and then save five minutes to use spell check on the classroom computer and write it the correct way above the underlined word?

Spelling incorrectly can actually be a little dangerous for certain kids - I'm thinking particularly those with unusually strong visual memory. While for most kids, it's a process of learning to gradually morph their spelling into correct forms, for others, a word makes a visual imprint on their brain and its extremely hard to unlearn an incorrect spelling.

So it's not entirely impossible your DS may resist phonetic spellings because he recognizes they cause him a problem. Such is certainly the claim of my hyper visual spatial (and dyslexic) family, for what that's worth. They describe their way of learning words to me as storing pictures of whole words (not collections of letters/ sounds/ syllables). They can't change or fix parts of it - because it isn't made up of parts. And once that picture is stored, it's extremely hard to dislodge.

On a practical note, if an old-fashioned dictionary is too slow for everyday writing, could your DS be allowed to use, or consult, an iPod/Pad with word prediction, that would allow him to check spellings as he goes more quickly?

Starting in first grade my DS (now in third grade) struggled with writing. There are a few things at play (dysgraphia, etc.), but it was also the fact that he didn't want to write a word down if it wasn't spelled correctly. He also struggled with spelling as we believe he is a whole-word reader and didn't rely on phonics to read which made spelling difficult. While he couldn't spell a word correctly, once he saw it written down he would know immediately if it was incorrect - but didn't know how to fix it- and his perfectionism caused him to be extremely upset about it. His writing turned into four words sentences using very simple vocabulary so he didn't get things wrong.

Three things seemed to have helped him. 1) Typing using word prediction software such as Ginger and using spell-check. This also taught him to spell some words as he would learn them after getting them wrong numerous times and being corrected. 2) Tutoring with the Wilson Reading program so he could learn the rules of phonics which he seems to have missed or skipped over learning. This helped his spelling tremendously. 3) Making him write as often as possible so that he started to get past his mental block of not wanting to get things wrong. This was the biggest struggle for him and us.

Also, we don't spell words for him unless it is necessary or else it won't work such as searching for something online. This I think helped him realize he just had to try his best.

DD got this at that age, she is a great speller and thought it hilarious. Can you try to make it a game for him, that during creative writing he has to try to think of (one, five, as many as possible, whatever works best for him) crazy outrageous words that no one knows how to spell, see if he can stump the teacher, then he gets to look up the correct spelling afterwards?

Thanks, everybody! I have been so busy I didn't get back here to check back, but I really appreciate a bunch of perspectives.


At first he was balking and stopping, but she reported that he's now onto synonyms. It seemed like a good idea on his part, honestly...


YES YES YES to all of this. He is exceptionally visual-spatial (WPPSI VSI >99.9%) and he can read many, many more words than his actual phonics education would predict. He almost always knows when something's wrong, and he's gotten every-so-slightly-more tolerant of writing down "wrong" words as the year goes, but in general he seems to find writing "wrong" words very distasteful.

I've been trying to do some additional phonics at home but have been struggling to find a good curriculum. This seemed like a good idea earlier in the year just to push up his confidence. Plus now he's in the reading group where they're working on "comprehension" and not phonics, so it seems whatever phonics he hasn't learned yet might be skipped entirely if we don't do it ourselves.

If what I said about DS rings true with you about yours, based on my experiences with my DS I would encourage you to find phonics instruction outside the school. While our school was willing to help him to some degree, what they could offer was not enough. Also because he wasn't behind grade level (yet) in spelling/writing, legally they didn't have to do anything. We have found the direct phonics/spelling instruction where his private tutor is teaching him the "rules" to be working really well. She uses the Wilson Reading program.

My go-to for phonics instruction is All About Reading/All About Spelling, which is based on the same OG methods Wilson is.