Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School reading and spelling out of sync

Hello

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. My DD6 knew all of her letter sounds shortly after her first birthday. She didn't have a huge interest in learning to reading until she was 5 but has always loved books, esp. being read to. She cannot walk by a book without reading it. It could be on any subject. They are all good. She often reads seemingly unrelated books simultaneously. She equally enjoys being read to. She often reads a different book while I read to her (which makes me crazy). Sometimes she sings while I read aloud (which makes me crazier).

She learned to read pretty much on her own. After we worked through a couple of lessons, she finished the 400 page book (which included the teacher's instruction) on her own. Within 4 months she has jumped about 4 grade levels in her reading level/comprehension, however, she's not great at decoding. She either knows the word and it's meaning or she doesn't. She doesn't want to take the time to figure it out. She's great with guessing, 9 time out of 10 she's right. She has really good grammar but I have not taught any grammar (she's homeschooled). What puzzles me is that she is at grade level for spelling. She can't handle making mistakes, esp. in spelling. She refuses to spell phonetically which would be developmentally appropriate for her age. She will only spell words that she has memorized. Even though she has an excellent memory, she hasn't memorized the spelling of very many sight words. She definitely is dealing with perfectionism but it doesn't explain the huge gap. Has anyone else experienced this in language development or in other subject areas? I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

Annaliisa

Yes we had this. My DS learned to read at 3 with a whole word approach and didn't use phonetics at all. He could not decode new words but only needed to be told once what they were. He was reading harry potter by 5 but not able to spell anything, even the simplest word. He was also refusing to write. We had to take a step back and use a phonetic approach where possible for a while. The other thing that really helped was reading Linda Silverman's stuff about visual spatial learners, and getting him to look at a word and make a picture of it in his mind that he could "look" at. Now he's a good speller. He is brilliant at recognising an incorrectly spelt word and slightly less good at knowing what the correct version is.
With my second child I put more emphasis on phonics from the start and avoided the problem.

DD7 struggled with the same problem. Her grade 1 teachers used to chuckle about how she completely ignored all the strategies they tried to teach her for reading words she did not know and for spelling new words. She just guessed.. at everything. Even if it made NO sense, and then she would just keep on going like it made complete sense to her. As she has progressed rapidly with her reading, her spelling has improved dramatically. She told me yesterday that she only has to see a word once or twice to store it in her head. Must be nice!

I find her to be like this in many subject areas. She'll do it as she likes to... thank you very much. But you know, she eventually figures it out and I think that is the main thing. I am trying really hard to pick my battles and hope that her new teacher next year will be as patient as the first few have been.

I haven't done much research in this area but I know our tester was absolutely shocked when they tested our DS's reading and spelling at his assessment- mostly because they were in-sync. He said early readers (even if they learned phonics) are typically whole-word readers and rely on their excellent memories to learn to read. My son was unique because he had "habituated phonics skills."

Again, not sure what that means developmentally but it sounds as if most of the young readers and gifted kids are "out-of-sync" like your DD. FWIW, I'm a very good reader, great with grammar and writing and a horrible speller. Thank goodness for spell check!!

My dd, just turned 6, was this exact same way (including the reading another book while I'm reading to her ). She read very early, as a whole-word reader, and after a brief interest in the toddler years, refused to spell.

FWIW, dd's kindergarten teacher (at a gifted school) told us that it is very common for early readers to be poor spellers at first. She said learning phonics would help, and it did. DD started the year at a "beginning of 1st grade" spelling level and ended the kindergarten year at "end of 2nd grade" spelling level. Still, no where near her 5th grade reading level, but improving, none the less.

One thing I think really helped was an emphasis in her classroom on "Best Guess Spelling." DD's perfectionist tendencies had made her unwilling to guess. But for certain assignments, the teachers required the class do "best guess spelling" - to be corrected later - and dd learned she had to make some sort of attempt to complete the assignment. I think it took away some of the stigma (in dd's mind) of being "wrong" and made it simply part of the process.

My DD6 is the same and my DS9 was similar too. With my 9 year old, he leaped years in reading. And a little while later, he leaped years in spelling. He actually tested higher in spelling than reading this year as a 3rd grader on an open ended K-12 test! Which was actually a huge surprise considering where we were 2 years ago.

So it may be a visual-spatial thing. Or you may just see another leap later. My 6 year old sat down and stapled a pile of papers together last week and just wrote a simple book, writing and spelling all sorts of things I didn't know she could spell on her own. So maybe we're seeing something coming that way with spelling!

My kids don't like to guess either and have perfectionist tendencies and resistance to try new things. So I think a lot of times they know things they won't choose to show until much later.

Thanks so much for all of your replies. It's so helpful. I really don't have much support, or maybe I don't choose to discuss my DD issues because I'm always concerned that my words would be interpreted as 'bragging'. I can't imagine saying 'I'm concerned because my daughter is reading 4+ grade levels a head but spelling at grade level. What should I do?' Most people wouldn't understand my concern. This is such an amazing forum.

Annaliisa

My reading and spelling areas were asynchronous, but in a different way. For me, my development in those areas were unusually high, but sometimes a bit too high compared to other areas, especially when it purtained to physical growth. As I said in fifth grade, my gross motor skills did need a bit of work, and although my writing skills were extremely potent, I couldn't write legibly enough for anyone to see! So, yeah, I pretty much experienced an asychrony of some sort!

I got this same shock from our tester. DD's reading and spelling are pretty in sync...at that time both on a high first low second grade level. She said this was unusual because most early readers are whole word readers....even more shocking to her was DD's decoding ability. At not quite 3 he could decode words on a high second grade level. She said the same thing. That DD has "habituated phonic skills" LOL.

Aparently this is very unusual, and most kids are out of sync. I personally remember that I was. I am still awful at spelling, but growing up I could read at a 12th grade level in 5th grade but couldn't spell to save my life. And I guessed on words. I see DD do that occasionally because she likes to be quick and not bothered with figuring it out, but if she does figure it out once then she knows it for life.

DS7 too. He hasn't done a language achievement but his science teacher, just for laughs, asked for random list of scientific words last week. He outspelt me ! I did teach him phonics though - he started off as a whole word reader at 2 (self taught), complained that he couldn't read new words at 5yo so I did a whirlwind phonics course with him over a few weeks, and read and spelt very well thereafter. For what it's worth, his teacher thinks he's spelling partially from whole word memory because some of the words are just not phonetically decodable.