My DD8 aces her spelling tests with very little effort, but then misspells easy words when she sits down to write. This is, I am sure, because her school encouraged "inventive spelling" at the very beginning, and she's still falling back on that habit, due to laziness.
I also wouldn't assume this is due to the approach of letting early writers use inventive spelling - the act of writing involves so many more brain-steps than the act of writing down one word at a time on a spelling test.
How easy are the words she misses when she's writing? Are they words that follow spelling rules and are able to be phonetically sounded out, or are they sight words with odd spelling and pronunciations? Does she mispell the same words all the time, or are the misspellings random and she gets the same words correct sometimes?
Are you wondering why I asked all of that? I would just watch this a little bit rather than assuming it's laziness or lack of trying or being 8 and having been intro'd to writing through inventive spelling. Chances are it's *not* what's up, but acing spelling tests yet having difficulty spelling while writing *can* be a symptom of an LD.
It can also mean she's just not naturally a good speller
Or it can mean she's just 8 and she's just learning and her brain is swamped with the ideas she's writing about or with figuring out punctuation or grammar etc.
I'll also add that all three of my kids had teachers with very different approaches to early writing - one was with teachers who were very into inventive spelling; one was in a school where proper spelling and spelling tests were emphasized; and dysgraphic ds did his best to never put pencil to paper in early elementary when the other kids were being encouraged to use inventive spelling. None of my children were able to spell well while writing at 8. Most of them still can't without spell-check
Best wishes,
polarbear
