I’ve documented our reading journey plenty over the years. Two children who found reading became magically easy at 8ish and who are now, by and large avid readers. One who learned to read all on her own at 6 and yet has never, even at nearly 13, become someone who reads for pleasure. One who was phonetically aware incredibly early, the only one of them to be so, with significant skill at sounding out and was teetering on the brink of independent reading at 8.5 when she went into school. She could ‘read’, but becoming a reader wasn’t happening. It then continued not to happen, then crawled along and in the last 2 months, it has finally clicked properly – she’s stopped being a functional reader of words (which to me is not reading, just using words) and become a book reader.
They all, bar Josie, had much the same resources, care and time and input. And as a package – reading, writing, spelling – they came out like this:-
Fran: reading at 8, a reader at 10, writing at 8, a writer at 13, good speller at 10, grammar ninja at 15.
Maddy: reading at 8, a reader at 13, writing at 7, a writer at 13, decent speller at 15, grammar ninja tbc.
Amelie: reading at 6, a reader tbc, writing at 6, a writer at 8, good speller at 8, grammar ninja tbc.
Josie: reading at 8, a reader at 10, writing at 9, a writer tbc, good speller tbc, grammar ninja tbc.
So.
Yes, Fran got the most input, over input really but Maddy got the same and a more experienced mum too. Both Fran and Maddy have pretty awful handwriting, despite my fairly heavy handed approach with workbooks and writing schemes. Fran has never really learned to structure writing, even after nearly 4 years in school. Her brain is not organised that way but her spelling is pretty much spot on. Maddy is the most phenomenal writer of Fan Fiction (she intimidates me) but struggles on paper. She can get an A on 3/4 of an exam paper but has to go slowly, so never gets to the last 3 questions. Her spelling is coming but for years she would ask repeatedly how to spell words it was easy for her to read.
Amelie had the least input of all of the first 3; her education was laid back and hands off. Her spelling is perfect, her essay structure mature, her handwriting neat and flowing and she walked into school just before SATS, having never done a paper, and breezed them. Amelie constantly tells me that certain fonts are easier or she is unfairly treated because she is a slow reader but it is hard to separate that from the girl with an insanely high IQ, for whom everything is easy – but too much bother.
And then there is Josie, my perfect sounder outer. Josie would had all the tools when she went to school but none of the spaces to fit them in. Josie who had had her process interrupted by terrible grief and trauma at a pivotal point which took my eye off the ball (perhaps) and certainly gave her a different pattern. Josie who I think of as always having been reserved and ‘odd’ but who, when I look back at photos, used to smile until that terrible 11 days. Josie who collapsed in on herself and retreated until after Bene came. Josie who was – always – a little Maddy-ish. But not quite.
Spelling hasn’t come together for Josie, though reading has, finally, become something she enjoys. She’s still slow and stilted but the discovery of Holy Webb and some gymnastics books has been the making of her (thank goodness it wasn’t Rainbow Fairies, anyway!)But her spelling? No. They’ve worked really hard on her and supported her lots and within the confines of a busy life with 16 hours of gymnastics a week, she works on spelling at home.
The picture above is Josie’s books at the end of year 4; half way through year 5, her spelling has not really improved, though her presentation certainly has. She’s creative with what she writes, sets out her work neatly, has nice enough, joined up, writing now (probably second nicest in the house) and clearly tries hard. But the logic isn’t there. She doesn’t understand the blends and she learns rules and misapplies them, the title being a case in point.
I know how to sound out ‘break’ so I’ll try ‘brak’ – buh, rr, aye, cuh.
I know the sound in ocean comes from a rule like spelled as ‘tion’ so o-tion.
I know some fff sounds are ph and I am clever enough to know they must be asking me to spell knife because it is a tricky word – so nuh, ei, ph for ff, e on the end because most words do.
If it weren’t for Maddy, I’d be fairly sure I broke her and that Josie is the product of my failed teaching, or that terrible 18 months. If it weren’t for her having just had 2 years in school, I’d feel worse. But a small, good school and a young and highly able and engaged teacher haven’t fixed it.
This week they tested her and the following results appeared.
She has the academic and non-verbal attainment of a 12+ child. She has a reading age of 10.5, so slightly above her actual age. She has the spelling ability of just about an 8 year old, meaning she varies between being on the 99th and 23rd centile.
It’s a pretty huge mismatch. And hard to know what to do. Intervene, hope it rights itself like Maddy did, watch and wait, keep her in school for extra testing, a possible dyslexia diagnosis and specialist help, or take her out on the basis that the others had less issues than this out of school? I have no idea.
Making a gym achievements poster #FridayHomeEd
Josie loves her Fridays; she does her maths, her Bonds books, writes stories, verbal and non verbal reasoning. She is relaxed and happy and crafts and plays and reads. She has been edging towards coming back to home ed at Easter but now it is coming up she is simultaneously excited and not sure. The rest results produced instant relief for her as she is aware enough to know she is finding spelling harder than others and was angry about it. The gymnast in her means she compares herself constantly to others. So they’ve helped her to feel less of a failure, which is good, though I suppose that might backfire. But her teacher says she is less engaged than she was and more frustrated and switched off than a term ago and socially school is clearly not the places for her. They’ve really tried and can’t make her feel comfortable or part of it. She hates free time and unstructured work, hates big group work, is rigid and closed up and a bit of (my words) an ‘odd fish’.
It’s not something I see at home or gym and all in all, it is becoming a package that worries me.
Do you have a good resder but poor speller, or an ‘odd’ dyslexic? I’m floundering and I’d like some input.
I have a funny mix, J was drilled in spelling grammer, and handwriting….and he excels at all three, A* in Lang at 15. But the process was painful, and how he still has a love for learning is beyond me, but he does. He became a reader for pleasure at 9, but does not pick up books these days…iPads.
T learned to read by osmosis…I don’t know how it happened, he has a high reading age, reads roald Dahl for pleasure, he is a good speller, but is not drilled, very hands off. Handwriting, lefty, Arrgh. But I’m determined not to make an issue, and let it come slowly.
Sorry Merry, I can’t offer any direct help based on experience.
My middle child – now 5 – loves writing, She makes books and cards constantly, and I see the same sorts of spelling in her work as in Josie’s work. It’s sweet and endearing at the moment, because she is only in P1. But I can see that if she is still writing like that in P5 then it wont be quite so endearing.
After reading your post, a comment from my mum came into my head. She said it some years ago – she said: phonics doesn’t work for everyone.
It doesn’t seem to be helping Josie from what you say.
My mum trained as a primary school teacher in the late 1960s and I remember seeing her ITA posters when I was a bit older. I don’t know what other approaches to spelling there might be apart from sounding out / phonics that might help. I guess that rote learning is already part of the picture…!
My daughter (12) is an avid reader and reads high quality literature which many older children find challenging. Her spelling is absolutely terrible though. She has always been home educated, except for a stint of about 5 months in school when she was 8. In the early years I used a lot of workbooks and spelling lists etc. but, like Josie, although she was really good at sounding out, this never translated into good spelling. I have been desperately searching for solutions for her and am currently trying the Charlotte Mason approach of copywork and dictation. I thought my children would rebel in horror but both my daughter and my 14 year old son actually enjoy doing it! We have only been doing it for a few months now but I feel that I can see a difference in her spelling. It is still nowhere near where I would like it to be but it has definitely improved significantly. We do copywork 3 days a week and dictation once a week. For the copywork I choose a paragraph (which will work out to about half an A4 page of her writing) which includes a few words I would like her to be able to spell. For dictation I give her a quote or excerpt of only about 3 or 4 lines but she has to learn every spelling and punctuation point by heart. I then read it out slowly while she writes it down. She is also anxious about performance especially since this has the feeling of a ‘test’ but this actually means that if I give it to her on Monday and she does the dictation on Thursday she looks over it quite a few times during the week, which I’m sure helps. We also do spelling lists but often she can spell the words for the ‘test’ and will then misspell them later on :-p . Out of all of these, I feel that it is the copywork that has helped the most and if you choose the right paragraph it can often be educational or inspiring too. Sorry I have been rambling so much! Looking forward to hearing other advice for struggling spellers too.
The my 8 1/2 year old only got reading in the last year. Spelling tests she gets great marks but actual writing it all goes wrong. Everything is spelt as she thinks it should be and I have no idea how to fix it.
Good luck with your decisions xx
My now 10 year old is an ‘odd dyslexic’ – we paid for private testing a couple of years ago, as we tried to decide whether to take him out of school for a second time. He was testing on the 99th centile for verbal intelligence, but only on the 3rd for written work. The test findings reflected what I already knew & the school refused to acknowledge – that he wasn’t lazy, disruptive, naughty etc, but that he couldn’t make his writing reflect anything like what was in his head.
We took him out (after six months of getting nowhere with the school, who, I suspect, rely on parents only complaining once & then not bothering again). It’s done wonders for his confidence, but we’re still unpicking a whole lot of school related damage as far as writing is concerned.
Not sure if any of that helps in the slightest, but I sympathise with you in not knowing how to approach it.
Long time reader here, I think I’ve watched Josie grow on your blog. I don’t have much relevant experience. I did teach approximately twelve kids to read and write (English) (in a mixed class of two-and-a-half years age span, over five years) and they did indeed become readers and writers at different times, and in different ways. I completely agree with you that decoding and being a reader are different things, as with encoding and writing. And I just love the term ‘grammar ninja.’
I, myself, learned to read (in Greek) easily at six and became a reader at seven and a half. I can’t quite remember when I became a writer as we didn’t do a great deal of creative writing in school. I was certainly one by fifteen, when I was also a grammar ninja. I was dreadful at spelling until about ten; at eleven I got okay-ish and at 12 I got good, practically overnight. By 16 I was perfect. (Greek is easy enough to read and very hard to spell correctly, although hard in a different way to English.) The spelling methods that relied on memorisation weren’t working for me (and I even have a good memory.) Once my brain had matured enough and once I had enough to understand the whole of the system that produced the craziness that is Greek spelling, it all fell into place. (You need to have a good grasp of grammar, and understand etymology, and know some ancient Greek for all of it to make sense.)
Lastly, for my class I ended up using this program: http://www.sequentialspelling.com/Sequential_Spelling.html To me Josie’s issue sounds like over-reliance on phonics (and good god, phonics just doesn’t quite make sense for English, as she is clearly demonstrating.) This is a program that teaches spelling through pattern recongition instead. I liked that (I think pattern recongition is at the root of all intelligence), and I liked its quirkiness, too. I only used it for a year and a term, so I can’t tell you how well it worked. It did built some pattern recognition, but what I can’t tell you is if the overall spelling performance improved more than it would have done otherwise. But it was rather fun.
For what it’s worth, I say take her out of school if that’s what you want to do. (If that’s what your heart tells you is best for her — which it sounds like it is.) By all means keep an eye on it, by all means practice, but also relax and let her be. Anxiety doesn’t promote learning. And she is still little. (Yes, okay, I’m a Steiner teacher. But still.) If she’s only recently become a reader, it may be that the bits of her brain she needs for spelling are still not quite ready.
I am by no means an expert on this, but I felt inclined to say something, I hope it helps a little.
My 9 year old sounds identical – apart from the gruelling gym schedule!
Reading is good enough (but is not mature enough) for teen fiction. Reading almost two years above her age.
Spelling tests fine – after much flouncing about learning it and rock bottom confidence (issue since toddlerhood).
Writing – the ideas are there and it flows but I can’t read much if it as the strain to interpret the phonics is headache inducing! Not sure phonics has helped her much. They now teach it differently and four year old is whizzing through the reading schemes. Gave loads of support/ reading eggs/ education city etc but to no avail. 6 year old brother is loads better and he had less input. Teachers not concerned as she can do it but needs to concentrate and is happy just being sloppy I think (could do with some of that internal discipline and desire to win).
Doubt josie has a real issue (if she has I’d better start panicking about mine!). Is remarkably frustrating though.
Amazing how different they all are! Have you heard of All About Spelling? I’m about to order it for my struggling speller because it covers patterns and rules very thoroughly, and teaches strategies to work out when to use each one.
sounds like me as a child – I was an awful speller but excellent reader. Partly because writing was physically difficult so most of my concentration went on the physical process and also because it was very hard for me to retain the sentence in my head and at the same time break the sentence into words then letters. We have high level of dyslexia in the family although I’ve never been tested.
I am a teacher now and my spelling is pretty good, I think mainly because I get a lot of practice ha ha
Have you looked into dysgraphia or dyspraxia? They come under the dyslexia umbrella and each condition can overlap or standalone. My son is struggling socially at school and finds the physical process of writing very difficult Yet his gross motor skills do not appear to be as bad (he does 1hr gym and swimming each week and doesn’t stand out amongst his peers) when tested his spelling is good but this is not reflected in his written work, I guess for reasons similar to mine above. i am pretty sure that he is dyspraxic – social difficulties,missed milestones, some sensory issues, motor difficulties, verbal delay.
I never thought that I would ever be pro-homeschooling but after having my own children, my view has completely changed. The current system of data crunching and “results” is very damaging but I will save that discussion for another day!
I’m incredibly grateful for all these responses; I’ll try to come back and say something more useful later- but thank you!
Hi Merry, it sounds like Josie is just on a journey that is unique to her – she is following her own path. It sounds as though she is a very bright little girl who gets very frustrated if she doesn’t get things ‘perfect’. Could this mean she is more reluctant to try in School at the things she knows she hasn’t mastered yet? It sounds like she will ‘catch up’ when she is ready to. In the meantime, as a parent all you can do is try to make sure that she is as happy and comfortable as she can be, either in school or not – that’s for you as a family to figure out. You seem to be a great Mum though so whatever decisions are made will be done for the best of reasons. Xxx
This popped up on my FB feed – https://www.understood.org/en/community-events/blogs/the-inside-track/2015/03/04/stealth-dyslexia-how-some-dyslexic-students-escape-detection?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=understoodorg