Spelling Issues in 3Rd Grader

It's because they don't really teach phonics anymore. Kids are taught using "sight words," so they don't understand how the letters go together to make different sounds. They just know that this string of letters spells "cat" or "dog" or whatever. Frankly, I think we are raising a whole generation of terrible spellers. What I do think could help, possibly, is to have him read as much as possible. Help him sound out the words he doesn't know. Have him keep a list of words he needed help with, and work on sounding those words out together. Sounding out words and spelling go hand in hand, I think.

I have a PhD in linguistics. My father is a very skilled surgeon with several advanced degrees. Neither one of us can spell to save our lives. Not that we don't try. Not that we don't want to be better. I thank God every day for creating people who developed spellcheck and even autocorrect.

I'm with Veruca salt. I have a Ph.D. I cannot spell. Until hubby met me, he believed people who couldn't spell were lazy.

I have an auditory processing disorder. I cannot hear the sounds, and thus, I mix things up when I try to spell. I'm too am thankful for spell check.

As a language teacher for over 30 years and a good speller, I have noticed that spelling is an inherited ability. My daughter is also excellent but father and son aren't. Both have college degrees. Son was in school before very common use of computers. He never had any academic problems. I asked him how he survived in-class writing assignments, he said, "I never use a word I can't spell." Now he has spell-check and his own secretary as a business owner. If someone is a poor speller, I can almost guarantee that a parent or grandparent is poor. Deal with it.

I am an English professor and a terrible speller. Great writer, great writing teacher, but horrid at spelling. It is absolutely genetic. My son is fifteen and is basically taking all college-level courses. He, too, cannot spell to save his life. It is sort of astonishing for me to read is work and see that the ideas are really fantastic, that his grammar is excellent and that his style is sophisticated, but that it is littered with spelling errors. I continue to work with him to be more careful with proofreading and spell-checking, but I am fairly sure this is not something that is completely "fixable."
I do think you might want to keep an eye on this due to the speech issues and there may be some dyslexia at work. All of these things are manageable.

If he is ok on tests, don't worry about it. Just something he likely doesn't care a ton about and isn't a natural at. He likely will get better. One of mine surprised me how much she all of a sudden improved. But a relative is a well known, very successful author and apparently he can't spell either. So I wouldn't worry about it now. If he was having trouble reading too, then there could be a processing disorder. If he reads well though, likely he's ok.

First -- I'd get him a big, kid-friendly dictionary that sits next to him all the time when he does homework. "Mom, how do I spell 'hamster'?" "What's the first letter, son? The second one? HA, you say? OK, look it up." He's going to resist and moan for a while but he needs to learn that skill. I get it --"If I can't spell it, I can't look it up in the dictionary!" But yes, he can, with some prompting from you.

So if I read this right -- he does fine on spelling tests but the issue is when he's doing other writing. Is that correct? If the teacher is going just on his spelling test scores, she may just not be aware that he has trouble with spelling the words he "should" know outside the context of a mere list on a test.

I would ask the teacher if that seems at all typical to her. I would bet there are many other kids who memorize the spelling word but can't spell the word out of the context of a spelling list -- they can hear, "Spell the word 'computer'" and they write the word that they memorized letter by letter, but when they want to write a paragraph and use the same word, they don't have a clue because it's out of the context of a simple list. Does that sound like your son?

I would tell the teacher about it in that way -- he's memorizing the "look" of the word letter by letter FOR the test and it doesn't go deeper. This sounds normal for a third grader, and after all it's still pretty early in the school year. So no need for panic or a big intervention. I would alert the teacher, now, that at home, he needs a lot more spelling help than she may see him needing in class. Make her aware of it and work with her through the year to keep an eye on it. If he doesn't improve with practice, talk to her later in the year about whether he needs any extra help.

While yes, some people are better spellers than others, please don't let him get the idea from your husband or other kids or adults that "It's OK, some people are just never good spellers." (Funny, in these STEM-intensive times, any parent would get criticized for saying, "Oh well, some people are just not good at math so it's OK not to do well at it" but it seems to be all right to dismiss spelling with "It's OK, some people are just never going to be good spellers.".....) He can learn a lot of tricks to help with spelling, and he clearly has a good memory but just needs some help expanding context.

Speech and spelling go hand in hand. If they can't say the word correctly, they can't hear the right sound and associate that sound with the correct spelling. My youngest (also 3rd grade) has never qualified for speech therapy but definitely has trouble with some sounds and despite being strong in reading and math and without behavioral or attention issues - he's my lone ideal student LOL - he's a lousy speller. With a ton of repetition and effort he can learn words for his spelling tests but then forgets them immediately after.

My oldest son is the same way but he has learning disabilities and ADHD as well. It was just one of those things he did his best with until spelling tests stopped (maybe 6th or 7th grade) and since then, he relies on spell check and has someone review his writing for important assignments (for homophones).

One thing that helped him was the use of kinesthetic cues. For example when he had the word "somersault" on a test, he practiced by doing a somersault and pictured his body making an "a" as he rolled, a "u" as he started to stand, and "l" as he stood up and a "t" when he finished by putting his arms out. He can still spell this word 10 years later.

Another device for him was a silly pronunciation of a word. For example, he practiced "because" by breaking it into "beca" (pronounced like "Becca") and "use." Ten years later, he says he still hears that in his head when writing the work "because" so he still knows how to spell it.

My (step) daughter is an honors/AP student and a mediocre speller. I sometimes look at her written work or notes and think "really? You really can't spell _____?"

My other son is like me, a born speller. I don't know if we just have an easier time internalizing the rules of language and applying them or if we have better visual memory and can just picture the right way to spell something, but for whatever reason, spelling has never been an issue for us. It makes writing a bit easier, and makes me the editor of choice for all of the people in my life who struggle with spelling but other than that, it's not like winning the lottery or anything ;-)

Rather than rely on sounding it out, see if you can get him to memorize how the word looks. Ask him to look at it for 10 seconds and take a picture with his eyes, close his eyes and hold the picture in his head for 10 seconds, then read to you what he sees. If he's a visual learner, that might work.

I don't really know anything about it, but there is an Auditory Processing Disorder that can affect children.

Take a look at this link and see if anything else sounds like your child.

http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Understanding-Auditory...

My third grader is top in his class, except his spelling is atrocious. My husband and I are good spellers, my son reads a lot, and we have read with him since he was born. I suppose it just happens with some people.

Is he more visual that u can say. What do u think it looks like?

Also can u teach him to copy it from the problem...like find where he just read how many marbles does Joe have....So that he doesn't have to completely know how to spell marbles...just has to copy it.

???

My very smart son had severe speech issues and therapy from the time he was 2, but he had an extremely hard time learning to read and spell because he couldn't sound out the words - if you can't make the sound, you can't sound out the words .... If your son has speech issues, he may not be able to sound out words, which would also cause him difficulties in spelling. Likely with therapy and practice, it should get better.

This is very normal at this age.
I am still a terrible speller.

Our daughter was not great either. I recall my husband and I going to a conference with our daughters second grade teacher. She went on and on about all of the great things about our daughter.Our daughter was reading many grades ahead of her grade level. Her comprehension was off the charts. She was good about participating in class. Perfect homework.. blah, blah , blah..

She then asked if we had any questions. I told her I was very concerned about our daughters spelling. She had not gotten a 100 on any of the spelling tests. Even though we worked really hard with her spelling words. Our daughter was also upset about this.

The teacher hemmed and hawed, she finally said, I think, I believe, I really feel.. That she is just not a natural speller! There was a moment of silence and then we all burst into laughter.

I told her that I am a TERRIBLE speller, but my husband was great. We then agreed as long as she was really trying and was studying, we would not make it a big deal at this time.

Our daughter still studied, she still did her best. In the end, she was a National Merit Scholar who enjoys writing, and is considered a very good writer but it is not her passion. She agrees that spell check is a life saver, even though sometimes it gets confused by some of the words we are trying to use.

Nobody's a "natural" speller. Some kids have special problems (e.g. dyslexia) but everyone else learns to spell by reading a ton, especially out loud to Mom and Dad, learning to sound out letters.

I love the idea of a kids' dictionary and learning to look things up. Don't make it punishment though - just putting in the time to actually learn. If he learned them well, he wouldn't keep asking.

This is something you can bring up with the teacher at the conference. It's still early in the year so teachers are getting to know kids and don't always want to sit down and sort out problems for the first few months. They want the kids to get into the rhythm and routines of the classroom.

If this problem wasn't picked up in all of second grade, I'd say it's behavioral. But having your husband write this off as if people don't need to at least try to learn is a huge problem - we've got tons of college students and executives and even teachers who have very poor communication skills because they were never pushed to learn to spell. I'm not talking about kids with significant and diagnosed disabilities. I'm talking about kids who don't spend the time to learn or aren't pushed to do so. One thing that helps is learning cursive writing - people learn to string those letters together in a way that they don't when using a keyboard. And kids (and adults) using text-speak (u for you, etc.) carry those limitations with them well into adulthood.

Just because he has speech therapy he qualifies for a 504 plan. An IEP is for special ed kids, kids that will have life long disabilities in 2 or more life skills areas. So there's no way he'd qualify for an IEP...

I'd ask the school to form a team and write a 504 plan. This will address his spelling issues, he could have a learning disability in spelling. My sister does and so does her daughter. Her daughter did some extra work on spelling and worked with a special program all through elementary school. She's the president of a bank now. No problems spelling at all.

So I know that having a 504 plan and getting pulled out of class to work on their classwork really helps. He should be doing as much of his work at school too. If his teacher is able to get him to work she needs to sit with him and make him do all this work at school.

Kids learn early that tears, pouty faces, whining, and other things get them what they want. Attention and out of doing stuff if they do it long enough.

I think teachers need to have kids who have such a hard time with something do that work in the classroom.