Teaching a First Grader Spelling

My son is also in the 1st grade and he writes his spelling words 3x each...then every morning while getting dressed I ask him to spell them aloud...last year when he came home with his "sight word" list that he HAD to know before he left Kindergarten I made them into flash cards then made up super silly sentences to go with them...that seemed to be a big hit!

I think that at this age there is nothing you can do but keep up on the repetition...and don't sweat it, some kids don't "do" tests well.

I was in the same situation when my daughter was in first grade. I was so frustrated because no matter how hard I worked with her, it didn't show on her spelling tests. Finally, I would cut paper into squares and write a letter on each square. Then for each word, I would give her the letters needed to spell that word. Then once she could put the word together with the letters I gave her, I would throw in an extra letter or two and by time Friday came around, she perfected them all. Good luck!!!

As LG said, I do the same with my 4 y/o. We make it a game writing out the words he has trouble remembering how to spell. I also print the words on my computer in large letters, laminate them and use them like flash cards.

My oldest daughter always did really well when she would go over her words the morning of her spelling test. Repitition is so important. When you get her list of words, use them throughout the day.

If you have index cards, have her write the words on the cards, but twice (2 different cards) , then play the memory game. My kids love to do that too.

I have my son write each word three times each per day. This way he gets use to seeing the word and writing the word. Many times when we do our practice test, he will know he spelled it wrong just by looking at it. I also make a game out of them in the car while we are driving to and from school. We try to see how many he can get correct. Hope that helps you some.

She is really young. I wouldn't worry about it. I'm sure she's doing better than some of the other kids in her class. I'm sure by Christmas, she'll be more improved in this area. Only one of my children (out of 4) were reading by this age and they're all good readers and spellers now. Keep working with her and stay positive and encouraging. Even if she forgets them for test time. Praise her for her hard work so she'll relax and enjoy learning. Good luck!!

A lot of it is just repetition.... and sounding it out.... have her sound OUT the words.... because, it is phonetic.
As she sounds out the words, out loud, have her write it....
but yes, at this age, it is still not instinct.

She is FINE and NORMAL.

Do not, 'expect' her to be PERFECT... otherwise, kids get real stressed and some won't even try... because they think they have to be PERFECT. Just tell her "try your best..." that is what I do with my kids.
Don't focus on being "the BEST." Teach her... to enjoy the process and to try HER best.
She is just learning.

My daughter, at that age, went through a phase were she thought she had to be PERFECT and get everything all CORRECT all the time. Although we didn't tell her that. BUT, then she would cry and get stressed and just didn't even want to do her work. Because she said, it wouldn't be good enough. She had a tendency to be a 'perfectionist', which we had to teach her... that is NOT the point. The point is learning and having FUN.... about it all, NOT having to be the 'best' or the most 'perfect.'

Do not think you have to "Fix" her. That will give her hang ups... and make her think she is not good enough.

All the best,
Susan

LG got it right.

Have your little one write the words 3 x's each everyday.
We used to study the spelling words on our way to school in the mornings. (Not any more because we homeschool now).

Oh and I forgot - I used to ask my childrens teachers to please send home on Fridays - next weeks spelling words so that my children could study over the weekend. It really helped my kids to have two extra days with the words.

Both teachers liked the idea so much that they started to send the ( next weeks WORDS ) home on Fridays for all the students in the class.

We also use
www.spellingcity.com

Ask your child's teacher if she uses
Spelling City .com as a teacher, some teachers put the class spelling words on the site under their name and school.

If she doesn't use the site - that's ok - there are still some things you can do on the site.

I wish you all the best.

Here is a link to the same question last week. Even if your daughter is not ADHD.
http://www.mamapedia.com/questions/8110370738147557377

There are different types of learners and just writing them out is not always effective in learning the words..

She was given Lots of really good ideas. I wish I had known about the calling out the spellings while jumping on a small trampoline.

Our daughter was never a natural speller.. But she is now a National Merit Scholar and a Junior in College and always on the Deans List. Thank goodness for Spell check..

We always told her to just do her best.

The ability to spell is to some degree hereditary. The head of an English department where I worked for a few years was a terrible speller, but a fabulous teacher. My husband writes science curricula for a living, and would never survive if it weren't for me sitting there spelling words he asks about, or using a spell checker. Some people will never be particularly good at spelling, but it would be a shame if they believed they were inadequate because of that shortcoming. Practice does usually help, though.

It might be helpful to know what your daughter's primary learning style is so you can teach her how to focus her efforts. Here's one of many sites that can help you evaluate whether she's most strongly visual, auditory, or kinesthetic: http://people.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/learning-style/

If she's an auditory learner, for example, then spelling the words out loud, perhaps with music playing, or to a beat, or even making up a tune for each song will help. If she is primarily kinesthetic, a different approach will work better.

Google key words like "spelling, (your daughter's) learning style" to find helpful tips. Here's one very good summary: http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/learnings...

try rhyming the words.. like cat, hat mat.... ask her to write the word twice.. this helps... then ask her to play school.. you spell one word... she spells one.. maybe take a play test with her.. let her give you one.. then you give her one.. good luck

Lots of repetition. Have her write them over and over and over all week long. I consider myself to be a very intelligent person, I am a college graduate and never had trouble in school. I always got straight A's, except I pulled C's at best in spelling. Too this day I can not spell well, and I thank goodness for spell check! For some of us, this one area is just a struggle.

I wonder why she knows them at home but not for the test? Is she very nervous during testing? If so you need to relax on how you're preparing her and teach her to take deep breathes when she's nervous. Is she very distracted in the classroom? Is the teacher asking her to write an entire sentence with the words in it? Can she do it out loud but have trouble writing them? Find out more about the testing situation. I'm curious, what is different?

I used to teach 4th grade, and my oldest son is in 1st grade as well. This is what I do:
I have a file folder, on that file folder I have cut the top of the file folder 2 times to make 3 pieces that flip up. On the first flip I wrote: Look at the word, Say the word, See the word. What she is supposed to do is: Look at the first word, say it outloud, close the flip and think of the word in her head. Then on the 2nd flip I wrote: Write the word, Check the word. What she is supposed to do is: Write the word, check to see if her word is spelled correctly by looking at the first word. If it is not, then she has to start that process over again, if it is.... On the 3rd flip I wrote: Rewrite. So if the word is spelled correctly, then she needs to rewrite the word in the rewrite section and check to make sure it is spelled correctly. If it is, then she has made 3 connections on how that word is spelled and should spell it correctly. Repeat this process for every spelling word.
Also, my son's teacher requires the students to write their words 3 times each night. He comes home with the list on Monday, I have him write the words 3 times. Tuesday, I have him do the flip chart, Wednesday: I give him an oral spelling test. Ask how the teacher gives the test, if you can match what she does closely it will help her out a lot. My son's teacher says the word, says the sounds in the word, and gives a sentence. So for example: Ten, "t"-"e"-"n", I ate ten cookies, Ten.
I don't know if your daughter's teacher gives her the rules of spelling, but that might be good to give her to help her out. So far my son has had:1. If there is only one vowel in the word, that vowel is usually short. 2. If there are two vowels in a word, the first vowel says it's long sound and the second vowel is silent. And this week: CK together says "k". See if the teacher does a Pre-test. My son's teacher does a pre-test on Thursday, and if they get a 100 on it, then they do not have to take the test on Friday.
Hope this has helped. Good luck! I understand the worry, we are very strict with our kids and require their best at all times and straight A's.

I had my son write them 3 times each every night starting on the test day of the lesson before. He would right them each night of the week as well as Saturday. In addition to writing them, I had him read and spell each work out loud twice daily. The problem I found with my son was that sometimes he did not know what the word was that he was writing. It helped when I made him read them out loud and spell them out loud because I could catch early on if he did not know what the word was. How could you spell a word on your spelling test if you did not recognize the word when the teacher calls it out?

No but stop puttibg so much pressure on her like you said if she says that she is doing her best believe her. . Believe in her stop pushing her it is fine to help her study if she asks for help give it but don't try to make her think that she can't miss spell a word.

My kids are still to young to teach to read, but a friend of mine says this book was great to teach her little boy that was struggling with reading and spelling. She says is really simple and easy to follow. It was recommended to her by her sons kindergarten teacher.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
author Siegfried Engelmann

Good luck.

I am another homeschooling mom... my daughter learned how to read very well with the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons when she was just 3 1/2 years old. Since then, she's read a ton and now that she is 5 1/2, we are doing the Sequential Spelling book for first grade and the system seems straightforward and natural. She loves it and after 5 lessons was already spelling longer words like "beginning." I also noticed that in the third week, she started attempting to write more on her own... labeling pictures, doing a brief journaling of her day, writing notes to family members, etc.

If you do it at home, I recommend using a little white board and fun marker colors. Buy stickers as suggested in the book (we bought the standard gold stars). Should take about 15 minutes per lesson. Here's a review of the program, if that would be helpful: http://www.cathyduffyreviews.com/spelling-vocabulary/sequ...

sighhhhhh . . . . .
SIX YEARS OLD.
I don't think we had spelling until 3rd grade, maybe 2nd.
It hurts my heart to think of little kids having to do spelling TESTS!!
There's so much stress and tension later on.
It would be nice if first grade was simply learning and enjoying new skills.
I know I'm ancient but still . . . .
Look, Jane! Look at Spot!
See Spot run!
Not much plot but, for me, anyway,
an entertaining introduction to reading for pleasure.
sighhhhhh . . . .

I had the same concern with my son in first grade. First grade is very difficult for spelling. But my son had a wonderful teacher that told me to relax, that it would come. We practiced good study skills and worked on the words every night. He never got 100% in first grade. But by second grade he knew what he needed to do to study and he started doing really well on his tests. He has to work much harder than his sister on spelling, but he does really well for himself. I think the best thing I learned to do as a parent was to teach him how to study (the way that worked best for him), expect him to do his best, but stop expecting perfection.
Good luck,
Oléa

I agree, so young for TESTING. For crying out loud!! You may want to practice the words, and practice a "test" in different environments, so that she overcomes any type of anxiety she has when test time comes. Perhaps you do a mini quiz every morning or something, so that the test becomes something she does every day, therefore holds little to no anxiety for her.

Alternatively she may be dyslexic, but you would probably see that in her writing. Although mine wasn't caught until I was in college.

Huh. I remember the fact that I would read and write and in cursive by kindergarden was remarkable when I was a child. I guess times have changed. I can't imagine having to take a test in 1st grade. Wow.

Hi E.,

I am a homeschool mom. I have been teaching for 9 years. I taught all three of my kids to read, write and spell. I have experience using a good array of various curriculums.

I want to start out by saying that I alarmingly disagree with some of the advice you have been given.

One mom suggests using "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons". I used this program 8 years ago, when I was first starting out. I was inexperienced and let the title convince me to buy it. This book did allow my child to learn how to read, but at the expense of her spelling! It tells the child to totally disregard any letters that are in lower case (which happen to be all the silent letters). Words like ate and team were written like ATe and TEaM. So guess what my child did when it came time to spell? She dropped out all those lower case silent letters in her spelling becasue she was taught to pretend like they didn't exist. Further, this author is the founder of direct instruction, and co-responsible for the progressive movement that removed the time honored teaching methods taught in public schools before the 70's, and got the schools where they are today.

Another mom on here, Mariah , who was a teacher is suggesting spelling rule tips. I'd like to know where this college educated teacher got those rules from. (clearly influenced by the direct instruction method taught in the current schools). She says to tell the child that when two vowels are in a row the first says its name and the second is silent. Well, that isn't the case for the word BREAD, BOOK, NOON, or FLOOR. (and more). The fact is that she is teaching something that is not a true spelling rule. True spelling rules will ALWAYS apply when using english words.

I use a curriculum called Spell to Write and Read(SWR).Based on time honored teaching methods from the turn of the century, and true to it's name, you teach the child to spell and write using correct rules and PHONOGRAMS and then before you know it, he has picked up reading on his own. I bought this program for my first child after the "100 easy lessons" book had failed us. I had to UN- TEACH all the foul things that book did, and re- teach using the correct spelling rules and phonograms of SWR. I used SWR for my other two kids from the beginning and had great success.

Mariah says teach that Ck together says "k".
My program has "CK" on the spelling rule cards and it goes like this: CK: "TWO LETTER 'K' (you say the sound k not the letter name) USED ONLY AFTER A SINGLE VOWEL THAT SAYS ITS SHORT SOUND".
That is how you know that you will use CK when hearing the word back, but not in the word bake. There is also another rule to enforce how to spell bake. It is the silent final e rule # 1: THE VOWEL SOUND CHANGES BECAUSE OF THE E" (we teach all the vowels will say thier first and most common sound,( the short sound )..UNLESS... there is a rule to change it or it is part of a phonogram. So the A says A because of the silent E.
More silent e rules: "Every syllable needs a vowel", "The c says 's' and the g says 'J' because of the e", " English words do not end in V or U".

EA and OO are phonograms. They each have three sounds depending on the word they are used in! That is why her hoakey rule doesn't work! Public schools teach sight word and blends, (where you cannot apply rules) rather than true phonemic awareness and phonograms, where rules work every time.

If all this sounds complicated to you imagine how a child feels when he is asked to spell words simply by sight memorization rather than how to decode the word. Memorizing 2000 words is a daunting task. Teaching the 72 basic phonograms and 26 or so spelling rules, a child can DECODE any english word and spell 99% of the most common 2000 english words used in everyday language.

Even if you don't use the entire SWR program, you can always just buy the phonogram cards and the spelling rules. Have her memorize those. That will help. You can find the program online. Another comparable program is the BARTON program. My sister who is a Dylexia tutor uses this program. It attacks the same foundational blocks that my program does, just comes at it from another viewpoint,and it is 5 times the price. These are the two best reading/spelling programs around, IMO.

By the way, none of my children were truly ready for all out writing and spelling before 6 yrs old ( and testing in K and first grade is shameful. ) About 6 and a half they picked up steam and by age 7 were writing and doing beginning spelling. The public schools expectations are irrational and overboard. 90% of children will not be able to keep up, especially with those kinds of poor teaching methods that leave foundational gaps. When kids can't meet the high P-school expectations in 2nd , third and fourth grade, they are labeled ADD by the teachers and parents are pressured to put them on medication.

Hi Dad,

She may be freezing up at test time , and as a result her mind may go blank on some of those words. As a former teacher, I saw this often with older students as well as little ones.
So one of the things I ask the kids to do was 1st have them spell the word according phonically and if it was spelled wrong to have the child correct it and then picture the correctly spelled word, as well as to associate it with something. Also, I do not know if they teach this in scholl any more, but you may want to go over LONG Vowels and SHORT Vowels---A, E, I, O U.

Lastly, show your child how you relax before a business meeting, such as breathing deep 10 times, or opening and rasing your arms and stretching, and then mentally reviewing the importance of a meeting/ or the list of spelling words.

Hi E., my son had the same problem last year. We would go over the words at home and he would get 100% The night before the test I would ask him the words and use them in a sentence and he would get them all correct. The next morning we would go over them again and he would have them down. Then I would get the tests back and he would miss half of them. I just couldn't understand it. I think he would get nervous come test time. This year we backed off and let him practice his spelling himself. I am not quizzing him on the words at all. So far so good, 100% 3 weeks in a row. So maybe take some of the pressure off for a couple weeks and see if there is any difference. I know how frustrating it can be.

My son is in 1st grade as well. Our teacher sends home a sheet with the words for the week and across the page is Monday-Thursday, my son has to write the words over and over for each day. This might help your daughter if she writes the words over a few times. Then I will take the sheet and sound out each word for my son and ask him to spell it for me. I have him spell it out loud and have him write it on a paper. You might try these things with her. Good luck.

I did this all through elementary. It was not the spelling that was hard it was the test. I found that for some reason the clearing off of the desk and the teacher standing in front of the class reciting words was intimidating and no matter how much I practiced I still would get the words wrong. I will say I turned out fine, with a minor lack of confidence in spelling and writing, but all in all still OK. In junior high I took an extra credit course in how to prepare for a test and how to take tests and discovered it was the way the test was given and the anxiety of the test not my spelling abilities. I would not put so much importance on it as that is what hit my confidence was my parents drilling me in spelling and teachers setting up meetings to discuss spelling concerns. (later I was tested to skip a grade and qualified to do so)