Back to the kindergarten spelling...

So dd knows sight words well. In fact she was forming sentences with the sight words last night. The problem is when we sit and do the kindergarten spelling, I have to sit with her and sound out piece by piece every letter. She doesnt really do that part independently and like I said in my past post, I am not fond of the words being spelled wrong. (Even though I get what some of you were saying about "the process"of learning). I dont remember doing anything like this when we were kids. We learned the words like I stated dd is doing (seeing them and writing them). I mean she is only in the beginning of K so maybe this will just get better but I am not for it at all. She knows her sounds if they are individual letters, she just isnt getting all of them when they are in words. its like she stops after the first few letters and needs me to give her more detail of the word.

Re: Back to the kindergarten spelling...

Maybe you could create a "word wall" of sorts for common words that come up in her writing. For example if she often uses the words "First, Next, Then and Last" when writing, they could go on the wall. Or the words "favorite, because, character" etc., depending on the type of writing that she is doing with you at home.

Get one of those tri-fold presentation boards at Office Max. Cover it in fun paper, get cutout letters and write WORD WALL on top. Make a small area for each letter of the alphabet in ABC Order, and when you come across a commonly spelled word, add it to the board.

Then the next time she needs to spell it, instead of it being a time consuming task where you are helping her sound it out, encourage her to find it on the word wall. You can fold it up and slide it behind something or in a closet when you are not using it.

She will learn certain skills from using the board, without the time consuming process of sounding out each and every word. She will learn ABC Order, word recognition, and many of those commonly spelled words will become "sight" words for her since she will become a pro at recognizing them.

You will still need to help her sound out MANY words, but maybe just not so many.

You can also get a children's dictionary, like a picture dictionary, and teach her how to use it.

There are a lot of ways that you can help kindergarteners and young children spell aside from just having them copy a word or spelling it for them. Sometimes having them sound out EVERY SINGLE THING becomes so time consuming, and homework becomes a struggle. We have to remember that at 5 they have small attention spans. SO I am all about having them sound out many of the words, and using other tools to help them fill in the blanks. You just have to figure out which ones work the best for you and your child!

Another thing I've done with certain kids when I was a teacher was give them their own word box. I would get one of the coupon boxes that are like an accordian file, and the words got filed away in there in ABC order and when they needed a word they found the card and copied it. You can add words as needed, and make sure all of her sight words are in there also.

Good luck, keep us posted!

Re: Back to the kindergarten spelling...

Thank you! You are always a big help!