At the end of first grade, my son’s teacher told us Kirk was below where he should be for spelling and, because of that, writing. She was stumped because he was reading several grades ahead and “usually really good readers are good writers and good spellers.”
She suggested that perhaps he didn’t hear sounds properly and his speech sessions might help in time. After a hearing check (he’s fine), school and private speech lessons, we saw no improvement in his writing or spelling.
I tried several spelling work books and a Leap Frog spelling game, but these were of little help. The word choices seemed random. My mom, who is an excellent speller, suggested we try spelling bees after dinner, which she and her two sisters (also excellent spellers) did while growing up. Kirk approached this with as much enthusiasm as I would a game listing Middle Eastern political leaders, i.e. ignorance breeds boredom.
Finally, we stumbled upon a combination that has worked beautifully. Internet research led me to a system called “All About Spelling” by Maria Rippel. The workbook, word cards and magnetic letter tiles combine to create a multi-sensory, step by step, logical approach to spelling. The system is phonics based and sequential. For example, you would have the child spell pan, then pin, then pen. For someone like Kirk who hadn’t focused on vowels, this made a big difference in his ability to spell.
Slowly, you work up to short phrases, big dog, dig in mud, and so on. And along the way, Kirk learned specific rules which helped a lot. One key rule card asks which letters are often doubled after a single vowel at the end of a one-syllable word? The answer “f, l, and s” (acronym floss) was one he easily remembered and suddenly words like dress, glass or sell became fairly easy.
To make the spelling fun (since he wasn’t good at it, it was the last thing he wanted to do), we created the game you see in the video. Once he spells the word or phrase correctly, he tries to catch, hit or dodge the ball, keeping his own point system (he always “wins”). Our couch is past the legal drinking age; if you have one of those lovely House Beautiful living rooms, you might want to play this elsewhere;-).
