How am I supposed to know how to support dd?

[TheSunIsShining]

Went to see dd's teacher as she is having some issue at school.
In the main, her spelling is bad, her reading and comprehension is OK but she has major issues with writing (Can't really write a story with a beginning, a middle and an end).

The teacher was very keen for me to support the school in their work but has given me no idea what soever as how I could do that.

Spelling: 'Oh well, some children find spelling hard. It's just the way it is.' after I explained how we working on spellings.
I asked for explanations as where she thinks the problems are but got no answers.

So what can I do to support dd?

[WileyRoadRunner]

How old/what year is your DD in?

[TheSunIsShining]

She is in Y3

[Tgger]

Is she young/old for year?

[WileyRoadRunner]

Ok so I her reading and comprehension are ok perhaps work on that first - sometimes I think the school books can be very boring. You could try and get her to read a story that might for her imagination - Beaver Towers by Nigel Hinton is a good one.

Does she always get the same spellings wrong or does it depend on what she is doing? Does she spell them phonetically or are they just totally random?

Writing wise, how is her handwriting? Do you think she is able to think of a story but just dislikes putting pen to paper? My dd had this issue and I told her to just use ideas from stories/tv that she had read/watched to create her own story. This worked really well for her.

I think the school need to meet with you again with an action plan of where you go from here. Do they think she is dyslexic? They should really be giving you clearer advice on how you can help her and what they will do etc. I think you would be best to e-mail/write to the headteacher and ask for a meeting to be arranged where they can tell you what happens from here.

Sorry not much help.

[WileyRoadRunner]

Sorry for all the random autocorrects

[TheSunIsShining]

No she is relatively young (End of June b'day).

So far what I have come up with is to try and do some more spelling at home. And ask her to write a few sentences on the computer each evening.
I am sure I have come across an article saying that having the words highlighted automatically by Word and having to choose the right spelling was to found to be much more efficient than 'traditional techniques'.

She also seems to struggle to do do 2 tasks at the same time (eg write a story and use some describing words at the same time).

[TheSunIsShining]

Sorry x post

[TheSunIsShining]

Spelling: no her spelling are just 'dire' (teacher's comment). I think they are still working on the list of words that they started in Y1 and the ones she is getting are still very simple.
Some of them (sun, best... are wo any problems, others such as friends or any, she couldn't spell before she learnt them). but then, as it was the case with ds, she is learning them and forgets them promptly so when she writes at school she still gets them wrong.
Some of the words are spelt phonetically (let's leest instead of least), others are nowhere near (some sounds are missing all together for example)

Handwriting is good, no issue there (very neat, letters well formed ...)

[Tgger]

Ok, I wondered that, so she was 7 in June. It still makes a big difference at this age. Do you read stories to her?

Yes, I think the old style learning spellings by rote has been shown to be ineffective so that's why a lot of schools don't do it anymore. I think you need to be using the words/seeing them in your reading books to get better, as well as having good phonics knowledge that you can draw upon.

Can she tell you a story with a beginning, middle and end? Can you help her do this? Just a short one?

Am sure some teachers will be on here soon/later to give you better advice!

[learnandsay]

Does she know the beginning, the middle and the end of someone else's story, for example the Three Little Pigs?

If she knew which was the begging, the middle and the end (say you told her) for example, could she tell you a Three Little Rabbits story based entirely on the little pigs?

[TheSunIsShining]

Oh we have lots of stories here but she isn't good at telling stories in the first place.
Usually starts well and then she gets lost and goes on a tangent and forgets what the story was about in the first place. She is better when she has to describes facts.

Apparently, the teacher is showing her a card with the word on, asks her if the way she wrote it is OK and she says 'Yes!' even though it's miles away.

[TheSunIsShining]

learn I don't know. I would have to try.

[Tgger]

Do you know if she was taught phonics well with all the "alternative spellings" in YR, Y1 and Y2?

I'm wondering if she needs to revisit these, or get some support at school to help her- eg with "least"- the "ee" sound is spelt using the alternative spelling "ea", this is the same in "meat", "treat", "beat" etc etc.

Are the sounds that are missing altogether vowel sounds? This is very common. Can you help her sound out the word and transfer it to her writing. Eg for "strange" DS wrote "stange", so I got him to say the word again and see if he could hear the sound he'd missed out (he couldn't), told him he'd missed out the "r" sound- demonstrated it saying it, then got him to say it again and correct his spelling.

[TheSunIsShining]

Yes we've done loads of these when she was in Y1 and really struggling. She couldn't differentiate the sounds or spell words phonetically at all.
But apparently, all was well last year.
And this year, things aren't going well again.

[Badvocsanta]

Try the apples and pears workbooks from sound foundations.

[Tgger]

Hmmmmmmm.....so she must have made some progress since Y1 then. Perhaps the new Y3 teacher has higher expectations than previous Y2, which is good, but shouldn't panic you either.....

If she can do the basics re spelling the words phonetically then hopefully her spelling will catch up at some point. Do you mind me asking what level her reading is? Is she fluent?

[Fifis25StottieCakes]

I think my dd has auditory processing disorder, im waiting for school to sort it out, she cant do 2 things at once, as her teacher says you couldn't tell her to get the red book on the 3rd shelf from the blue book stand. She's ok at maths and spelling, not so good at reading and her writing is terrible. When i was reading up on it there was an awful lot of kids dont get diagnosed. My dd'd on level 5 readers and she is 8. Dont know if this helps you but she is way behind her peers.

[TheSunIsShining]

She is on stage 9 I think (Difficult to say precisely as they have a big mix of book once they have pass the stage to of the Biff and Chip books)

[Tgger]

Ok, so doing fine, but perhaps just finding her wings as far as fluency and being able to enjoy lots of other books (ie not just school ones?).

I bet as she reads more and becomes more fluent her spelling will improve. It doesn't always follow, especially if children have a particular difficulty (dyslexia etc) but as a rule of thumb I think that it is normally the case. Should think some teachers will be on here to advise you better later.

[TheSunIsShining]

Thanks.
Need to go now but I will bump the thread in the evening to see if some teachers can help too.

[maizieD]

i'm in a bit of a rush, so don't have time for the post I would like to make. However, I did write a couple of posts on an in some way similar problem on this thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1624579-can-you-look-at-this-and-say-if-it-looks-like-dyslexia-to-you-please?pg=2

The 'not hearing all the sounds' for spellings sounds to me like a possible hearing difficulty. Any history of ear infections or glue ear?

[TheSunIsShining]

bump for the evening lot.