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Copywork at 11-yrs-old
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My son is about to turn 11, and I am thinking of ditching the normal spelling texts bc it doesn’t seem to be working. He has horrible spelling. I have heard that daily copywork really works for spelling, too, but I wonder if it is too late for it to be beneficial to him now. He is in 6th grade, 4 weeks into the year.
Thanks for any advice/suggestions. 🙂
Have you looked at Spelling Wisdom? This seems to be in line with what you are considering for your son. It’s never too late to benefit from copywork, dictation, and narration imo.
Blessings,
Becca<><
If the other isn’t working, I would just do Spelling Wisdom. That’s all that we’re doing for spelling right now w/my 11 and 14yo’s.
Given that you initially thought of the idea to use two strategies at once, I’ll tell you my own situation…because it took us doing two spelling strategies simultaneously before we got results. My two sons struggled with spelling when I was using ONLY a traditional list program OR copywork/dictation (Spelling Wisdom). It wasn’t until I joined the two that things took off. I added a phonics (list) component to supplement the dictation/copywork and suddenly it was like I had different kids. We are now using some dictation alongside Phonetic Zoo (list based phonics on a recorded CD for gr 4 up to high school) and finding that we’ve now found the perfect balance of strategies on spelling. Both boys are “getting” it and more importantly – applying it in writing!
(BTW – prior to Phonetic Zoo, we used Sequential Spelling which was also fantastic in helping my kids advance on their spelling. I only switched to Phonetic Zoo because I preferred the phonetic approach versus SS’s word building)
Good luck! Angie
We have been using Soaring with Spelling the last 2 years, so I think I will do a combination of that and the Spelling Wisdom. We do copywork 1-2x a week, different passages each time, for handwriting. So I will drop the random copywork and use SW in it’s place. Hopefully that will help. 🙂
Thank you all!!I am with Angelina on this one – it has taken 2 strategies with my kids that didn’t take naturally to spelling. Both copywork/ prepared dictation (Spelling Wisdom) and a traditional approach together has worked wonders for my reluctant spellers. One son, who was truly challenged in this area, has progressed in one year to be completely on grade level in his spelling (both in his spelling work, and his writings). That is a very encouraging thing to see!
What I have found is that if you find a program that addresses how your child learns (auditory, visual, etc…) and add prepared dictation to that program – along with a lot of good reading – you will have dramatic improvement. Study your child and see how he really learns.
My mother (who is a high school English teacher) also reassured me early on that many geniuses are poor spellers. So I felt better and was encouraged to continue ;0)!
When you use both methods, do you try to use the same word types together somehow, or ust use things as they are laid out?
Also, as Spelling Wisdom doesn’t have lined areas below so they can copy it on to the page, do any of you know of an easy way to add lines in the download itself?
I think it might become excessively tedious if you tried to join two methods by finding common words. Take each for what it is, would be my advice. As for Spelling Wisdom, we have never used it as our solo copywork but more for studied dictation so my kids always just use a separate sheet of paper. Remember if you want to get the most out of Spelling Wisdom, you can go beyond copywork pretty easily…just have your child use it on the first day for copywork, second day study the hard spelling words in the passage and recite aloud, then close eyes and recite aloud, third day have child study again but this time write those hard spelling words on a whiteboard (engages the brain differently by writing while standing…this has been BRILLIANT for my 10 year old), and fourth day you dictate the passage and child is writing the passage using pencil or pen on paper while you dictate. I hope I haven’t made it sound complicated…just trying to show that Spelling Wisdom past the copywork stage is pretty straightforward and can really take the child’s memory of spelling words to a different level.
I agree wholeheartedly with ServingwithJoy above who mentioned that for your other spelling choice (your non-copywork/dictation choice), you would be wise to map that choice to your child’s best learning style. If that is Soaring with Spelling, great…but if there’s a chance that this workbook approach is not the best fit you might want to consider branching out. I currently have one child on a computer based phonic heavy list program (Phonetic Zoo), and just recently switched my other child onto flashcards/magnet board/white board program which I owned anyway (All About Spelling). I’m not doing this because I love the extra work LOL but because I just happen to have two boys with very different processing…and while I don’t customize everything according to learning style, spelling is the major area where I do.
Hope this helps!
Blessings, Angie
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