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correcting spelling age 6
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I just finished watching Sonya’s all day seminar. For spelling, CM used dictation starting around age 9. Sonya discussed immediately covering a misspelled word during dictation. My six year old likes to write on her own. Often she will ask for the correct spelling, but sometimes she spells phonetically and then it is usually wrong. Should I correct her misspellings immediately, correct them later or let them be.
I’ve been thinking about this. Would a personal writing be like a nature journal in that it should go un-critiqued? Perhapse if the child is sharing their writing with us, we could mentally note commonly misspelled words and work them into school without mention to the personal writing? (That is, if you’re doing spelling…)
Just been mulling this over because my 8yo dd loves to write, but is still learning to read well, so I don’t want to “harp” on spelling until I at least feel that she’s reading well.
Thoughts?
LillyLou
That’s right, LillyLou. We walk a fine line between encouraging our children to get their thoughts down on paper and trying not to set up the wrong spelling in their brains.
For some reason, it seems like when our children are still learning to read and write and spell, they know they are still learning and don’t solidify their “personal experiments” in their brains like they do when they are focusing on learning the correct spelling in a lesson. So let them enjoy getting their thoughts down on paper. If they ask how to spell a word, tell them. (Yes, I know this practice can be time-consuming, but be glad they want to spell correctly!) But we don’t want to squelch their desire to write by following them around the house with little Post-It notes in our hands and covering up all their misspellings. Not to be a contrarian to Sonya
; but I also encourage you to encourage them to look the words up themselves at least 50% of the time.1-they will retain the spelling of it better
2-it won’t develop the lazy habit of expecting mom to be the dictionary; that’s a hard habit to break (gee, I feel a song from Chicago coming…)
3- use the opportunity, with the easier words, to help them sound out the word and then they experience the sense of accomplishment of figuring it out themselves.
Just my 2 cents,
Rachel
Sonya: Thank you so much, that does make it more clear. I have a very creative daughter, and I’m always afraid of bursting her bubble with correction, but at the same time I want to help her develop as a writer…I think I’ll let the creative side develop now, and work on the technical side…by and by, shall we say.
Rachel: Good points. I think I’ll be more apt to follow those suggestions when she’s a bit older, as we haven’t even approached dictionary work yet
I appreciate your input. In the mean time, I think we’ll try a variation on the theme and maybe use words that she tries on her own as actual words to work on later (as in copywork, since we don’t do a formal spelling now)
For some reason, it seems like when our children are still learning to read and write and spell, they know they are still learning and don’t solidify their “personal experiments” in their brains like they do when they are focusing on learning the correct spelling in a lesson. So let them enjoy getting their thoughts down on paper. If they ask how to spell a word, tell them. (Yes, I know this practice can be time-consuming, but be glad they want to spell correctly!) But we don’t want to squelch their desire to write by following them around the house with little Post-It notes in our hands and covering up all their misspellings. 
; but I also encourage you to encourage them to look the words up themselves at least 50% of the time.Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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