Panicking about spelling

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  • March 13, 2008 at 11:17 pm
    JulieK
    Member

    I found this website half-way through this school year. I’m enthralled with the CM method but am panicked about reading and spelling. My daughter is 8 and in 2nd grade. Traditional school work has the kids working on spelling and phonics rules and I don’t see much of phonics mentioned in the curriculum guide. Is that covered in Spelling Wisdom at the third/fourth grade level? I guess my other concern is that she will seem “behind” with her spelling. I’ve always loved the better late than early philosophy of education but I guess I’m a little panicked about following through with it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    March 14, 2008 at 12:27 am
    BlessedMama
    Member

    I can’t answer for the CM method of spelling, but I can tell you that only one of my older 7 that have been/are in school spelled well at 8. That was my oldest who is a visual learner like me! The rest of them struggled, one did well on “spelling book tests”, but couldn’t spell in her regular writing. The next two spelled phonetically (not as in phonics rules, I think you know what I mean!), and the 16 yodd just in the past year “got it”. Don’t worry. In fact, my 16 yodd asked me to buy her Spelling Wisdom to help her further! She likes the idea of it much better!

    My experience has been that teaching spelling and phonics rules in the context of writing and reading works the best. For example, with one my dds, she was trying to sound out “nation”, and there I explained to her how the “tion” usually says “shun”. She never forgot it! So I am confident that the CM way will work! (I guess we were sort of doing it that way! We just didn’t do prepared dictation! 😉 )

    Hope that is helpful!

    Blessings!

    Trisch

    March 18, 2008 at 1:57 am
    Sonya Shafer
    Moderator

    Spelling Wisdom does not cover the phonics rules. In fact, one reason Charlotte emphasized learning spelling by looking at the words is because so many English words do not follow the rules. Spelling is filled with exceptions.

    Now, while Charlotte didn’t start written dictation until the child was about 9 or 10, she did encourage parents to teach their children to look at how words are spelled as they read passages in books. Since your daughter is 8, I would think that she is past the “sounding out” stage of reading. You can make a game out of it by giving her a paragraph to read (using a book that she is already reading for schoolwork anyway) and challenging her to look at how the words are spelled as she reads. Then you take the book and pick a word or two from that paragraph and see if she can spell it for you aloud. Try not to make this a “pop quiz – pass or fail” type stressful activity. It’s more of a game to start instilling a, hopefully, lifelong habit. It’s also great preparation for actual written dictation when she is older.

    I know what you mean about thinking that the CM method sounds great but getting a bit panicky when it’s time to implement it and it’s contrary to all the traditional stuff around us. It’s never easy to walk by faith, and many of the CM methods ask us to do just that: trust that they will work well. 🙂

    Hope this helps a little.

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