Spelling Help

Maybe trying multiple ideas is part of the problem. Have you asked the teacher how she is introducing then reinforcing the concepts? Maybe its more the repetition that would help instead of variety. Plus, maybe the teacher is doing more phonetics instead of sight, so having sight based could be causing confusion.

You may have tried this, but when my 2nd grader has trouble learning his words we do this:He will write the word at least 3 times. Each time he writes the word he has to focus on that word....he will say the word and spell the word each time he writes it.Also, trying to learn the whole list at once can be overwhelming for some children. So try to break it down to 3 or 4 words per night, depending on how many words are on her list.Like I said, you may have tried our "tricks" already, but they work for ds so I wanted to share:)

Maybe You want to try beestar. DD has been using it for spelling. It offers vocabulary and English language art worksheets weekly for Grade 1 to 8. They offer problems interesting and challenging. Tests are timed and scored. DD loves to compete on this site with other kids from a lot of other states and is making remarkable progress. Lisa

My son's teacher (3rd grade) has them do really creative stuff...Like taking the word and making a sentence out of the letter - CAT = Children are tired. That needs parental assistance, but it is fun to think of sentences. She also has them match the numbers up to phone digits - CAT is 228. My son LOVES this. We do rainbow words where vowels are one color and constanants are another; they have to type up the words in different fonts; write them with fancy writing...They can draw a picture and "hide" the words in it, write each letter of the word in dot form and then connect the dots... His teacher has really stepped up her game since my older son had her 2 years ago. We loved her then...now, she's practically entered sainthood with us!

Thank you all for your suggestions! We decided pulling Castle out of public school and bringing her home to homeschool is what would be best for us right now. We think she will excell with some one on one attention and can't wait to get started on Monday morning! So many things the school was staying she had problems with don't actually seem to be problems when we work with her at home so I know she will do great!

K, are you homeschooling yourself or do you have a co-op of sorts where different parents/teachers instruct the kids? One of the fun things JD's teacher does for spelling practice is called Tic Tac Know. She basically makes a tic tac toe board and in each square, puts one of the homework methods I mentioned, plus others that you mentioned as well. Each week, the kids get 4 days to complete 3 of the squares, to make a tic tac toe. They can go horizontal, vertical or diagonal. This way, the kids have some control over their assignments - they get to pick which ones they want to do. (She mixes the order up each week so the kids don't end up doing the same 3 methods every lesson). I absolutely love it and so does my son. Just wanted to pass that along...

Congrats on home schooling :) I have done it with all my schoolage kids over the years and it has been very positive for us. For spelling -my one son could NOT learn his words. Eventually (it might have even been on here 10 years ago!) I heard of the "red blue green" method. We would record the words on tape (that's how long ago it was!) and he would listen to the words being played back. For each word he would write it in one of the colors three times. That's IT. What we realized is that he memorized the words as an object. "Truck" would be a BLUE object in his memory and he could recall it (in combination with hearing the word). The next spelling word "STREET" would be a Red object etc, etc, etc That was back when he was in grade 2 and 3, now he is in grade 11 and he still learns best this way. His IEP now allows for all his testing to be verbal and he is very successful with this.

Love, this year we will not join a Co-op, I feel just spending time with her one on one will work best to get her caught up and build her confidence back up. We have a HUGE homeschooling group of families at our church so there will be support there, on Wednesdays I go to a Bible Study at church where the homeschool kids will spend time together, we are at church on Sundays, dance on Thursdays and our lifegroup is on Thursday nights where she and the other children of our group members have their own bible study upstairs. I also have two children who have been riding the bus home with her who will continue to come every day after school so needless to say, she will get plenty of interaction with others! I am excited to try some of your suggestions, I think the the "red, blue, green" method might be something she would like and do well with so I am going to give it a try soon!

Best wishes with your homeschool! I homeschool my kids. I wish I had some ideas for spelling for you. But my DD is just in 1st grade and has only recently started with a spelling program. And she seems to have a knack for it anyway. The Well Trained Mind forum online is a very active homeschool forum if you haven't already found it. They seem to have a thread in the archives already on every conceivable topic. :)

You can also do some home diagnosis to see if she also has some level of learning disability. I found this page which offers some signs to look for. The earlier it is found, the better. [url=http://www.helpguide.org/mental/learning_disabilities.htm]Learning Disabilities in Children: Types of Disorders and Their Signs[/url] I watch my 5 yr old like a hawk about this issue because her BioMom and GrandMa both have learning disabilites. I think also homeschooling is a great idea because you know her best and can cater your lessons to what she needs.