What's the best way to review spelling words with a struggling learner?

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Permalink Reply by Merry on February 12, 2009 at 5:12pm

Oh great question, I can't wait to hear what others say! My kids also need more review--they need to keep those words, rules, and phonograms fresh before them more often than the master-review. So here's what I've taken to doing:

When I review after a lesson, I only review 2-3 word cards from that lesson per day (if there are a few different spellings, I choose one of each type of spelling if possible). This way, even if they get them correct, we stretch out the review of this spelling pattern over at least 3 days.

Then, I rotate through the old mastered cards. You can use one of the blank yellow cards as a "placeholder" to show you when you've gone through them all & it's time to reshuffle & go through again. I do a total of 10 word cards per day (2-3 from the most recent lesson & 7-8 previously mastered cards). Anything that they make a mistake on goes back into their review deck (so the next day I would do fewer "new" mastered cards because I've got more in my review file to do).

I find reviewing more than 10 cards tends to burn my kids out on review, so that's why I limit to 10. The exception is if we're going through a master-review, then I will do more than 10 but I try to vary words with key cards & phonogram or sound cards etc...

I'm starting to think I might mark on my cards. When my kids did spelling bee prep, I would mark a check mark if they got it right, a dash if they got it wrong, and make the dash into a plus sign if they got it right subsequently. Then I looked for at least 3 checks after a plus to see if it was getting cemented. I haven't decided yet if this is overkill, but it might not be for my kids. I do want to figure out a way to finally "retire" some cards from previous levels that is less arbitrary. Right now it's just if I think they've never gotten that word wrong, but that might get hard to keep track of as we continue on!

HTH some, Merry :-)

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Permalink Reply by caspen1973 on February 12, 2009 at 7:25pm

I guess I have been lucky with specific words so far. If the girls master it, it usually sticks in their head. But, if they are unable to spell it correctly it goes into the "review" divider and we do that first thing before we start any new info. When it is mastered, it goes under "mastered".

As for phonograms, those are the ones they seem to lose sometimes. They forget ALL the sounds for a specific one. So, we review them every week or 2 and whatever they miss, goes into the "review" section until they master it again. We reveiw at the beginning of the lesson and then again at the end of the lesson. If they get it at the beginning of the lesson, I consider it mastered. If they can't get it at the beginning, but get it at the end of the lesson, it goes back under "review" till next time.

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Permalink Reply by Barbara T. Conway on October 26, 2009 at 12:57pm

I use spelling analysis to help my kids organize words into the categories: regular, irregular, rule
They "unblend" the word while looking at it and decide if the word is regular for spelling, irregular for spelling (lamb, juice) or follows a rule such as the changing rule for adding a suffix to a word ending in y...
The list for the week is then segmented into columns, and only the irregular ones need be memorized. It takes away some of the memory load!

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Permalink Reply by Linda Rose on October 30, 2009 at 8:30am

What about when your children are doing independent writing? How do they handle spelling the words that they have already learned in their spelling? Do they use the rules that they are learning in AAS?

I typically watch what my children are writing in their free time--letters to pen pals, stories for fun, when they play office with each other, etc. That is the real key to see if what they have been learning sticks in their heads. It's not so much the words that they need to remember how to spell, it's the rules that teach them HOW to spell the words and why certain words work certain ways. There are so many words in the world to learn how to spell and while the brain is amazing and can certainly remember a lot of information, it is much easier (especially for children) to remember and apply several rules to words than to memorize how to spell thousands of words! I think if children are having trouble with spelling certain words, then you should go back and review the lesson/rules that teach how and why those words are spelled the way they are. Don't forget to take advantage of the extra words in each lesson. They also follow the rule that you are teaching to your child. Have your child spell or read them to cement the rule into their memory. Have them teach their lesson to you or another child. That would really help them, and you would be able to tell immediately if they are understanding and applying what they are learning!

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