What skills does your child need to be a good speller?

Firstly, they must process the sounds within the word and then sequence those sounds and finally remember them.

There are 46 sounds in the English Language, 26 represented in the alphabet plus 20 others including blended sounds like /sh/ and /ch/ which, by the way, sound very alike.

There are 5 vowels and 21 consonants in the alphabet.
The vowels are /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u//
But some of these have more than one sound e.g. /o/

Here are three examples of different /o/ sounds...
Rope
Mop
Some which sounds like /u/ as in Sun.

To process any sound accurately we must have good processing skills so we can tell the difference between sounds like /sh/ and /ch/ or /b/ and /d/ otherwise it is easy to misinterpret sounds.

English is not a phonetic language nor is it a transparent one.

"Way" and "Weigh" sound the same as each other but they are spelled differently.

When you sound out /w/ /e/ /i/ /g/ /h/ it will never sound like "Weigh".

We must train the brain to try and make sense of spellings.

Sequencing is also important so we can register the initial and final consonant sounds of words, middle vowel and blended sounds.

As parents of struggling learners we know what it is like for our children to try and remember spellings long enough for the Friday spelling test at school which they may do quite well in but two weeks later those same spellings are often forgotten. We need good working memory to learn and remember spellings.

The good news is that we can work on improving your child's spelling by building the cognitive skills of processing, sequencing and memory leading to better phonemic awareness and language awareness.

Learning to spell is one outcome of the Fast ForWord program which we use to improve reading, language and thinking skills.

Here is one parent's comment after her son worked on the program...

"I am truly grateful for your unwavering support and assistance. I cannot emphasize enough how instrumental your help has been in securing a quality education for my son" and allowing him to participate in such (school) events."Your child may need specific work to hit the milestones that allow them to keep up with their peers.

That’s why we’re organising a special summer course for struggling readers.

The goal is to develop fluent readers, who comprehend well and learn efficiently.

More details are in the PS.
I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Joyce

PS - This week I'm putting together a small group of parents who want to help their children get ready for the new school year by working on their reading skills  using an innovative, motivating and effective 4 week course 

We plan to start the week of Monday 5th August.

The exercises can be done in as  little as 30 minutes daily at home

• Your child will be better able to pay attention, stay focused and remember what they are reading and learning.
• They will also develop the ability to follow what the teacher is teaching in the classroom.
• And Improve your child's spelling

Our typical results are 1 to 2 years reading gains in 40 to 60 hours work.
 

We are making it easy to get started for just Eu180/UKP166
 

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