Alex has become a good, even great reader in the last eight months. He is on his seventh or eighth Boxcar Children book and reads much of the time independently. His comprehension is good. When reading scriptures with the family, he can read many verses in the Book of Mormon with no help at all. His SPELLING, however, is a different story.
In spite of studying spelling lists all summer, Alex asked me last night how to spell "how" and "where," and other words that he has read literally THOUSANDS of times. When he asked me how to spell "how," I asked him how he thinks it's spelled. He said H-E-A. I wrote HEA down and asked him to read it to me. He could see immediately it did not say "how." He then guessed H-O-U, a much better guess but still wrong.
Wow, am I expecting too much that Alex should be able to spell "how" after reading it for the last eight months and writing it maybe dozens of times? I feel frustrated. After reading Wendy's blog about doing home school IN school, I e-mailed Alex's ESL teacher to see if I could sneakily incorporate spelling lists into the teacher's curriculum. (Alex accepts teachers' challenges and homework much better than he accepts his parents' challenges and homework. Sad, huh?) We will see what his ESL teacher thinks.
Alex was also placed into pre-Algebra this year because his sixth grade teacher thought he could handle it. No way am I going to tackle pre-Algebra this year with Alex when we have the English/spelling/reading/comprehension hurdles. I know our limits. (His sixth grade teacher needed to come and observe homework time at our house. She had no idea how it went down.)
Anybody else out there been there, done that with the spelling difficulties? We've started a "dictionary" like Wendy has done with her Alex. I obviously need to be more obstinate in not spelling words for him and making him look them up. Then he would have incentive to remember them the next time, right?
Oh Lori. We're right there with you. Today Alex had to write EIGHT more sentences in his journal for misspelled words. (Sigh) For every word we have already recorded in his journal and he misspells-again-another sentence.
ReplyDeleteI thought the blog was helping because it clues him into when he's misspelled with the red squiggly line? But today he announced he doesn't want to keep a blog anymore. I tried telling him that he didn't have as many extra sentences to write when he blogged. His answer was "Whatever.". Geez. It's like's he's a teenager overnight!
Oh, well. He had to write eight more sentences. Luckily he wrote sentences about what he is grateful for and knows "I am grateful for..." perfectly.
He told me he is jealous of Rylee. Because she doesn't have to write in a journal. I asked him if he thought Bogdan or Sasha back in the orphanage might be jealous of him? Having a family? Here in America? He agreed that they might after arguing with me that Sasha has a mother. She visits once a week. I asked if he'd like to live in the orphanage and I visit once a week. I had him there. ((Sigh)))
Sorry, this is getting long-I should just post on my own blog.
Just wanted you to know you are not alone!
W