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School-Aged Children
How to help ds w/school work
Ds is in 1st grade (just turned 7) and we struggle every night with practicing his spelling words. I'm very gentle in my approach with him but if he doesn't get it right the first couple times then he breaks down crying. Reasons he has given me include: "I don't want to get it wrong on the test," He feels he is the only one out of his friends who has to study/practice, and the "I'm never going to get it right." does decent on his actual tsts on Fridays, he usually gets 2-3 wrong but it is because he hurried through the test & left off the last letter. (but when we do our nightly practice he has always gotten the word right.)
Do you have any suggestions on how I can help him? I feel like this shouldn't have to be such a struggle every night. We do have a reward system in place if he gets all his spelling words right. Thanks ladies!
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Re: How to help ds w/school work
My son is also in 1st grade and just started homework. His teacher sent home a bunch of cool/fun activities for spelling word practice. Here are some ideas:
Sign language spelling
"Ransom" words -- cut letters out of the newspaper and magazines to make your words
"Rainbow" words -- write all the words in pen, then trace over them in 3 different colors.
"Shaving cream" words -- squirt shaving cream on a plate and finger paint the words in it.
Make a word search or crossword puzzle
Draw a silly picture that shows all your words and label each word/idea in the picture.
If the spelling test asks him to write down the words, but you always practice by having him spell out loud, he could struggle on the test because he's combining the task of remembering the word with actually writing it.
Does he like the computer? You can try spellingcity.com
The above ideas are good too.
I also do pyramid words
c
ca
cat
and forward backward
cat tac
wordsearch (many different websites to do this-just google create your own wordsearch)
Colorful words (each letter in a different color)
Blue vowels (vowels done in blue)
Best of luck!
Are the words following a certain pattern you can focus on? I teach second grade and we follow a very systematic sequence where we introduce one spelling pattern at a time. For example, one week we study -ck at the end of the word. We teach the children that the /k/ sound is spelled (ck) in a one syllable word with a short vowel sound. It'll help a lot if all the words are following a certain pattern. If the words are too tough, maybe a reduced list could help too...
I have received the best feedback from my Go Fish homework. The children create two sets of flash cards for their "deck" and then spell the words as they play ("do you have d-e-c-k deck?" "no, i do not have d-e-c-k, go fish...). I also agree with the sensory suggestion of shaving cream. Some kiddos like using the sandbox also. In class, the children use stencils and white boards and spellcity.com has tons of games.