And so...testing done and the results are..

[pandahoneybee]

Here in NC we are required to do yearly testing...I would most likely do that anyways just to see where we are and what we need to work on.

We tested both boys (11th and 6th) they did really well in their personal favorite subjects. (math for 6th and english for 11th). BUT of course there was one area they both....well.... JUST don't seem to EVER get ahead or even grade level in

For our family that is spelling and writing.... they scored not much better then last year and way below where they should be.... pretty sad about it too.

Re-thinking how we are doing gonna get some strong growths in this area. We are doing SpellingCity (they love games even learning games), Time4writing (since writing isn't my strength either), journals again( daily thought journals, or what they did that day, short stories, etc) , grammar made easy (since this is an area we still struggle in).

The big thing is...I am thinking especially for spelling going back to the basics and working as efficiently as we can to see if we can BUST this problem subject out. I have to help especially my soon to be 12th grader figure out this problem....kinda of stressed right now. Any suggestions for those of you LIKE me who are struggling with this area?

[Robin]

My 14 year old still has trouble with spelling. I'm also thinking about doing some basics. We did use Time4Writing because I'm not great at it either. For grammar, we use Fix-It. We only do weekly journals, but should probably do them more often.

I'd be interested in knowing what others use for spelling.

[brainboost]

Something that I used with one of my kids who couldn't get a grip on spelling even after starting back through the basics for the second time and seeing it still wasn't working was to work with her brain instead of against it.

• I went back and pulled out the top 10 most used spelling rules and then broke them each down into 2 parts - for example, i before e except after c.

• I would use two pieces of different color paper and put the first part of the rule (i before e) on one color and the second part (except after c") on the second color. Remember to not use any two specific color groups twice such as purple/yellow for rule one. Don't use those two specific colors for any other rule.

• I would hold up one color and she would read it and then hold up the 2nd color and have her read it. We did this about three times in a row one after the other.

• Then I would turn them over where she couldn't see the writing and ask her to put the two pieces of the rule together in the correct order just from the colors (which she never failed to do).

• Then I would ask her to tell me the rule (which she never failed to do).

• Then we practiced spelling words related to that rule making sure not to use those words that are the exception to the rule because I wanted to reinforce only the rule itself.

What this was doing was giving her another stronger brain pathway to where this memory was stored. She was associating specific colors with this information as it was being put into her memory.

We would also use this same strategy later when she was practicing her list of spelling words by breaking each syllable up into a different color.

Hope that all made sense...

You might give it a try. It worked great for us!

[Robin]

Tested my 14 year old this year and she did much better on the spelling portion of the test. Actually on grade level for once. This is shocking. For a long time we thought she was dyslexic. I'm still making her do spelling this year.