Supporting your child with spelling and reading difficulties

Lots of children find spelling and reading difficult, for various reasons.  It involves different skills:

Reading requires you to recognise the sounds in words, and then blend them back together (blending).  Depending on the complexity of the word, these could be single letter sounds or 'special friends', where 2 or more letters make up a new sound e.g. igh, ow, oo.  

        c-a-t     = cat

       h-or-se = horse

Difficulties in either of these skills, will obviously make reading difficult, but there are things that you can to do help.

Writing/spelling requires the opposite skill (segmenting), hearing a word and then breaking it up into the sounds, and then knowing how to write each of those sounds.  These are all things we take for granted as an adult, but if you are a child struggling with any of these building block skills, it has a knock on effect in so many areas.

    dog = d-o-g

   rabbit = r-a-bb-i-t

There are many many strategies that can be used to support your child with these skills.  Below are just a few.  The best thing to do is to try some out and see which one/s work best for your child.

-using fridge magnets

-using online games such as those on https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/literacy.html

-using games where you have to match words and pictures.

-writing in different colours and mediums e.g. writing in the sand or in paint.

-writing different parts of the words (certain sounds or syllables) in different colours.

-Look, say the whole word, say and trace the individual letters, say the word again, cover, write,
check
-Teach new spellings and rules systematically. Encourage them to see the visual connections
e.g bell/tell/well, belt/felt/melt, torn/corn/morning. Make use of a highlighter to help transfer into their visual memory t
-Associating pictures, mnemonics and memorable sayings with words help to commit them to memory.

-Clap the syllables in the word several times and say it whilst clapping
- Break the word by jumbling up the letters

Have a go and if you need any more ideas or strategies, or are worried about your child's reading, speak to Mrs Dennis or your child's class teacher.