I had a lovely 15 - 20 minutes with T (7 year old)'s teacher at the parent teacher interview last week. T, as I knew, was pretty much top of the class with his literacy (reading and comprehension) - he is reading at about a Grade 3/4 level and also has the comprehension of that level (which is much harder than simply reading the words). Also she showed me a wonderful 'retell' that he had done of an aboriginal dreamtime story. She was very impressed by it and it was filled with unusual vocabulary, and cojoined sentences. Unless she had told me it was T's, I wouldn't have said it was! Very proud Mumma!
HOWEVER, T is a very poor speller in comparison! Shall we say close to 'bottom' of the class!
As a Mummy who relishes the education side of raising children this has become the latest challenge! And a daunting one! So many words, so little time .....
Lesson learnt for baby 2, 3 and 4 - is when you learn your sight words - do the spelling of them at the same time. T has obvioiusly got a picture reading ability and doesn't 'see' the letters in words.
I am so not concerned or worried for T. I do not want T to be the 'best' simply to be the best! However I know how much easier my life has been having done reasonably at school and university ... it opens doors but most importantly it provides SELF-ESTEEM - internally generated self-esteem knowing that "if I work hard, I can achieve anything I want".
I am not a big believer in talent. I am sure it exists but it is not as empowering as Dr Suzuki's principles that perseverence pips talent any day of the week.
So we are going to do less 'readers' each night and more writing about stories to practice spelling. Unfortunately this is inherently more time-consuming for a nightly homework practice.
Therefore I need a back stop. Something T can do each night even if I am occupied with the other children (or shock, horror, have personal things I want to do).
Nothing helpful on google to help with online spelling apps for ipad unfortunately. So started downloading some freebies and trying them out. Chanced upon 'spelling test'. At first thought it was too much work for me as you have to manually enter each of the words you want tested, plus leave a sound recording (including sample sentence).
In 20 minutes I loaded 3 weeks of spelling words from last term. Hmmmm think I need to set aside a few hours and few glasses of vino one night to get them all in.
However as I type this blog entry T is having a go at the app and as with all screen time, he loves it.
What is it about boys and screens? I know the local boys' school, Churchie, uses ipads and laptops from the first year of school as a primary learning tool. It sounds a bit over the top - but honestly my experience of boys is that it is such a catalyst for longer attention span for any form of learning.
So this app seems to be a goer .... let's see how it helps with the writing when we get there!Labels: Spelling, Suzuki piano
