It is a commonly held belief that learning phonics helps children become better readers, spellers, and writers. Phonics are usually taught early on, in kindergarten and first grade, as the student is beginning to learn to translate spoken English to written English. Since my child is an accomplished reader, I thought we were past worrying about phonics. But I am beginning to rethink this, because she is still not a very good speller. Did I mention that she is entering  sixth grade?  This may be something she struggles with for her entire life. And I think I know where the problem began.

I pulled my daughter out of public school midway through first grade and began home schooling. Because I did not want to buy a full year’s curriculum for first grade since she had already done half of it in public school, I began her in second grade work. She had no trouble with that work, at all, and so I thought that we were home free. As she continues to have problems with spelling, I am beginning to wonder if she missed something fundamental during that half year of work she didn’t get exposed to.

Looking at some of the stuff that would have been covered in that half year, I discovered that continued work with phonics, and breaking words into syllables, or segmenting, occurred during that time. Around fourth grade I tried to have her go back and work on the phonics but honestly it is like that ship has sailed. She knows that work is for younger students and feels like I am treating her like a baby.

She does not sound words out, but she has a phenomenal memory. She can tell me if a word is spelled incorrectly, but she cannot tell me the correct spelling, though she will recognize it if given the correct spelling.

Since I cannot go back and solidify her knowledge of phonics at this stage, we are practicing other methods of improving her spelling. We have been doing word ladders for some time, and they do a good job of exploring word families. And of course, I have her play spelling games, using word lists from her other subjects. I’ve even found a primary science syllables game that lets her practice breaking science words into syllables. I have hope that this type of practice with science and other words will reinforce her ability to break words into syllables, and thereby learn to spell better.

I guess the basic lesson here for parents is…don’t skip the fundamentals, even if your child seems bored. The extra practice, solidifying the knowledge up front, might save you from having to play catch up at a later time.

It has been a long battle to get my daughter to spell better, and it has been a frustrating one, considering the fact that she is able to read anything she wants to. I worried a lot when we first started home schooling because I pulled her out in the middle of her first grade year. She had such self-esteem issues, and boredom to fight that I went ahead and accelerated her to second grade since we had already covered much of first grade work during the summer between kindergarten and first grade. Spelling was one of the subjects that she was the most unhappy with in first grade and the one that had made the largest hit on her self-esteem. She told me that her teacher thought she was the “stupidest kid on the planet”. I asked her why would she possible think that. Her answer, they gave her a spelling word list on Monday, and then made her practice and repeat it for four whole days, before testing her on Friday. My daughter just doesn’t get practice and repetition to learn something. I asked her what her solution to this problem was. Out of the mouths of babes…her solution was to give her the words and let her look over them, then test her. The words she could spell she didn’t have to practice, because she already knew them. The words she couldn’t spell she would practice only until she could spell them. This actually made sense to me.

Still, she struggles with spelling. She can recognize if a word is spelled incorrectly, but is unable to give the correct spelling. Did I mention that she hates repetition to learn anything?  Because of this, I am constantly looking for new and different ways to improve my daughter’s spelling and vocabulary. Word ladders are one of the ways that she works on vocabulary and spelling. It is actually very rewarding to see how much she enjoys working with word ladders. Word ladders are a good critical thinking exercise as well.

Another type of word manipulation that she is starting to use is Unscramble.  As she gains more confidence in her ability to spell she is willing to try more and different games. Unscramble works for her because she can recognize when a word is spelled correctly, even if she cannot spell the word from scratch. This game gives her the letters in a scrambled order and will give her the hint of saying the word out loud if she asks for it.

I worry that we missed something vital to spelling in the half year of first grade that she didn’t get. If I had to do it all over again, would I accelerate her again? Maybe not, but since I can’t very well have my almost sixth grader going back to first grade work, we will have to come up with new and inventive ways to plug any gaps she might have.

I’m sure that some parents of children in school wish they could afford tutoring when their child isn’t doing so well in a subject like Language Arts or Math. Schools sometimes provide tutoring through afterschool problems, but it’s rarely enough when your child is far behind her classmates or just isn’t understanding a concept.

Homeschooled children have the benefit of one-on-one help and extra time to study and learn lessons they have difficulty with, but their traditionally schooled counterparts have to keep up with the class or be left behind. Once a schooled child is behind, it’s nearly impossible to catch up, because his class has moved on to more advanced lessons. Well, if your child didn’t understand the previous lessons that the current work is based upon, how can he understand the harder work? This sets up a cycle, and your child can become discouraged and can begin to feel as though he just can’t learn.

An online supplemental program  can help both homeschooled and public/private schooled children as a supplement. It’s self-paced, it’s fun, and it gives immediate feedback on how your child is doing. She could actually do the lessons with little parental involvement; another way she could do the lessons is with you nearby, giving a little extra help and coaching as needed.

An online tutoring program is a great way for your child to catch up and restore his confidence in his ability to learn.

During the summer, the last thing your kids probably want to hear about is intensive work. They want to have fun, you want to have fun, the whole family wants to have fun! It would be easy to not do any kind of school work, but you know that when kids take a total break from learning, they tend to forget what they learned over the previous academic year.

Some families, like mine, homeschool year round, but do less intense work during the summer months. Online summer school education is a great way to do some academic work without putting on a lot of pressure. It will also give your child time on the computer which most kids love. With a summer computer program, you can review basic skills or learn new ones.

Going to the beach, going to the park, going to summer camp, and enjoying the family should be a priority during the hot summer months. But while families are doing all this, the kids can engage in some “cool” learning on the computer.

There is help and support available for those who are on a homeschooling journey. Most of us homeschoolers find it helpful to join a homeschool support group. There is so much help available there, including likeminded parents who are homeschooling their children (for the same or different reasons), children for our kids to play with, organized field trips and outings, and lots of advice and wisdom from veteran homeschoolers.

When I began homeschooling, I couldn’t find a support group in Chicago, Illinois that met my needs. Most of the ones that would have been a good fit were far away in the suburbs and here sat I in the city with no transportation to get to the ‘burbs.

I wanted to join a Christian homeschool support group, because I felt as thought it would be a good fit and that it would meet my needs. However, I couldn’t find one no matter how hard or long I searched, so I joined a secular support group. The people were nice and helpful, and there were many veteran homeschoolers in the group; yet, it still wasn’t a good fit, because most of the children who attended the group regularly were older, and my son was only 7 years old then.

Since I couldn’t find a physical group that met my needs; I started one of the many online homeschool groups. It now has more than 80 members and is more of a resource list than a support group. Finding a good online homeschool groups is as simple as doing a search on the web; here’s a link to a site where you’ll find a group for your state:  http://time4learning.net/groups/

I later joined several other online groups that have proved to be a great support resource. Eventually, I joined a physical secular support group too. Online homeschool groups in Illinois really helped me to understand Illinois homeschooling laws and to network with other Illinois homeschoolers.

Even if you are a member of a support group that has meetings, you’ll probably find belonging to one or more online homeschool groups very helpful; you may have a question or concern, and if your online group is an active one–when you post, you’ll get an answer quickly. More than likely, it will be just what you need, exactly when you need it.