Learning To Spell

Cannot spell phonetically? Struggling to learn spelling conventions? Tripped up by spelling exceptions? These are common warning signs of a near term need for spelling help and a possible longer term reading problem.

Spelling difficulty is almost always a sign of an incomplete reading foundation.  If a child cannot recognize spelling patterns that calls into question his or her decoding technique.

Spelling is important.  The eventual goal of reading instruction is for every word to be a sight word that can be read automatically, effortlessly. The only way the brain can catalog so many words is by recognizing spelling patterns.

If spelling skills are inadequate, high level reading comprehension with metacognition, so critical for high school and high stakes tests will be a challenge.
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Why Children Struggle With Spelling

In early life, a number of struggling readers are actually thought to be good spellers.  What is happening here though is that many bright youngsters rely heavily on memorization for reading and spelling. As children age and the word list expands, this coping strategy falls apart.

Most often a spelling problem is a language processing problem.  The child is either:

-- struggling to hear the phonemes that make up words, so "surround" is spelled out as "sroun" or some other "Muddy" version. Or

-- an overloaded language processing system hears the phonemes for phonetically regular words, but is too overloaded to be able to take in interventions and/or the many exceptions.

Gemm's Approach

We first create a phonics foundation, then work through spelling rules and exceptions.

Gemm's provides spelling help by improving language processing skills and by working methodically on spelling specifically.   Improved speed of auditory processing will increase listening accuracy and phonics skills.  This will help children hear every sound making phonetically regular words easier to spell.  It's industrial strength phonics instruction.

Improved auditory processing efficiency will also help unburden an over-loaded language processing system by creating automaticity in spelling.  This will free up mind capacity to learn rules and exceptions.   Our spelling program then goes through these --starting with phonetically sounded out words, then spelling rules and then finally spelling exceptions. 

Think of it this way.  If you are not a Dutch speaker and do not know the sounds of Dutch, learning to spell Dutch words is an overwhelming task.  But once you learn to recognize those sounds, a huge number of words become easy to spell, so you can focus on the oddly spelled words.  The task is not longer over-whelming.  Gemm does this for children learning to spell in English.

These skills will improve reading comprehension and fluency and create a foundation for future academic success by reducing the risk of problems with reading in future grades.
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