Searching For Spelling Success

    My 8-year-old, Tori, isn’t a strong speller. It surprises me a little, because she is a very good reader, but it is what it is. I don’t put a lot of pressure on her for her weekly spelling tests and don’t spend a lot of time studying the words, because inevitably, when we do spend our time practicing the words over and over, a) I get frustrated with her because she isn’t focusing on the task at hand, and b) she forgets the words the minute the test is over.

    So a few weeks my mom was in town and I asked her to help Tori with her homework. It was a Thursday and mom said that Tori didn’t really know her spelling words. I told her that I knew that and explained my opinion on the spelling words, to which my mom disagreed and said, “Of course you just memorize them for the test, that’s what everyone does!” So that evening, mom drilled Tori on her spelling words (and she did pretty well on her test that week). When my mom left from her weekend visit, she told Tori to be sure to call her each week and she would practice spelling words with her.

    Every week now, mom and Tori spend about 30 minutes on the phone going over the weekly spelling list and it seems to be working. Tori’s scores are improving and instead of she and I battling over the words, she gets to spend some alone time on the phone with her grandma. As far as I can tell, my mom goes about practicing the words the same way I do it, but Tori responds better to her. I am glad we stumbled upon this solution to help Tori achieve spelling success!