Hi E.,
I am a homeschool mom. I have been teaching for 9 years. I taught all three of my kids to read, write and spell. I have experience using a good array of various curriculums.
I want to start out by saying that I alarmingly disagree with some of the advice you have been given.
One mom suggests using "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons". I used this program 8 years ago, when I was first starting out. I was inexperienced and let the title convince me to buy it. This book did allow my child to learn how to read, but at the expense of her spelling! It tells the child to totally disregard any letters that are in lower case (which happen to be all the silent letters). Words like ate and team were written like ATe and TEaM. So guess what my child did when it came time to spell? She dropped out all those lower case silent letters in her spelling becasue she was taught to pretend like they didn't exist. Further, this author is the founder of direct instruction, and co-responsible for the progressive movement that removed the time honored teaching methods taught in public schools before the 70's, and got the schools where they are today.
Another mom on here, Mariah , who was a teacher is suggesting spelling rule tips. I'd like to know where this college educated teacher got those rules from. (clearly influenced by the direct instruction method taught in the current schools). She says to tell the child that when two vowels are in a row the first says its name and the second is silent. Well, that isn't the case for the word BREAD, BOOK, NOON, or FLOOR. (and more). The fact is that she is teaching something that is not a true spelling rule. True spelling rules will ALWAYS apply when using english words.
I use a curriculum called Spell to Write and Read(SWR).Based on time honored teaching methods from the turn of the century, and true to it's name, you teach the child to spell and write using correct rules and PHONOGRAMS and then before you know it, he has picked up reading on his own. I bought this program for my first child after the "100 easy lessons" book had failed us. I had to UN- TEACH all the foul things that book did, and re- teach using the correct spelling rules and phonograms of SWR. I used SWR for my other two kids from the beginning and had great success.
Mariah says teach that Ck together says "k".
My program has "CK" on the spelling rule cards and it goes like this: CK: "TWO LETTER 'K' (you say the sound k not the letter name) USED ONLY AFTER A SINGLE VOWEL THAT SAYS ITS SHORT SOUND".
That is how you know that you will use CK when hearing the word back, but not in the word bake. There is also another rule to enforce how to spell bake. It is the silent final e rule # 1: THE VOWEL SOUND CHANGES BECAUSE OF THE E" (we teach all the vowels will say thier first and most common sound,( the short sound )..UNLESS... there is a rule to change it or it is part of a phonogram. So the A says A because of the silent E.
More silent e rules: "Every syllable needs a vowel", "The c says 's' and the g says 'J' because of the e", " English words do not end in V or U".
EA and OO are phonograms. They each have three sounds depending on the word they are used in! That is why her hoakey rule doesn't work! Public schools teach sight word and blends, (where you cannot apply rules) rather than true phonemic awareness and phonograms, where rules work every time.
If all this sounds complicated to you imagine how a child feels when he is asked to spell words simply by sight memorization rather than how to decode the word. Memorizing 2000 words is a daunting task. Teaching the 72 basic phonograms and 26 or so spelling rules, a child can DECODE any english word and spell 99% of the most common 2000 english words used in everyday language.
Even if you don't use the entire SWR program, you can always just buy the phonogram cards and the spelling rules. Have her memorize those. That will help. You can find the program online. Another comparable program is the BARTON program. My sister who is a Dylexia tutor uses this program. It attacks the same foundational blocks that my program does, just comes at it from another viewpoint,and it is 5 times the price. These are the two best reading/spelling programs around, IMO.
By the way, none of my children were truly ready for all out writing and spelling before 6 yrs old ( and testing in K and first grade is shameful. ) About 6 and a half they picked up steam and by age 7 were writing and doing beginning spelling. The public schools expectations are irrational and overboard. 90% of children will not be able to keep up, especially with those kinds of poor teaching methods that leave foundational gaps. When kids can't meet the high P-school expectations in 2nd , third and fourth grade, they are labeled ADD by the teachers and parents are pressured to put them on medication.