10 year old son needs alot of help with spelling. Worried parent.

It's funny. He's probably better at math than writing. Some people just don't spell well because they are not visual learners. Teach him to use a spell-checker. Punctuation can be memorized and then you must convince him to use it. He's probably rushing through assignments. When he finishes a writing assignment, go through it and tell him, "You've forgotton 5 capital letters, 6 periods, 2 commas, and 3 question marks." Then, he has to go back and find where they should go. Until he does that, the assignment is not finished. You are helping him by proofreading, but don't correct it for him.

Well i don't think that a five year boy should have master of english. It is still learning phase for him hence you need not worry, if he would be 10 which is now you should worry. Hey do you think he is good now in his english as well as his other studies. Tell something about him now.

I have a son who is also horrible at spelling. He is brilliant in all others areas. Finally, after a lot of testing, we found out that he has phonological dyslexia. This isn't the type where they have trouble with reading, this is a problem with the sounds coming into the brain. He can't unblend the sounds coming in. This means that he can't sound out words to spell them. He knows when they are spelled wrong, but can't come up with the correct letters to spell them correctly. Most of us sound out words in our heads as we read, he reads by recognizing the shape of the word. In other words, he naturally speed reads. We worked on spelling, but nothing really helped him become a "good" speller. He had to drill on the words of his spelling list and hope for the best on his tests. The best software was the type that we could load his homework list into and practice. We later found out that his grandmother has the same problem. She remembers the frustration of someone telling her to look the word up in the dictionary. If you can't even figure out what the first letter is, it isn't going to help. Don't despair though, she graduated with an Chemical Engineering degree in the 1949. Today at least we have spellcheck. My son also has trouble with writing, grammar etc. When you work so hard on figuring out how to spell everything, it is hard to organize your thoughts and pay attention to punctuation. This may not be what is going on with your son, but remember it is not necessarily laziness or lack of listening skills. And it may not be improved with phonics programs. We tried it all. It ended up that all he can do is memorize the words without the added cues of sound. He won't be writing the next great novel, but he's going off to college this year with an engineering scholarship. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Please write back and let us know how he is doing with his reading and spelling.

Have you tried sitting down with him and trying to determine where he makes the most mistakes? What are his strengths? You can learn alot of what's going on with him by doing that. You might also want to talk to him and see if he has developed some sort of "phobia" from the subject or if he is being bullied in school. It might be problems like these that's affecting his schoolwork, too. Also, have you tried getting him a tutor? that may also help him improve alot. I have kids of my own, so I'd really like to know how your child improves or what you find from all this. Good luck! Keep us posted.

Well, try to limit the word for ur kid, and practice him hard, so that he will start with very few words and gradually he will improve

does he respond to you or his father better? I also added a comment to a response below that you might want to check out.

Have you thought about Hooked on Phonics? hookedonphonics.com Save 10% when you order online. Enter code "10OFF" for savings I have heard that it works really great for kids wether spelling, reading or Math is the issue it is a really good program. Here is a site that has coupons for the program and supplies too: www.secret-coupons.com Leap Frog in which you can buy at places like Wal Mart or Target or shop eBay for them that will also help in spelling, reading and math and is probably a lot cheaper than Phonics. Does your son have a lot of trouble with paying attention in school? I make my daughter read all the time, that will help with spelling too.