Spelling Genes

My loyal readers may remember this post in which we discuss Regan's lack of natural spelling ability (I made that post when she was in the third grade).

Cooper's turn.  The force is strong with this one.  And by force, I don't mean the innate ability to spell words correctly, or even remotely correctly.  

Which is why I'm so thrilled about this...

His first spelling list this year (second grade) had words that he could spell pretty well without studying.  (Well at least 67% of them.  Please don't say the letter grade out loud, I'm in denial.) We know this because he is the sixth child, and the studying spelling words with children patience ran out about five kids ago.  Luckily the first one didn't need it.

Anyway.

He got the second list.  It was not like the first list.  It was hard.  Very hard.  It had twenty very hard words on it.  Did I mention that he just started second grade???? I struggled between my loathing of studying spelling words with small children and my desire for my child not to feel like a complete failure.  

We studied.  

It didn't seem to be making a difference.  We studied some more.   He remembered about two out of twenty words.  (That's still an F for all of you who aren't math geniuses.)

So I tried to come up with a creative way for him to learn, and not lose interest before he learned.  

Enter alphabet magnets.

These are the same magnets that Regan used to learn how to read (when she was 3) (She traded in her spelling genes for early reading genes I guess).

 It totally worked!!  As long as he doesn't get more than ten words per week, I think we can do this!  Of course, I'm actually having to remember how to study with my child...but I can do hard things, right?