Spelling Workout

Lately, there has been a lot of buzz on one of the forums I visit about spelling programs. So I thought I’d post what a little more about what we use for spelling and how we use it. In the past we have used All About Spelling, which I liked, but ultimately decided that it wasn’t for us. Then, we tried Word Attack and Spelling City for a few weeks. Next we used Dictation Day by Day, which is free from Google Books. This worked well for us until I got pregnant and had surgery. It was too much work to prepare and I just didn’t have the time or the drive to continue using it, so I ordered Spelling Workout. I have to say that I wish we would have started with Spelling Workout. It’s so much easier on me and princess really enjoys the workbook style approach to spelling. That said, we add a bit to the schedule to ensure that princess is really learning the words.

Here’s how our week goes…

• Day 1: I give princess a pretest, we do this orally or we use bananagram tiles so it’s not too much writing. She then copies all the words she missed on her sheet.Next she reads the introductory story for the lesson to me. Then we read the rule and the list together.
• Day 2: Princess copies the rule on her sheet and copies the words she misspelled on the pretest. Then she completes the first activity for the lesson.
• Day 3: Princess copies the words she misspelled on the pretest one more time. Then she completes the second activity page for the lesson.
• Day 4: Princess completes the proofreading activity for the lesson. Then we alphabetize the list together. That night she goes over her spelling list on her own or with her Dad.
• Day 5: I give princess her spelling test. We add any spelling words she missed on her trouble words sheet (more on this in a minute) and file her spelling sheet for the week in her notebook. Then we play a game of bananagrams using our own rules. Basically it’s Scrabble, but you get double points when you use one of the weeks spelling words.

Trouble Words: I got this idea from The Well-Trained Mind. Basically we take any words that princess has missed on her spelling test and write it on her trouble words sheet. We write the rule that goes along with it and then she copies it every day for the next week. I then give it to her as a bonus word on her next spelling test. If she gets it right, we put the date on her sheet, if not we carry it over to the next week.

So far, this method has been working beautifully. For the first time I’m noticing that princess is applying what she has learned in her own writing, which for me is a huge success! Plus it takes very little prep work on my part, all I have to do is print out her sheets for the week :).

ETA: I have posted templates for each of these sheets under the Free Stuff tab and over at the Elemental Science Yahoo Group, under the Other Homeschooling Helps file. There's a link to the yahoo group on the side bar.

Studied Dictation for Spelling

I've been looking into spelling programs for next year and I thought I'd share some of what direction we are going to take in case others find it useful (and so I can find it later on!). We are planning on starting Word Attack in a few weeks after we finish ETC. The reason we chose this was because I wanted dictation to be a part of my spelling program and I think Hannah does a great job at giving you the tools to do this. After we finish that we will begin studied dictation, which I anticipate will begin about halfway through next year. I'm not sure what program we will use to help us do that or whether I will just put it together on my own. I thought I would share what Charlotte Mason has written about this subject as I found it interesting...

"Of all the troublesome subjects that students spend hours on, dictation is probably the most troublesome, at least the way it's usually taught. People don't realize that every school subject rests on some kind of philosophic principle.
A Major Cause of Bad Spelling
Generally, the teacher dictates a passage phrase by phrase. She repeats each one three or four times because the students ask questions and ask her to say it again. Every line of the students' work has one to three spelling errors. The teacher, trying to be conscientious, marks the errors with red ink. The students use various methods to correct their mistakes. They might exchange work and grade each other's paper, correcting errors by copying the correct spelling from the blackboard. A few unenlightened teachers still make students copy their errors, with the correction written three or four times to learn it, and then spelled out loud to the teacher. The teacher is surprised that, with all her painstaking effort, students continue to make the same mistakes again and again.
The Logic of Spelling
But the truth is, the ability to spell depends on the person's ability to see the word and stamp a photographic image of it on their mind. This is a skill and habit that must be developed in children from the beginning. When they read the word 'cat,' they must be taught to try and see the word with their eyes closed. This same technique works equally well with big words like 'Thermopylae.' Imprinting words on the retina seems to be the only sure way to become a good speller. Once an error is made and corrected, there will always be doubt as to which image is the right spelling, and which is the wrong one. Most of us are never quite sure whether 'balance' has one l or two, and that's because we saw both spellings when we corrected it. Once the eye sees a misspelled word, the image is imprinted for good. If there is also an image of the word spelled correctly, we will never be totally confident about which image is the correct one. That's why the common way of doing dictation almost guarantees bad spellers. Every misspelled word makes an image in the mind that even the correct spelling can't obliterate. Therefore, it's the teacher's duty to prevent wrong spelling in the first place. And if an error is made, she must cover it quickly before the image gets fixed in the student's memory.
Steps of a Dictation Lesson
Dictation lessons done the following way usually result in good spelling. A child of eight or nine studies a paragraph; older students study one page, or two or three pages. The students prepares for the lesson by himself. He looks at any word he isn't sure of and tries to see it with his eyes closed. Before the dictation begins, the teacher asks him which words he thinks might give him trouble. He usually knows, and she can write them on the blackboard. She asks him to look until he has a picture of the word in his mind. Then she erases each word one by one. If he still isn't sure about a particular word, she should have him attempt to write it on the blackboard from memory. She must watch closely so that, as soon as he begins to add the wrong letter, she can erase it before it lodges in his memory. When the word is on the board correctly, the student again tries to make a mental picture. Then the teacher dictates the passage, a phrase at a time, and only repeating once. She reads expressively enough to make punctuation evident, and students are expected to include correct punctuation. But she should not say, 'comma,' or 'semi-colon.' After students have spent maybe ten minutes preparing for the dictation as outlined, there are rarely any spelling mistakes. If there are any, the teacher would be wise to cover them with adhesive paper or white-out to erase the wrong spellings from the student's mind as much as possible. At the end of the lesson, the child should study that word from his book until he's sure he knows it. Then he should write the correctly spelled word on the adhesive paper, or over the white-out.
Children cooperate enthusiastically with this kind of lesson because they feel like they have a part in it. It also prepares them for the second thing necessary to be a good speller, which is lots of reading with a trained habit of making a mental image of words as they are read.
Bad spelling is usually a sign of not much reading, or, sometimes, reading so fast that words are skimmed over instead of really seeing each word.
Spelling must not be overlooked and lost in the rest of the curriculum, but children also shouldn't be nagged to spell. It's good to write long, difficult names on the blackboard as they come up during history or geography lessons. When the children say they've made a mental image of the word, it can be erased. The secret to good spelling is visualizing words from memory, and students must learn how to do that by visualizing words as they read their other lessons. Children do enjoy learning to spell this way."

Hopefully my child will enjoy learning to spell this way!