One Sixteenth

Why not use Spelling Workout? That at least will introduce vocabulary and signal to him that correct spelling is important, while not getting anyone's eyes scratched out. If it turns out that Connor is not a natural speller, and needs to have his eyes scratched out, then switch to Phonics Pathways.

I have a student who is *not* a natural speller and this student has really improved their spelling with Spelling Workout.

But then we have used Modern Curriculum Press Phonics workbooks to go along with it, too.

Tammy, can you give me, or point me to, a comparison of SW A with the later books? I don't like the way Spelling Workout A is organized. For instance, in two weeks we'll have the unit on the long O sound. Up until this unit, all the long vowel sounds they've presented have been the "silent e" type: make, like, etc. But the O unit has words like hope and words with the oa combination, like soap.

I guess I don't like the order in which they present the words. I prefer either word families, or a rule-based method with lots of practice. Connor likes doing Spelling Workout, but I know he isn't actually learning to spell from it. We go through the unit, do the exercises, practice the words, and 10 minutes later he can't spell the word.

So since he likes the format, I'm interested in how the next few levels of SW compare with level A.

While you're at it, Tammy :) talk to me about MCP phonics. Is there a review on your site?

I vote for whatever your child likes (that still works). If that's Spelling Workout, so be it!!

Spelling Workout gets my vote!

~K

There is not a review of MCP Phonics at my site. But there is a review for both MCP Phonics Programs in the Rainbow Resource catalog, plus a scope and sequence for them, I think.

MCP *Plaid* is the one that is very similar formating-wise and rules-wise to Spelling Workout. It's called Phonics for grades 1-3 and then called Word Study for grades 4-6. We have used Levels 3-6.

MCP *Schoolhouse Phonics* isn't much like Spelling Workout at all, though both of my kids used it. This only goes through grades 1-3. We have used grades 1-3 which is Books A, B, and C.

I'll get to your question about Spelling Workout later. I've got to do dinner; it's 6:08 here.

It's a tough call. It's really good if both the student and the parent like the program. In our homeschool, I put a lot of weight on the fact that the student likes the product. Learning seems to happen so well that way! But I surely don't discount whether or not I like the item. The parent needs to like it, too! Of course, effectiveness counts, too. ;-)

Conner's 7, right?

SW Level D

Each line represents a lesson which is 1 week's worth of work.

consonant sounds
short vowel sounds
lon vowel sounds
hard and soft c and g
beginning consonant blends
instant reply
consonant blends
vowels with r
consonant digraphs
silent letters
/f/ sound
instant reply
suffixes ed, er, and ing
suffixes ed, er and ing doubling final consonants
suffixes ed, er, and ing dropping the final e
suffixes ed, es, and ing words ending with y
suffixes er and est words ending in y
instant reply
vowel digraphs ee, ea, oa, oe and ue
vowel digraphs ie and ei
vowel diagraphs au and aw
vowel digraphs ai, ay; diphthongs, oi, oy
ou and ow
instant replay
plurals
plurals of words that end in y
irregular plurals,, plurals of words that end in f or fe
possessives and contractions
plurals and plural possessives
Instant Replay
Prefixes pre, re, im, non, and con
Prefixes es, de, dis, un, and ad
Compound Words
Synonyms and Antonyms
Homonyms
Instant Replay

A friend used Spelling Power with her son, but I think you have to wait until they're in 4th for that.

Here's my stupid question. And I'm serious; I really don't know. Does instruction in phonics *really* help with spelling? Ewe mae kawl mee ignurent, butt Eyem knotte shur that it douz. I know phonics helps with learning to read, but for me, spelling has a whole lot more to do with visualizing the word properly and getting it down on paper that way. I also have to use *a lot* of tricks to remember how to spell words. Like friend is fried with an n in it and niece is nice with an e in the middle. Who knows? It seems so arbitrary as to who ends up being a good speller and who doesn't.

Phonics isn't a study of rules, it's a study of patterns. One really great way to see the pattern is to do word sorts. It doesn't make sense, on the surface, that cereal and cake both start with the letter c -- until you do a soft c/hard c sort. Then you'll see the pattern that it's soft c (s-sound) before e and i (ceiling, circle, center, city) and hard c (k sound) before a, o and u (cake, cap, cop, cog, cuff). Likewise, ch says /k/ when ch precedes a consonant (usually r as in Christmas, chromatic) and /ch/ prior to a vowel.

When you think of it as patterns instead of rules, it's easier to accept exceptions -- and easier to find the reasoning behind the exceptions.

Anyway, bottom line is that research shows that phonics helps reading and the more you read, the more likely you are to improve your spelling. My spelling is still pathetic when you consider my area of employment, but it has come a LONG way in 34 years and the smidgeon of phonics I learned as a teacher did help.

Anyway, I vote for whichever program you hate the least. You could also try having him practice the words at least once in a different modality. Like, if he's tactile, have him write the words with his finger in wet corn starch. Or, have him use finger spelling to practice the words. I used that a lot with my ELL kids and they LOVED it. If he's musical, have him sing the spellings...whatever hook works.

Alaska, who at least knows her fourth-grade words really well.

What Alaska said.

I love Phonics Pathways because it walks through every single pattern. Step by step. Tons of practice. Which, of course, are the same things that make it boring. I think learning the patterns in incremental steps is very helpful for reading and writing.

Connor spells phonetically (like many at his age). This is an area of great challenge for me, because 1) spelling is very important to me and 2) I am a natural speller. I see a word, I can spell it. It's as simple as that.

I can give Connor a word to COPY, and he'll write it down like it sounds. It drives me up the wall. Our brains just diverge here.

I don't want him to spend time spelling things incorrectly and getting the wrong spellings programmed into his brain. He is also a very, very logical boy and appreciates things that come in logical steps. I think he likes SW A because he finds it easy to do. He likes the little fill-in-the blank and word puzzle things. But there's no brain power involved - he doesn't actually learn how to spell anything from this. (Being a natural speller, I don't have any idea if 7 is too early to expect him to learn spelling from the workbook.)

Tammy, the information on SW D was very helpful. I'm going to toy with this some more. It may be that I just need to tweak SW A to make it do what I want it to do - ie add more practice.

I am hoping that the things I don't like about SW A are only in the A book. They don't explain anything, and that bugs me. I have done some searching and notice that on the WTM boards several people have said that their kids did not pick up any spelling from SW A, but that it got better and their kids learned more later.

Call me goofy, but why would someone continue to use a book that a child was not learning from? (in reference to the WTM board members continuing to use a book) I just can't figure that one out. Sarah learned to spell before she learned to read. She read Rogers today as Rog (hard g sound) ers. In fact, she is reading Amelia Bedelia books. Amazing. And I am pretty sure that she can spell any word that she can read. But this is the same child who asked me how to spell words from the time she was 3. Then, she took until almost 8 to learn to read. Anyway, I say find a program that challenges Connor, doesn't drive you crazy, and that the both of you can live with. Can you just make up lists of words?

Now we haven't started SW A yet, but my impression from WTM is that A is basically practice in learning to follow directions, and after A the program becomes more structured and teaches rule-based spelling. So it may become more of a program you like, yet still the format he likes.

Just my .02

:-)