HSinNH Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 I have read so many threads about people loving SS. DD11 is not a great speller, to say the least. She is an avid reader and probably reads way above grade level, but I have never had her officially tested. She is also very good in math. But, she struggles so much with spelling! When she spells words incorrectly, I ask if if it "looks right" and she does not know. She reads very quickly, as well, but seems to have good comprehension, so I wonder if that is part of the issue. So, anyone here not have success with SS for this type of child? TIA!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lily_Grace Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 I have read so many threads about people loving SS. DD11 is not a great speller, to say the least. She is an avid reader and probably reads way above grade level, but I have never had her officially tested. She is also very good in math. But, she struggles so much with spelling! When she spells words incorrectly, I ask if if it "looks right" and she does not know. She reads very quickly, as well, but seems to have good comprehension, so I wonder if that is part of the issue. So, anyone here not have success with SS for this type of child? TIA!! It did not work for us. The patterns and lists were not remembered outside of spelling time. What has worked is drilling roots, prefixes, and suffixes. If he knows what a word means, he can break it down into the parts and get reasonably close if not spell it correctly now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Education Explorers Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 My daughter (11) is also an avid reader and excellent writer (except for her atrocious spelling). Like her mother, she couldn't spell her way out of a paper bag. We tried SS last year. It seemed really promising since she was clearly NOT a naturally gifted speller. It did not go very well and she really did not like the program. For whatever reason, she was not able to retain the patterns that she was supposed to be absorbing. She did like the fact that the daily lessons were quick. But I found that she needed to be "tested" much more frequently then the program recommended. She had way too many "gaps" in what she had learned otherwise. Much to her chagrin I also continued to test her on words she continuously misspelled from week to week. It would take FOREVER before there would be improvement on the ones she kept missing. But the whole point is to actually learn how to spell, so it was not an overall success for us. This year we tried Spelling Workout Level G. It has been a much better fit for us. She works on 20 words a week that have some sort of a logical connection whether it be a Latin/Greek root or a suffix etc. This allows her to be a little more consistent in her spelling and more successful. I give her a pre-test for each group of words. If she knows them, we skip the lesson and move on to the next. I plan on using the next book next year. Good Luck! (As an aside, I am a horrific speller and an attorney. Thanks to the beauty of spell check, I can avoid looking like a complete moron USUALLY, but not always. Thank goodness for technology. I do, however, avoid handwriting anything at all costs. Try not to let your daughter get too discouraged. It can be extremely frustrating for an intelligent person to struggle with spelling.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 My struggling speller has done wonderfully with SS. It's enjoyable, too. My good speller, strangely enough, couldn't make progress with SS. It was a bit overwhelming for her, and she kept failing the assessments. So although I still love the program, it didn't with for one of my children. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 My struggling spellers floundered with SS. We hated it. Not enough explanation and it seemed random to me, IMHO. I know it said sequential, but I disagree. I know people who love it but it never worked for MY kids. I had one dyslexic ds who did terrible with it (unsurprisingly) and an excellent reader but VSL who did NOT get it. The VSL did great with AAS and now Spelling Wisdom and my ds is doing great with Apples & Pears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommee & Baba Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 It didn't work for us. We immediately switched to AAS and have never looked back. My dd's didn't like the layout and the way they were taught. AAS is more their style and mine too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mschickie Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 It did not work well for us. We switched to Spelling Power this year and I have seen a tremendous improvement in dd's spelling. She really needs the reinforcement that Spelling Power provides. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deannajo Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 SS brought my struggling speller to tears. She hated it. My better speller did fine with it, and at first we loved it for her, but eventually she found it boring and I found she wasn't retaining as much as I'd like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadeOrchidSong Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 SS didn't work for us. We did 4/5 of book 1 and switched to AAS, did AAS1-4, and went on to Spelling Power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 SS worked great for us, but I also explicitly pointed out things like the prefixes/roots/suffixes and what pattern/rule it was showing (the patterns are heavy on how spelling is affected by prefixes/suffixes). I also used it to riff on etymology and how that influences the spelling of words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelmama1209 Posted January 14, 2013 Share Posted January 14, 2013 we HATED it. subscribing as i am researching spelling for next year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matrips Posted January 14, 2013 Share Posted January 14, 2013 I thought we would love this, so of course I bought it. But nope. Turns out I really wanted to be able to spell anything, and know why and how to approach the spelling of a new word. We started with AAS. And it was Perfect. We are now doing AaS 4. I like it, easy and scripted. The kids like it. And they can spell almost any new word they get by the techniques, phonograms and rules they've learned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jujsky Posted January 14, 2013 Share Posted January 14, 2013 My struggling speller has done wonderfully with SS. It's enjoyable, too. My good speller, strangely enough, couldn't make progress with SS. It was a bit overwhelming for her, and she kept failing the assessments. So although I still love the program, it didn't with for one of my children. This has been my experience too. DS struggles with spelling, but is doing very well with this program because there is no pressure and very few tests. DD was always great with our previous spelling programs (memorizing a list of words), would test early, and always get 100. She gets very frustrated with this program. I will say that despite her frustration, I'm finding fewer spelling mistakes in both of their written work. In previous years DD would memorize her words for a test and then a few weeks later would misspell them if they came up in her writing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted January 14, 2013 Share Posted January 14, 2013 If you have a student who is a discovery-oriented learner, Sequential might work out. SS relies on the student noticing and remembering patterns, but doesn't explain any of them (such as changing y to i when adding certain suffixes, doubling consonants, why we use C sometimes, K other times, and CK other times, etc...) My student was very frustrated by this and wanted more direct, explicit teaching. We tried several things along the way, but AAS has been the best fit, and we've done levels 1-7 (oldest) and 1-6 (youngest). Hope you find a program that will work well for you! Merry :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSinNH Posted January 16, 2013 Author Share Posted January 16, 2013 Thank you everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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