What grade is fine to stop formal Spelling?

[Mom28kds]

I have a 5th grader who seems to be a natural speller. He's my last homeschooler so I only want to buy what is necessary since I won't have others who will use it after him. Should I stick with a formal Spelling program? I'll do it if necessary. Just wanting some outside thoughts since I have no one around to bounce things around with :) We used CLE last year and switching up LA this year.

[OneStepAtATime]

If he picks up spelling just fine naturally I would absolutely drop formal spelling.  Maybe a Latin and Greek root word something to run him through at some point would be good for scientific and mathematical terminology, among other things, but honestly yeah I'd drop formal spelling at this point and see how he does.

[Ellie]

Not a grade, but an age: usually 11ish. :-)

 

One of the things I like about Spelling by Sound and Structure (R&S) is that it isn't just about memorizing spelling words; it's learning to use the dictionary, etymologies, adding prefixes and suffixes, semantics, euphemisms, and more. SSS goes to 8th (so around 13yo).

[Milknhoney]

I think it depends on the student. My ds seemed to be a natural and the AAS we were using seemed like overkill. For grade 4 we switched to R & S. But even though it took less time, he didn't struggle to learn at all so it seemed unnecessary too. So finally for 5th I let go and we did not use a curriculum. I just checked all of his writing for spelling errors, and if I found any he had to find the correct spelling in the dictionary and then write it correctly ten times. We only had to do that for 5th. By 6th, he rarely ever made spelling errors. I even turned off auto correct in Microsoft Word. 

[snowbeltmom]

I didn't use a spelling program at all with my kids.  They seemed to naturally pick up the spelling of words by reading.

[Ananda]

When your child easily writes with correct spelling, you have achieved the goal of "spelling".   My kids will probably have spelling school work forever.  Our family is the opposite of natural spellers.

[J-rap]

We stopped after 6th grade, and then moved on to vocabulary programs in 7th grade (to begin prepping for the SAT, etc.).  I did keep a running list of words they misspelled and maybe once a month we'd work on those.

[kristin0713]

My DD is a great speller but we are continuing Soaring with Spelling through 8th grade. There are words that come up on every list that are good for her to practice and rules to review. It is very independent and doesn't take long at all, plus it's pretty affordable. One thing that she still struggles with is putting words in alphabetical order for some reason and every once in a while there is a page that requires her to do that or that reviews dictionary guide words.

[purduemeche]

Depends on the student, but 10-12 in general is a good range to stop.

 

 

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[NancyNellen]

I never used formal spelling with 4 of my 5 kids. If they spell well in their writing, a program is unnecessary, IMO.

[EKS]

When they don't need it anymore.  That, or when you can't stand to contemplate another year of it.

 

I had one of each.  I stopped formal spelling with my younger son halfway through fourth grade when he had gotten through the 8th grade level lists in Spelling Power.  I stopped at the end of eighth grade with the older one because, well, see above.