nena3927 Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 Which program would you recommend for a 7 yr old that is somewhat struggling with spelling? I pause to say "struggling" bc I know one factor is his age and that a lot of boys just mature into skills later which is completely fine. I have used Rod and Staff Spelling with his older two siblings but I do not think this particular child is going to fare well with your typical "spelling list" type program.His skill level is not where either one of his siblings was at the beginning of second grade. We use Abeka for phonics and I would say he is at grade level for reading, but he has a hard time putting any words down on paper. Even when I ask him to spell the "special sounds" we have learned through phonics, he gets the letters jumbled up and backwards a lot of the time.So which program do you think would be better for a child like this...All About Spelling or Spelling You see? I can't decide! I see benefits to both programs. My worry with AAS is that he will not apply the rules we will learn. We have been OVER and OVER a few spelling rules in our Abeka this year, and he can say those rules to me, but when it comes to putting them to use in actual words, he can not do it without prompting most of the time. So I'm afraid the same will happen with AAS. I could be wrong, but it just makes me hesitate.I've noticed when my older children are writing, they will stop and say, "No, that doesn't look right", and erase and try again instead of applying any rules they learned in Abeka or R&S. That makes me lean more to SYS bc of the visual emphasis on spelling. Anyways thank you for listening if you've made it this far! Any suggestions are appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nixpix5 Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 So my two cents... Abeka is so similar to AAS in many ways. We did both for a while and it felt SUPER redundant plus some sounds are treated differently. My kids got confused because with Abeka they had to make vowels one way and with AAS it was treated slightly different. However, we did every dictation word through all of Abeka and used it as daily spelling tests on top of their AAS spelling so they were getting alot. AAS is parent intensive but the lessons go quickly much like Abeka. The only thing is if Abeka didn't work to bolster spelling then you might see something similar with AAS unless he just needs to see it again and then it might do wonders. It is just so hard to know. SYS is minimal parent work. My kids now do it Monday - Thursday independently and Friday they do dictation tests. This would force him to use his abeka skills in a different way. He would have to color chunk the special sounds over and over within the week. It really cemented abeka teachings for my 3 kids. One of my kids really need that visual color combination to not reverse letters within special sounds. Especially "ea" since it can be so many different sounds and he loved to turn it into "ae" in steak since it made more phonetic sense to him. This really helped him alot to be forced to evaluate with color over and over and then the physical act of doing the copywork not only helped cement it but has made their automatic use of commas and ending punctuation organic. I have barely had to teach much on it yet for them. So I am sure that was a garbled mess of thoughts but having been in a similar place I wanted to share my journey with both programs ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
countrymum Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 I am using AAS and have looked at Abeka. I would say AAS a lot slower than Abeka and uses fewer "phonics rules" focusing instead on each phonogram. It is similar but somewhat different. You can always color code the phonograms as you write the words each week for visual help also they have word banks to read for helping with "looks right". Abeka goes away from phonics based spelling after 2nd grade. AAs has 6 or 7 levels (I'm not that far yet were on level 2). AAS has a 1year guarantee and great customer service you can call or email some questions and brows the websites of each program. I finally learned to spell better in college after I took an how to teach Orton Gillingham class and learned the phonograms.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nixpix5 Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 (edited) I am using AAS and have looked at Abeka. I would say AAS a lot slower than Abeka and uses fewer "phonics rules" focusing instead on each phonogram. It is similar but somewhat different. You can always color code the phonograms as you write the words each week for visual help also they have word banks to read for helping with "looks right". Abeka goes away from phonics based spelling after 2nd grade. AAs has 6 or 7 levels (I'm not that far yet were on level 2). AAS has a 1year guarantee and great customer service you can call or email some questions and brows the websites of each program. I finally learned to spell better in college after I took an how to teach Orton Gillingham class and learned the phonograms....That's interesting. I felt AAS had so many more rules than Abeka. It might have just felt like that because my kids didn't need or like the flashcards. Abeka has a heavy phonogram focus like AAS. They teach all phonograms and call them "special sounds" that the child is suppose to find and circle. Vowel sounds that don't fall as a phonogram are marked with a short or long sound mark. You are right that AAS moves much slower. Abeka covers most of the AAS levels in grade 1 and 2. AAS might be good if OPs son needs it all again at a much slower pace to really cement them for spelling. The incorporating color chunking in AAS is a great idea! Edited March 23, 2018 by nixpix5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momof3plus Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 Sorry I’m really no help with either of the programmes you mentioned...but are you familiar with Sequential Spelling? My 7.5yr old is doing great with it. It’s based on word families and completely open and go, it does require the parent to be completely involved, but honestly 25 words takes us 20mins. I wasn’t sure how my son would get on with it, but he’s actually doing wonderfully. I did originally consider AAS but I felt like it would be too slow and slightly overkill, but that’s just me,I know AAS has fantastic reviews. Cost was also a factor for me and I kind of decided we’d try Sequential Soelling for a month and if it wasn’t working we’d switch to AAS, but thankfully SS has worked out great so far. Praying it continues. Xx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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