YankeeMomInVA Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 Okay, I purchased the workbooks A-C...and did not get any of the TM's... As I look through the workbooks, I wonder if I'm missing the point. (or if not having the TM has caused me to miss the point!) I'm just not seeing how my son will learn how to spell the words when the list is always right there for him to look at. Am I supposed to give him a spelling test on those words outside of his workbook practice? Or is the intention that he'll learn the words through the activities? My son is starting 1st grade, though he's a grade level ahead in Math and "Language Arts"- So A is far too easy for him--- Before I even break out B, I want to make sure I've got the right idea! Thanks in advance for your input! I wish I hadn't neglected my concern...we've started school last week and now I'm down to the line! I have to make a choice and stick with it! ~Lauren mom to Colin (6) and Brennan (nearly 2 and letting us all know it!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harriet Vane Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 Here's how I use it: Day 1--Read opening page together and spelling tip. Discuss tip briefly. Child does 1/2 the workbook pages. Many people do a pre-test at this point--I don't though. Day 2--Child does second half of workbook pages. We skip the asinine writing assignments at the end. Day 3--Child writes list words twice. One tip another poster on this board gave is to alphabetize the list. I hope to implement that this year--I think it's a great idea. Day 4--Test I like it because the various activities require the child to look at and think about the words, and the tips give the child some rules for decoding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brenda in FL Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 The TM suggests doing a pre-test and a post-test and provides sentences for those. There are also some additional tips for teaching the word list in the classroom. Since you think A maybe too easy, you could do what several others have recommended, just give him the pretests and skip through until he reaches the lessons that are more challenging. The way I use SWO: day1: have child read thru the "article," go over the "tip" and use the dry erase board for the pretest. I usually set it up with columns for the different options in spelling the sound being taught. day2-3: Child does the workbook exercises, skipping the writing portion. day3-4: Spelling test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitestavern Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 This is how we used it (which I may have read in the TM--only purchased it for the first one before I realized you didn't really need them) Monday-pretest. If dd got one or less wrong we skipped the lesson. If she got more than one wrong we'd read that first page and read the "spelling tip" Tuesday-one page of work Wednesday-one page of work Thursday-one page of work (we didn't do the writing exercises either) Friday-final test. If she got a word wrong we would put it on a separate list and she would study those from time to time and I'd put them on a test a few week's later to check if she knew them yet She skipped a lot passing the pretests, so even though we took longer to do the lessons we did do, we always finished a book and a half or two a year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeMomInVA Posted August 23, 2009 Author Share Posted August 23, 2009 THANK YOU!!!! That surely explains a lot... I really was annoyed with myself for purchasing the three books, but the problem was simply that I didn't quite understand HOW to use them! I like the idea of skipping lists until we get to more challenging ones in the A book, too... I was a little disenchanted when I looked ahead and saw that some of the list words were words the kid was spelling with ease when he was 4 and learning phonics via Saxon.... I also thought the writing excercises were ridiculous... even if you did want to do them, there's so little space to write anything meaningful!! And I like the dry-erase idea... my 6 year old protests writing in general, but for some reason he LOVES to write on the dry-erase board... We can save paper in the process!!! :-) I appreciate everyone chiming in! I know there have been threads about SWO before, I just was so frustrated last night with it and couldn't find the specific answers I was seeking... Happy schooling!! :auto: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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