SWR "lite"?

[Greta]

I was hoping to hear from any Spell to Write and Read users out there. I bought this curriculum ages ago, to use with my dd when she was in Kindergarten. It seemed awfully . . . heavy . . . tedious . . . too much work. So we dropped it.

 

But now I'm looking for spelling options, and remembered this was still on my shelf, and wondered if it's worth revisiting. It really appeals to me in that it teaches logical spelling rules and patterns. But it does seem awfully, well, heavy is the only way I can think to describe it. I don't want to devote huge amounts of time and effort to spelling at this point -- I want our main focus to be math and Latin, and we have plenty of other things to fill our day too.

 

Is is possible to use this program in a more light and fun way? I want to devote 10 minutes a day to spelling practice. Is that possible with SWR? If memory serves there is quite a lot of writing the words involved in this program. I don't think my dd needs that. She has pretty good visual memory, but I don't think she needs that much repetition. Any ideas for how we could make this work for us?

[Delighted3]

If she has good visual memory, you could just use the word lists in the Wise Guide. Dictate the words, quiz over them one time and move on. Learn the rules and talk about them, but don't necessarily do all the tedious log pages and don't mess with any of the supplementary activitlies.

 

Another thing you could try is to use it like spelling power. Quiz over a word list and then only teach and practice the ones she misses.

 

Just some ideas that I have pondered and used for brief times when I need to make faster progress in SWR.

HTH,

Joy

[SonshineLearner]

I think you could use it "lightly". It's the rules and spelling list, after you learn the phonograms... that I like. (And how to introduce the spelling words... Instead of just "testing") Of course, you can spend an enormous amount of time on it... but.... if your child is good at spelling and reading.... then there are SO many other things to spend time on...

:-)

[Greta]

Quiz over a word list and then only teach and practice the ones she misses.

 

Duh - why didn't I think of that?!? :D That makes perfect sense. I could do a "pre-test" on Mondays, then we could go over relevant rules and phonograms for those she missed and practice them further during the week, then final test on Fridays.

[Greta]

(And how to introduce the spelling words... Instead of just "testing")

 

You're right, that is one of the unique things about this program. But it's also pretty time consuming. I'll have to think about that. Maybe she could just watch me write them on the whiteboard with the correct notation, and not have to write them all down herself. That would save time and some of the "tedium" factor as well. Well, anyway, just muddling it over here. Thanks for the encouragement!

[KIN]

We use SWR rather lightly. ;) My oldest is a great speller, so I pretest him on the list, go over words he's missed, quiz on them during the week and test on Friday. My 2nd grader isn't as good of a speller, but I introduce 5 new words 4 days a week (20 words a week) and I dictate 3 sentence with the spelling words for a quiz every day.

 

I do review the phonograms and rules daily, but not all every day. I have them broken into groups so that we go through the entire list in a week.

[Johanna]

all about spelling!!

 

I love it!