If you use megawords with a gifted student,

[Kimber]

do you begin with the child is at a 4th grade reading level? And do you skip some sections of the book?

 

Thanks,

 

Kimberly

[nmoira]

When they can write themselves and fourth grade reading level or so, and no skipping because the patterns covered aren't repeated throughout the books. With the pretests, you can skip certain lists, but the program takes so little time daily, we don't even do that.

[Kimber]

What about the sections requiring dictation and writing paragraphs?

[nmoira]

What about the sections requiring dictation and writing paragraphs?

Sorry, I misread your post. We skip the paragraph writing, but do all the sentences for dictation, three or four per day.

[Kimber]

Thanks,

 

That helps a lot. I'm thinking of using it next year with my 7 year old rather than a spelling program.

 

Kimberly

[Halcyon]

We use it with my 7 yo, along with McGuffey's Eclectic Speller for more challenging words. It's worked quite well.

[Gratia271]

Can you skip levels if they are beyond the reading ability?

[nmoira]

Can you skip levels if they are beyond the reading ability?

Megawords doesn't really work that way; the reading level doesn't rise dramatically as you progress through the series. Each book covers a certain number of patterns, usually with an overall theme (e.g. the schwa). If you skip a level, you skip all the patterns covered in that level. The first book shouldn't be skipped as it covers the syllabification rules used throughout the series. Each list has common words denoted with an asterisk (in the TM's in the new editions, and in the TM and student books in the old), and these would be words struggling learners would be expected to concentrate on. However, these usually do not make up the bulk of the words on the list.

 

I'd wager LA gifted kids are familiar with the majority of the words in any case, and the greatest reading benefit they might get from the reading component in Megawords is attack strategies for figuring out accented syllables when encountering new words. It's not at all uncommon for gifted kids to have expansive vocabularies but the occasional "interesting" pronunciation for a word. :001_smile:

[Kimber]

It's not at all uncommon for gifted kids to have expansive vocabularies but the occasional "interesting" pronunciation for a word.

 

 

This would be my kids. I'm remediating that problem with Megawords now. The older ones are doing 4 pages a day. So we're cruising through the program. And I realized I could get it out of the way with my 7 year old, rather than spelling.

 

Copywork and dictation did wonders for my older daughter's spelling, over time. But she could use the structured approach to syllabication that megawords provides. I was doing it on my own with Webster's Speller but these are much easier to get done.

[Gratia271]

Thanks! That helps a lot!