For those who have used SWO for several years...

[mlbuchina]

Do you feel that the program teaches the dc how to spell? What I mean is, is its main goal to have dc learn strings of letters or does it actually teach the whys and hows of spelling so that they can spell words that they haven't spelled before?

 

I have both AAS and SWO A. My dd6 has finished AAS Level 1, but doesn't really like it. I brought out SWO, and she begs for spelling time. I love how AAS tells you why we spell things the way we do, and I wasn't sure if SWO did this in the later workbooks. SWO A is VERY simple, and very easy for my dd6 to do.

 

Any thoughts?

 

TIA!!

[Mommy7]

:bigear: & :lurk5: I'm interested in the answers you get.

[abrightmom]

:lurk5::bigear:

[elise1mds]

Um... well... I'm only in my first year of using it, but I'll answer anyway. We're almost through with B. Last week we hit the rule 'y to i and add the ending.' We covered it, did the words, etc., and then I wrote 10 words on a sheet of paper that ended in y or needed various other changes that we've covered, and I had him change them with endings that I gave. He had no problems at all. :)

[Kate in Arabia]

I can share our personal experience, this may not be true for others.

 

My oldest has used SWO from the beginning -- started with SWO A and is now finishing SWO G. He is a natural speller, in that he sees a word or spelling pattern and it just seems to click in his mind and stick there. He has always done SWO mostly independently; I know he reads the rules, but I don't "teach" them. I will often remind him, for example before he takes the weekly quiz (his response, "Yeah, yeah, I know that. Start the quiz!"). Particularly in these later levels of SWO, I feel that he is more getting exposure to vocab than to spelling rules; one of his lessons a few weeks back was "mathematical terms" (so words like "isosceles" and "obtuse").

 

My middle child is not a natural speller. I tried SWO with him, and it was a disaster. He missed most of the words on the pretest, he missed most of the words on the post-test. I taught the rule, made extra drills, etc. with no improvement. I switched him to AAS this year and there has been a dramatic difference. He still does not spell well, but has made huge improvements. I can see him thinking over the rules as he thinks about how to spell a word.

 

So, while I think AAS does a better job of teaching spelling rules, I think which one "works better" for you will depend on the child. I don't think my oldest would have enjoyed AAS as my middle child does. The jury is still out on my youngest, I'm thinking to order SWO A for her to try next year, and we'll see how she does with it.

 

hth!

[Tracy]

:lurk5: