R&S Phonics and Spelling programs

[Hedgehog]

If you're using or have used either or both of these programs, please could you tell me as much as you can about them and why you like/dislike them?

 

All I can get from the website is that the Phonics program goes up to 2nd grade, and the Spelling program goes from 2nd through 8th grade.

 

Thanks. :bigear:

[LauraQ]

For some reason my kids LOVED the R&S Spelling books. Unfortunately, my daughter has such poor spelling skills that I was afraid that 10-20 words a week wasn't fast enough ;-)

 

I think it would have been best if I'd used it from the beginning with dd but I was busy trying lots of other "developmental" spelling programs that were, in a word, useless. If I had it to do all over again, I would use R&S Spelling for her from the beginning to the end, even though I do not like schoolish, workbooky type things in my homeschool.

[Robin's Song]

I own both the phonics and spelling, but we have only just started to use the phonics. My original plan was to start Spelling 2 in 1st grade, but I have decided to use Spelling 2 in 2nd grade as scheduled.

 

I am using it to teach phonograms and for intensive phonics reinforcement. My daughter is a great reader thanks to OPGTR, and I plan to continue OPGTR to its completion. I'm not sure I would use R&S phonics to teach reading, but I do like it for spelling :). The reading program...bleh. Uninspiring, workbooky. I much prefer real books and narration--or at least something like MP reading that uses real books.

 

I recently started a thread about this, but I'll give you a look at the first lesson we did. We skipped unit 1 and went straight to unit 2. The beauty of it is in the TM. We discussed different ways to make the long A sound.

a-e, with - being a consonant (take)

ai-, a consonant will follow (paid)

ay (hay)

 

We did some work on the whiteboard or you could work with letter tiles/letter magnets--or even do it all orally as intended. I had dd do some of the workbook that I thought would be beneficial. The first page gave the rule (ai-) and then dd had to supply the word that corresponded with the picture (tail, bait, pail). The second page had words with blanks and dd had to supply the correct letter.

 

b_k_ (dd had to use the a-e rule)

qu_ _ l (ai, quail)

 

I would ask things like, "How do you know hay is spelled with an "ay" instead of "ai"? Her: "Because ai can not come at the end of a word--it would need to be followed by a consonant sound".

 

There were 25 of those exercises but I only had dd do a few. While I had my back turned she finished the whole page :tongue_smilie:. She must have been in a weird mood that day. There are also flash cards with digraphs, blends, etc...We have only recently started using the program and I have no problem using only what meets our needs. I can see how it could easily be overwhelming to some people and I will say that I do not intend to use it every day. This works well for my daughter because 1) She is very social and loves the back and forth of thinking things through with me and 2) She is like her mama and likes to see the big picture--why are things the way they are, and what is its purpose?--and then get down to the nitty gritty of spelling individual words.

 

Does that help?

Edited September 23, 2010 by Robin's Song

[Guest]

We absolutely LOVE it. Mydd was using something else for phonics last year, and was struggling, so we switched to R&S. It was a lifesaver, and we decided to stick with it. It is easy for the child to understand, and moves at a good pace. I do not have any dislikes.

[Hedgehog]

Thanks so much for your thoughts.

 

Do you think it's a good idea to use it along side OPGTR and ETC or is that overkill? And if you did, how would you sync it all?

 

Anyone else? :lurk5:

[Robin's Song]

Thanks so much for your thoughts.

 

Do you think it's a good idea to use it along side OPGTR and ETC or is that overkill? And if you did, how would you sync it all?

 

Anyone else? :lurk5:

 

Which program? You could use R&S Spelling along with OPGTR and ETC. Phonics and ETC would be overkill. Hard core overkill :D

[cheryl h]

We are new to R&S this year, but it is going well with some tweeking. I really like the Phonics because it really is more of a spelling program at this point(2nd grade). The spelling program is just the right amount of work. It didn't take very long to see we needed to modify the reading though. The actual amount of reading is very small...not enough...even for my "I hate books" kid(ds7). However the workbook that goes with it is a ton of work. There are 4-5 pages a day! My most compliant, workbooky child (dd7)would give me the stink eye every time we did them, and it took for.ev.er. The first 2 1/2 pages are mostly vocabulary/new word introduction, so we still do those, but the next 2 1/2 pages of comprehension questions we just do orally now. That makes it so much more manageable. Doing the comp questions orally may lead to narration type writing if I can slip it in.