Are you continuing spelling in 5th?

[workingmom]

I have a very good speller who'll be in 5th. Up to this point we've used Spelling Workout and basically it was busy work. This year we opted to do a pretest (cold) and then he studies those words and maybe does the one definition activity in the workbook. Usually he misses 2-4 works including the bonus ones (some weeks nothing). He does make mistakes while writing occasionally and knows its wrong bc it "looks off".

 

I like the concept of teaching the rules but not sure if we need to continue. We'll be doing MCT for LA next year and starting Caesar's English. I'm worried if I skip a formal spelling he might fall behind in the common words he should know how to spell for his grade? Its not that much effort to include the spelling just not sure if I still need it.

[UmMusa]

I'm wondering the same thing. My current 4th grader is a very good speller, and SWO is pretty much 'busy work'.

[Cleopatra]

...... SWO is pretty much 'busy work'.

:iagree:

 

 

I have a very good speller who'll be in 5th. Up to this point we've used Spelling Workout and basically it was busy work. This year we opted to do a pretest (cold) and then he studies those words and maybe does the one definition activity in the workbook. Usually he misses 2-4 works including the bonus ones (some weeks nothing). He does make mistakes while writing occasionally and knows its wrong bc it "looks off".

 

I like the concept of teaching the rules but not sure if we need to continue. We'll be doing MCT for LA next year and starting Caesar's English. I'm worried if I skip a formal spelling he might fall behind in the common words he should know how to spell for his grade? Its not that much effort to include the spelling just not sure if I still need it.

 

My dd is a good speller and I dropped SWO in grade 3. Now, I simply pull words that are spelled incorrectly from her writing and make a list of those, from which we do a spelling test about 4-6 times per year. Occasionally I will choose a number of difficult words from the dictionary and get her to spell them "cold" to see what happens, then we work on any that have been spelled incorrectly. It sounds like something along these lines could work for your ds.

 

I could not go back to another workbook format; it wastes too much valuable time. :tongue_smilie:

[scrapbookbuzz]

You know, everyone talks about "the spelling rules" but honestly, who really remembers learning about them when you were growing up? And if you are a natural speller, what does it really matter? Besides, the "rules" in English seem to change with the weather almost.

 

I say this because I am a natural speller and my viewpoint on the rules is, "What rules?" I already know how to spell the words; I don't need to know the why behind the spelling. If your child is not a natural speller then perhaps this will help, but if your child can spell any word that you throw at him, why bother following a formal spelling curriculum for him? Just sounds like a waste of time and money, for him and for you.

 

Just my two cents. Feel free to ignore me, if you'd like. :)

[momto2Cs]

Since my son spells very phonetically, yes, we will be continuing with spelling. I plan to use the lists from The Natural Speller, but to put them on Spelling City dot com, which has Teach Me, games, testing, etc. (and which ds enjoys)

[5Wizards]

I did one year of spelling in 3rd grade and then dropped it as it was busy work. I won't be adding it back in for her.

[Luckymama]

I have a fifth grader. She doesn't do spelling but vocabulary (Vocabulary Workshop by Sadlier-Oxford). I do quiz her on the spelling of those vocabulary words each week. If she should spell another word wrong, in her writing for example, I have her rewrite the word a few times on the whiteboard and randomly ask her to spell that word over the next few days.

 

So far, so good.

[Mom0012]

My son continued with spelling in 5th and will also do it in 6th and beyond I imagine. He's not a natural speller. My daughter is a very good speller. She won our local spelling bee, but I'm still not ready to drop spelling with her because there are too many words she hasn't been exposed to yet. (She's only in 3rd though. I may feel differently by the time she gets to 5th grade.)

 

Lisa

[JudoMom]

If I had a natural speller, I would do something like Spelling Power, though I would probably use it just for the lists and their method of testing (I probably wouldn't make a natural speller go through all the steps to learn to spell a word). There is no busy work involved. Alas, this is all pure conjecture; I don't seem to have any natural spellers.

[delaney]

Not if you have a good speller. I would just keep a list of words that are spelled wrong in the course of writing and maybe do those. I have a TERRIBLE speller and I think I may fall back on PR next year and plow through the levels to see what rules she is lacking. So frustrating!

[johnandtinagilbert]

For a natural speller, no, I'd get to vocabulary and word study for the rest of middle school.

 

For a not so natural speller, I'd just keep moving along in PR and make them mark words as often as necessary, even throughout the word study.

[workingmom]

Thanks for the input. For those that make their lists using writing errors. Is it time consuming, how often do you make a list? Once they have the list how do they study from it, (ie just look at the words, write them a few times ?)

[ChrissySC]

Another one of those opinons, LOL You are warned before you read ...

 

I do not think that omitting spelling completely is ever a good idea. Home educators often stop teaching a skill or reinforcing a skill when they feel it is deemed unecessary without considering the extended consequences. Phonics is a classic example. If you stop phonics too soon, you will find a fourth grader that is struggling to "decode" words in his/her reading. Spelling comes with its own basket of worms too.

 

You may think that you have a natural speller. Typically, this involves the recognition of patterns encountered, usually from phonics lessons, that the child has learned to imitate. This is a fantastic example of how well you, as an educator, have taught phonics. Yet, what and how do you plan to deal with foreign words that are common to our English vocabulary? Homonyms? Homophones? Prefixes? Suffixes? These are only a few examples. While they are introduced and explained in many grammar programs, they are not reinforced nor are their spelling variances learned. What will you do when more advanced words with similar sounds are spelled differently? (-er, -ur, -ir) You are only experiencing a small range of vocabulary in those texts and written materials geared for early-graded reading and understanding.

 

Are you hoping that your student will simply memorize every single word or rely solely on a dictionary or spell check in a word processing document? I think that this is overly idealistic. Being able to recognize the sound or pronounciation of a syllable of a word and spelling it is a fundamental need.

 

Perhaps if you indeed have an advanced "speller", you should consider adapting your spelling program to meet more advance goals versus omitting the subject entirely and considering it a waste of time. :) If you have noticed lately, there are quite a few comments and reprimands concerning the current adult poplulation's inability to spell. In large, the idea of spelling began loosing focus in the public school system.

 

I tend to want to favor vocabulary development and abandon the spelling "books" or "programs" sometime around the 7th-8th grade. With my first, now in nursing school, she continued her spelling lists through highschool, but these lists were actually her vocabulary words. I would say the word. She would spell and provide a definition for testing.

Edited April 15, 2011 by ChrissySC

[UmMusa]

I see your point and think it is wise to consider tweaking spelling (or maybe turning into vocabulary) rather than dropping it altogether. Practice makes perfect!

[Hunter]

Perhaps if you indeed have an advanced "speller", you should consider adapting your spelling program to meet more advance goals versus omitting the subject entirely and considering it a waste of time. :) If you have noticed lately, there are quite a few comments and reprimands concerning the current adult poplulation's inability to spell. In large, the idea of spelling began loosing focus in the public school system.

 

 

:iagree:

 

I was a natural speller, but never learned the rules or any phonics. I taught myself to read entirely by sight and memorization and then spent my childhood moving around while being almost completely ignored by parents and teachers in 2 countries. I just read and taught myself what I could.

 

I have been devouring The Writing Road to Reading this week and looking up all the words I have been misspelling lately. My iPad spellcheck has a bug in it and usually just tells me that a word is mispelled, but offers no suggestions, and this is what prompted me to want to learn advanced spelling.

 

I am just completely in awe of all the things I did not infer and figure out on my own. I just keeping saying "Ohhhhhh!" as I slap myself.

[ChrissySC]

Just do not slap yourself too hard.

 

As well, I often too read things and wonder how I did not make a connection - this, of course - totally outside the subject of spelling, but relevant nonetheless when speaking in terms of home academics. It is amazing the little things that are forgotten or not inferred. I am actually making it a point to provide instruction for "inference." LOL

[Capt_Uhura]

I would drop spelling workbooks. I have a 5th grader who spells quite well. I don't know if I'd call him a natural speller but if he misspells something, we mark it and talk about the rule, he then has it.

 

If I had a 5th grade "natural speller" that was not spelling at a college level, I would keep track of misspelled words and then discuss the rule that applies. I would address syllabication during dictation and introduce latin and greek roots.

 

I think the issue becomes when you get to high school level and reach multisyllabic words. Does your child have the tools to tackle those words? Only you can decide for your specific child.

[SilverMoon]

.

Edited June 7 by SilverMoon

[ChrissySC]

My current fifth grader is a fairly good speller, who still has to do spelling. She uses Rod and Staff's Spelling by Sound and Structure. Often she can get all but 4 words right on the pretest, but she still learns from the exercises in the lesson. These books really make her work with the spelling rules, and apply them to words on and off that week's list.

 

This is the same kid who lobbied to keep Spelling Workout last spring, mostly because SWO has puzzles. (R&S is lucky to get one puzzle on the review lessons.) She wasn't happy with our decision to move her to R&S, but after a couple months she did admit R&S was teaching her how to spell better than SWO did. By the halfway point of our year she thanked me for the switch.

 

 

I use this too. :) However, I have a really bad speller this time. The first time I chose to use R&S for both spelling and grammar, I had a decent to better-than-average speller. I find they have/do benefit.

 

Besides, mom said to do it anyway.:tongue_smilie:

[NanceXToo]

My daughter's a pretty good speller and in fifth grade this year. What I do is assign her 10-15 spelling words a week. A couple of them might be words I saw that she did spell incorrectly in her writing assignments the previous week. The rest I just get from a "fifth grade spelling word list" off the internet.

 

I then have her review those words in various ways four times a week. One is writing it 5X each, one is writing it with "bubble letters" for the initial letter of each word and then coloring or decorating those bubble letters, one is just reviewing it orally, and for one she likes to draw little pictures or shapes that remind her of the word and write the words in or near it. The fifth day she takes a quiz.

[ChrissySC]

I haven't used this - but I look at it often ... Natural Speller

 

This might be a good compromise for you. I was trying to talk to my Dell rep... as I am on hold again ... I wanted to mention. LOL :D

[amsunshine]

I wanted to pop in and say, also, that I don't think dropping spelling altogether is the best idea. I agree that adapting spelling -- or even moving ahead a level in SWO -- is a better idea. In the higher levels of SWO, the students work on Latin roots, etc. Maybe you could preview a higher level of SWO?

[5Wizards]

I appreciate your input on this and plan to reread and consider it further. However, I'm guessing that I'll probably come to the same conclusion for this particular child. Perhaps I will someday regret it, but I really don't think so based on everything I know about her.

 

I feel that spelling was a total waste of time for me in school, and I do pretty well as an adult. :tongue_smilie:

 

Anyway, thanks again for your input, and I really am going to give it some more consideration.

 

Another one of those opinons, LOL You are warned before you read ...

 

I do not think that omitting spelling completely is ever a good idea. Home educators often stop teaching a skill or reinforcing a skill when they feel it is deemed unecessary without considering the extended consequences. Phonics is a classic example. If you stop phonics too soon, you will find a fourth grader that is struggling to "decode" words in his/her reading. Spelling comes with its own basket of worms too.

 

You may think that you have a natural speller. Typically, this involves the recognition of patterns encountered, usually from phonics lessons, that the child has learned to imitate. This is a fantastic example of how well you, as an educator, have taught phonics. Yet, what and how do you plan to deal with foreign words that are common to our English vocabulary? Homonyms? Homophones? Prefixes? Suffixes? These are only a few examples. While they are introduced and explained in many grammar programs, they are not reinforced nor are their spelling variances learned. What will you do when more advanced words with similar sounds are spelled differently? (-er, -ur, -ir) You are only experiencing a small range of vocabulary in those texts and written materials geared for early-graded reading and understanding.

 

Are you hoping that your student will simply memorize every single word or rely solely on a dictionary or spell check in a word processing document? I think that this is overly idealistic. Being able to recognize the sound or pronounciation of a syllable of a word and spelling it is a fundamental need.

 

Perhaps if you indeed have an advanced "speller", you should consider adapting your spelling program to meet more advance goals versus omitting the subject entirely and considering it a waste of time. :) If you have noticed lately, there are quite a few comments and reprimands concerning the current adult poplulation's inability to spell. In large, the idea of spelling began loosing focus in the public school system.

 

I tend to want to favor vocabulary development and abandon the spelling "books" or "programs" sometime around the 7th-8th grade. With my first, now in nursing school, she continued her spelling lists through highschool, but these lists were actually her vocabulary words. I would say the word. She would spell and provide a definition for testing.

[Guest momk2000]

We are dropping our formal spelling curriculum next year (5th) and combining vocab/spelling.

[NanceXToo]

We are dropping our formal spelling curriculum next year (5th) and combining vocab/spelling.

 

We're combining vocab and spelling next year too (for 6th).

[brownie]

Due to my inability to locate the words ds understands but cannot spell without tremendous effort, my 5th grader will use his Vocab from Classical Roots for spelling next year. His final spelling quiz yesterday had "lackadaisical" and "effervescent" on it (taken from the spelling bee study list)...really I think it's silly though to learn words you wouldn't use in your own writing. After struggling all year to figure out something practical, this is what we've decided!

 

I too don't know a single spelling rule but did well in spelling bees and never missed a work on a spelling test. I don't know how to make a natural speller learn the rules...since they'll just learn the word rather than the rule - it's easier that way! If I could make the rules stick, I would try.

 

Brownie

[Aubrey]

I'd never call my guy a "natural speller," lol, but I never liked SWO, either. We started using Phonetic Zoo this year, though, & I think I've seen an improvement. (Pretty sure, lol)

 

Anyway...this may say bad things about how school is going right now, but yesterday ds told me that spelling is his favorite subject. :lol:

[Mom-ninja.]

I am. However, my ds is a terrible speller. He needs it.

[oraetstudia]

My son is an excellent speller and we've done various spelling books that left him frustrated, because they were too easy. This year (fifth grade), we actually went back to SWO, but I got the highest level book. He's enjoyed it a lot. He doesn't automatically know all the words before we get started, he likes the almost weekly crossword puzzles and it has a lot on roots/definitions that he has found interesting.

 

I was tempted to give up on doing spelling at all with him, because he is pretty good, but I'm glad we carried on.

[MomsintheGarden]

For those of you who have excellent spellers - have you considered competitive spelling? The Scripps bee is for grades 5-8 (and sometimes younger in certain regions). Students who apply themselves benefit greatly from the intensive spelling/roots/vocabulary study for this bee.

 

If you would like a book that has an incredible amount of spelling rules for words that come from every language in the Webster's Third New International Dictionary (affectionately known by spelling bee participants as "Websters 3rd"), check out this book and other products from Hexco:

http://www.hexco.com/products/Spelling-Rules-Book.html

 

Our family has used this and other things for spelling bee study, and we have all enjoyed the process.

 

GardenMom

[Jean in CA]

I didn't think SWO was a strong spelling program until we got to the last 2-3 levels.

 

I have one natural speller and one phonetic speller. They both have benefitted greatly from SWO, which teaches so much more than spelling.

 

I suggest those who dropped out early at Levels B and C to take a look at the upper levels.

 

Jean

[oraetstudia]

I didn't think SWO was a strong spelling program until we got to the last 2-3 levels.

 

I have one natural speller and one phonetic speller. They both have benefitted greatly from SWO, which teaches so much more than spelling.

 

I suggest those who dropped out early at Levels B and C to take a look at the upper levels.

 

Jean

 

:iagree:

[kalanamak]

Once kiddo has outstripped the books, I intend to move to a weekly vocab and spelling list.

[pryde55]

My ds, 12 1/2 years old, has been a natural speller since 5 years old. Last year, I tried out Spelling Wisdom and found it was less busy work (lists) and more of a focus on what he didn't know. The routine we followed was read a passage of literature from the workbook, circle words he didn't know, study them, and take a test for dictation & spelling. This worked on his auditory skills (whcih needed work) and continued to build up his vocabulary. I will continue with Spelling Wisdom, but I would add looking up these words for roots/stems/definitions.

 

Feedback from Spelling Wisdom folks indicated this would be more of an exposure to great writing/literature versus spelling, but it certainly allows him to see new words and new passages.