Do you do a spelling program?

[Runningmom80]

With your "accelerated learner?". If so, which one?

 

 

We are almost done with AAS 1. My DS is a natural speller, and very bored with the 3 & 4 letter words. I'm wondering if I should power through to get to harder words or just drop it for something else.

[Grover]

we're powering through AAS just because he needs to know he can spell. He can, he just doesn't think he can. It is working, lol! Once we finish it off I think I'll leave it at that, perhaps move on to something more holistic - grammar / spelling / vocab combined maybe.

[acurtis75]

I tried multiple programs with multiple different levels and always end up feeling like we're wasting our time. This year I got the local spelling bee prep lists and we use those for spelling curriculum. I just pick ten or fifteen words for the week and test her. The words she doesn't spell correctly are looked up in the dictionary and then copied a few times. I then have her practice the words on an iPad practice app. She is such a good natural speller that everything else just felt like time we could be spending on some other subject.

[3Blessings]

My dh says to forget spelling because our kids are the natural speller types, but I'm nervous about that.

 

I do think that traditional spelling programs are a waste of time for kids like mine, but I fear the "gaps" people are always talking about around here.

 

It's just spelling . . . but :confused:

 

I am :bigear: with this thread!

[2smartones]

Sequential Spelling!! We only do spelling 1-2 days per week. If you blow through the adult version first, you'll cover the first 4-5 books of the series in only 1-2 years, and then you can concentrate your time on books 5-7 of the regular student series. Those are the books that contain most of the uncommon words, foreign words, or rule-breaking words. (The adult version is a remedial version that condenses the first several student books by growing the patterns faster and using mostly the words that an adult would need to know to function as a literate member of society. A gifted/accelerated learner who is a natural speller or pattern finder can easily fill in the gaps with all the other words.)

[blondeviolin]

We are doing spelling because I like that it reviews phonics and all of those rules. We're about to move into AAS2. I just have to get it in the mail.

[JennyD]

No.

[The Governess]

I use Spalding. We are working our way through the word list, and will probably be finished by the end of third grade or so.

[lewelma]

My ds(8) learned all the spelling rules very quickly. I have decided to use studied dictation for the remainder of his elementary years. We use Spelling Wisdom which has great quotes from literature and politics (Churchill, Lincoln, etc). The quotes were chosen to make sure the top 6000 words were covered (plus of course it covers a lot more.)

 

Ruth in NZ

[Donna]

I used Spelling Power up until last year with dd. It involved a pre-test then studying those words spelled incorrectly. She spells very well and seems to have internalized the spelling rules. She rarely spelled any words incorrectly on the pre-tests and was doing a very high level in the program (J) which supposedly goes from 1st grade through high school so I stopped doing it.

 

Instead, now if she spells something incorrectly in her own writing we discuss the rule and how to spell it correctly. (I think I have done this once.) She always tries to incorporate her new vocabulary into her writing so I figure she is learning new words all the time.

[chepyl]

Spelling Plus and the Dictation book have worked for us. It goes through words by rule and includes homonymns. My son rarely misses a word whence pretests on Monday. We go over the rule for the list and any exceptions listed. If he missed a word we practice it daily and do theorist again on Friday. The next week we do the dictation sentences or paragraphs. It only uses words from previous lessons and addes different punctuation rules every few lists. It is very easy to do and takes little time unless you need work on a list.

[Iucounu]

No program. I occasionally in the past have studied spelling with him in concentrated doses just by going through lists with him, hundreds of words at a time. Keeping it short and moving quickly seems to help counteract boredom, and he seems to enjoy finding and plugging his holes this way. I also teach spelling in impromptu fashion during shared reading.

[abbeyej]

Some kids just *don't* need a spelling program. ... I wouldn't necessarily drop spelling for a 5yo when his previous program has only covered very phonetic 3-4 letter words, but I would consider either bumping up the level or, if that requires too much writing for his physical ability, setting it aside for a while, then re-assessing.

 

Spelling Power is convenient because it covers roughly 3rd-8th grade (they would say "high school", but spelling isn't typically studied as a separate subject in high school, even though some people might need it) in a single book. You can test a child into the right level and then just speed on through (abbreviating the "steps" to learn missed words, since naturally spellers often just need to be corrected once or to write the word down once rather than "studying" the word at length). You don't have to worry about finishing a level (or four) before the end of the year -- you just keep going.

 

That said, by age 6 or 7, I was pretty confident in dropping spelling as a separate subject for each of my kids. We've occasionally picked it up for a short period here and there -- mostly just before spelling bee time -- but generally, we spend our time on other subjects. I'll correct misspelled words in their writing, but their spelling improves regularly and above grade level regardless of "study". Workbooks were just busywork and time wasters -- and there's so much other stuff to study in the world! :)

 

My 12yo is going to the district spelling bee in a couple of weeks. We've been studying for that. :)

[Dmmetler]

We worked through Spelling Power, and are now working through the Spell It! online lists, since DD enjoys spelling bees and wants to eventually go to the national one. We go through however many new words it takes to get to 5, and then those are her list for the week. I also add any words I see misspelled in her writing, which isn't all that many. The only problem we've run into is that she seems to find British spellings more intuitive than American English.

 

 

I wouldn't do Spelling at all at this point except that she likes having a word list like her friends do-even though they might be working on "words with the long vowel /a/ sound" and she might be working on "Words derived from Swahili".

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

We do and also use AAS. DD wrote sentences using the words in level 2 to make it more challenging and interesting. We just do spelling 2 days a week.

[boscopup]

Definitely need spelling here. DS taught himself to read, and can read at a high level, but he needed some phonics and syllabication work to help with spelling, and he needs to write a word before he knows how to spell it. He doesn't remember it just from reading it.

 

If you have a natural speller who never misspells words in their own writing, I'd consider dropping spelling. I agree that I wouldn't base the need for spelling on having used AAS level 1 though - we breezed through that level in 3 weeks. I really think levels 1 and 2 should be combined. :tongue_smilie:

[SorrelZG]

Currently just personalized spelling (teaching as needed).

[Tracy]

I am using SWR with my accellerated student. I like that I get everything from K-12 in one package and it is flexible enough to alter the program to challenge her yet keeping in mind that she is not accellerated in the writing area.

[armymomma]

No, never did spelling.

[happy-hs]

We love SWR. All of my kids use it. My quick learner can simply move at a pace that suits him.

 

Melissa :)

[Rivka]

We use AAS. We started June 1st with level 1 and are currently halfway through level 3, so our pace has been pretty quick. It's slowing down now, though.

 

My child is a perfectionist who was hugely resistant to writing, and wouldn't try to spell by ear at all. She still doesn't love to write, but the combination of WWE and AAS has had amazing results. AAS taught her to break words down into their sounds and spell them that way. Because the word lists in AAS are controlled, she only ever encountered words that could be spelled correctly using what she knew. Always being right in AAS gave her the courage to try working out phonetic spellings outside of AAS too.

 

There's no law that says you have to do every word and every exercise in AAS. Feel free to just run through a few words from a list if you're pretty sure your child understands the spelling pattern. The other thing we did a lot of in AAS 1 and 2 is making up longer and more interesting dictation sentences.

[serendipitous journey]

... we switched from AAS, b/c for some reason Button hates AAS2, first to Wheeler's Elementary Speller and then (that was a bit much writing) to The Modern Speller, both of which are vintage & in the public domain. I'm still drilling orally with the cards from AAS, and will probably buy the materials from the later levels, but am following Modern Speller for our written spelling, which he copies at one session and writes from dictation at another. He is _not_ precocious in spelling or in reading; a year ago, he couldn't spell and couldn't read sentences (he hated being read to for years!).

 

Button loved the high interest and diacritical marks in Wheeler's, but the writing amped up too fast for him (even when I cut back on it a lot). Modern Speller is "too easy" and I don't think he's learning a lot from it now spelling-wise, but his dictation skills are improving and the copywork doubles as handwriting for me. I expect the level will come up closer to his eventually; if not, eventually he'll be able to handle Wheeler's and we'll go back to that.