Hedgehog Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I recently bought The Writing Road To Reading, and I have to say, that it's taking me a while to figure it all out. It's not the easiest manual to understand, for sure. Having said that, I am liking what I understand so far. But I much prefer to use a program that provides what I need, so that I can pretty much open and go. Also, we already have and use a penmanship program that I really like, and would much prefer to continue with this. So - what is there out there that would help me teach my dc to read (and spell) the Spalding way, which holds my hand, and also enables me to use our own choice of penmanship style? Phonics Road? The Logic of English? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I recently bought The Writing Road To Reading, and I have to say, that it's taking me a while to figure it all out. It's not the easiest manual to understand, for sure. Having said that, I am liking what I understand so far. But I much prefer to use a program that provides what I need, so that I can pretty much open and go. Also, we already have and use a penmanship program that I really like, and would much prefer to continue with this. So - what is there out there that would help me teach my dc to read (and spell) the Spalding way, which holds my hand, and also enables me to use our own choice of penmanship style? Phonics Road? The Logic of English? There is only one Spalding. :) I don't believe Phonics Road would be more acceptable of a different penmanship style than Spalding. Not sure about LOE. Spalding is open and go, once you know what you're doing, which you should before you start doing it with the dc. Each day you're going to review phonograms, teach new ones if necessary, and start in the Extended Ayres List wherever you left off. Easy peasy. :-) You could probably tweak Spalding so you can use a different style of penmanship. For example, when you're teaching "a" and its three sounds, you show the "a" of the style you're doing. I've just never felt that strongly about one style of penmanship over the other when it comes to manuscript. ::shrugs:: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ereks mom Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I used Reading Works as a guide to Spalding. It made the program much more user-friendly, and it really did work! But I think you would have to do the penmanship too, because that's a necessary component of the program: kids learn automaticity by not only hearing and seeing the phonograms, but writing them as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Spell to Write and Read was designed by a lady who had been a Spalding teacher and wanted to make something more open-and-go. It is popular but I haven't personally used it. All About Spelling is not a Spalding variation per se, but it is Orton-Gillingham, which was Romalda Spalding's inspiration. That is totally open-and-go. Love, love, :001_wub: AAS. PR is another O-G variation, but it includes a bunch of other stuff like grammar because it is designed to be a complete LA program. Depending on your family's needs, this could be a positive or a negative. I like the Logic of English book but I had thought that the complete curriculum wasn't out yet. :confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgehog Posted March 11, 2012 Author Share Posted March 11, 2012 Spell to Write and Read was designed by a lady who had been a Spalding teacher and wanted to make something more open-and-go. It is popular but I haven't personally used it. All About Spelling is not a Spalding variation per se, but it is Orton-Gillingham, which was Romalda Spalding's inspiration. That is totally open-and-go. Love, love, :001_wub: AAS. - I love the look of it, but it doesn't half cost! PR is another O-G variation, but it includes a bunch of other stuff like grammar because it is designed to be a complete LA program. Depending on your family's needs, this could be a positive or a negative. As with penmanship, I don't need grammar - we use R&S. Can you use PR without the grammar element? I like the Logic of English book but I had thought that the complete curriculum wasn't out yet. :confused: http://www.logicofenglish.com/explore/homeschool What's missing? I'm not familiar with the program.. I just heard of it and wondered if we could do it without being obliged to use their penmanship style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgehog Posted March 11, 2012 Author Share Posted March 11, 2012 I used Reading Works as a guide to Spalding. It made the program much more user-friendly, and it really did work! But I think you would have to do the penmanship too, because that's a necessary component of the program: kids learn automaticity by not only hearing and seeing the phonograms, but writing them as well. That's fine - I understand the need to write as they are learning, it's just that I want them to use the penmanship style that we are already learning. The same goes for grammar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 WRTR can be used with any font you choose. I have read the manuals of many different curricula, and instead of using them, I've circled back to WRTR AGAIN. I keep rereading and wanting to use the "helps" other curricula provide, but the "helps" seem not to help as much as I'd hoped, or actually take me in the wrong direction. The other programs might be as good as WRTR, but all in all, I haven't found any of them all in all to be better, and I've often found some major problems with them. Good luck! I'm about a year into this and a couple hundred dollars poorer, but still completely hooked on the this type of phonics instruction, even if I'm still wallowing in different publishers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgehog Posted March 11, 2012 Author Share Posted March 11, 2012 There is only one Spalding. :) I don't believe Phonics Road would be more acceptable of a different penmanship style than Spalding. Not sure about LOE. Spalding is open and go, once you know what you're doing, which you should before you start doing it with the dc. Each day you're going to review phonograms, teach new ones if necessary, and start in the Extended Ayres List wherever you left off. Easy peasy. :-) You could probably tweak Spalding so you can use a different style of penmanship. For example, when you're teaching "a" and its three sounds, you show the "a" of the style you're doing. I've just never felt that strongly about one style of penmanship over the other when it comes to manuscript. ::shrugs:: NB.. "recently bought" is relative.. I've been ill and had gallbladder surgery since we last talked about this! I like the program, Ellie, I'm just struggling to get my head around how it all works and how to implement it. I don't have the time or energy to put much effort into it unfortunately. I just feel like I'm on to a really good thing with Spalding but it is just out of my reach - kwim? The bolded is very relevant to me! I like our penmanship or grammar programs and I don't want to change them, on the principle that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momofabcd Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Phonics Road would be a very expensive choice if you don't want the unified language arts aspect. LOE Essentials is out and very comprehensive. You could easily drop the grammar portion and do the spelling, dictation, composition and vocab. development. Depending on the age of your dc, there are different schedules laid out. By the time you are through the 40 LOE lessons, your dc will have all the tools they need for spelling and reading. The author also says you can go straight into a word roots program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myfatherslily Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 There's a lot of writing with Phonics Road. I wouldn't use both PR and R&S for that reason. I agree with momofabcd. It's pretty pricey to not use the whole thing. I don't believe it would be a problem to use a different handwriting style, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracy Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 SWR has your lists all ready to go for you. The manual is not any more user friendly, but once you know what you are doing, it is completely open-and-go. It is more expensive than WRTR but less expensive than AAS or LOE. I think AAS and LOE are both open-and-go from the very beginning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honey Bee Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 There's a lot of writing with Phonics Road. I wouldn't use both PR and R&S for that reason. I agree with momofabcd. It's pretty pricey to not use the whole thing. I don't believe it would be a problem to use a different handwriting style, though. :iagree: I used Getty-Dubay with mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calebandbrooke Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 We are using the Logic of English. We are loving it. It is very open and go and I think you could do whatever penmanship style you want. There is a cursive or a manuscript choice for the workbooks, but I would think you could write in whatever style you want. Same with SWR, they encourage cursive first, but you could do whatever you want- it wouldn't change the program at all to write in a different style. With both of those, though like others have said, you will have to do some writing. I found that the writing with SWR (which we used before LOE) was pretty minimal, but enough for handwriting instruction for my son. He does not like writing, so I didn't want to do a separate handwriting program for him, because just writing spelling words was plenty to teach him the mechanics of writing. I am moving on to some copy work/dictation now so that he becomes more fluid, but I would rather do that than have him go through an unrelated handwriting program which seemed like busy work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lindsrae Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 We are using the Logic of English. We are loving it. It is very open and go and I think you could do whatever penmanship style you want. There is a cursive or a manuscript choice for the workbooks, but I would think you could write in whatever style you want. Same with SWR, they encourage cursive first, but you could do whatever you want- it wouldn't change the program at all to write in a different style. With both of those, though like others have said, you will have to do some writing. I found that the writing with SWR (which we used before LOE) was pretty minimal, but enough for handwriting instruction for my son. He does not like writing, so I didn't want to do a separate handwriting program for him, because just writing spelling words was plenty to teach him the mechanics of writing. I am moving on to some copy work/dictation now so that he becomes more fluid, but I would rather do that than have him go through an unrelated handwriting program which seemed like busy work. If you don't mind my asking, what age/grade levels are you using with LOE? We are using PR 1, but we are having a bit of trouble with it and I am wondering if LOE is, well, more logical. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calebandbrooke Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 If you don't mind my asking, what age/grade levels are you using with LOE? We are using PR 1, but we are having a bit of trouble with it and I am wondering if LOE is, well, more logical. :) I am using it with a K and a 1st grader. We have only had it for 2 weeks, but are LOVING it so far. It is very "logical" :001_smile:. I don't know anything about PR1, so I can't compare, but I like the way LOE is laid out and open and go. I also really like the fact that they are doing some grammar, etc. with the spelling rules. We have 4 kids 7 and under and would like to have more, so I appreciate a little bit of overlap of subjects... It seems more efficient to be using your spelling words to learn grammar concepts and basic writing, etc. We did SWR and I love the method. I just wanted to streamline my daily work as much as possible and though SWR is great it is not as open and go as I would have liked, even after using it consistently for over a year. We got into a good routine for the spelling lists, but I had a hard time implementing all the extras. LOE seems to be basically SWR with a few tweaks here and there, but in a easier to use, more logical format. I don't want to speak ill of SWR though, cause if LOE hadn't come along I would have stuck with SWR, I think it's great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delaney Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I love PR. I use it for spelling only with older DD and I pick and choose from the grammar component for younger DD. You could use any handwriting with it. My girls love the songs that go with the spelling rules! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleBears Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 We are using the Logic of English. We are loving it. It is very open and go and I think you could do whatever penmanship style you want. There is a cursive or a manuscript choice for the workbooks, but I would think you could write in whatever style you want. Same with SWR, they encourage cursive first, but you could do whatever you want- it wouldn't change the program at all to write in a different style. :iagree: One of my dc uses GD italic in the manuscript workbook and the other writes in cursive using the cursive workbook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurelia Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 We used our regular handwriting (Zaner-Bloser) with WRTR. It was less about making the letters their way than DD being able to read back what she wrote that did the trick at our house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnandtinagilbert Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 The style of handwriting matters not with PR ;) More hand holding than many others, and great for visual learners b/c of DVDs. No need at all for additional grammar w. PR and always received with more excitement than RS ever was in our home. Love PR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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