Best program to explain the "whys" of spelling?

[JeneralMom]

I am a natural speller and always have been. I don't recall learning why certain words are spelled certain ways, and I never learned any of the rules (like, if two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking). My kids are not natural spellers. They can memorize the lists they get at school but they want to learn the "whys" and "rules".

 

Is AAS the best program for that or is there something else? Before they went to school we used Spelling Workout and they did fine with it but I don't think they actually learned why words were spelled the way they are.

[delaney]

I have learned a lot from Phonics Road. I am a natural speller but had no idea that certain combos made a defined list of potential sounds(like ou can say "ow" "oh" "oooh" and "ugh") I never gave it a thought! I can just read and spell easily.

[Crimson Wife]

AAS or Logic of English. I haven't personally use the LOE curriculum as we like AAS, but I did enjoy reading the original LOE book.

[threedogfarm]

I like How To Teach Spelling. There's a teacher's manual and then 4 workbooks. My children are pretty natural spellers but I still wanted to continue with a spelling program with them. It is pretty inexpensive. My children are considered to be in 3rd and 4th grade and I have workbooks 3 and 4. I use these workbooks as reference only since it is easy to create your own lessons (the teacher's manual shows you how). I have my children use a composition book as their spelling book. This sometimes involves me writing words on the white board but that's quick and easy to do. Our lessons last about 5 minutes/day and my children are retaining the information. It takes all the "busy work" out of spelling workbooks. Sometimes I'll incorporate our handwriting into spelling. I'll print the words and ask them to write them in cursive and if they do a good job they'll be no handwriting that day. There's also the opportunity to do dictation as well with HTTS (it's encouraged as part of the program).

 

It also teaches the different types of syllables which also helps in the "why" of pronunciation and spelling.

 

I do have to say that I found the program confusing to figure out at first. Others have commented about that as well--there are reviews of this program on the boards. I found that I just had to start it and figure it out as I went along. This is where I used the workbooks as references--how to present the lessons, what order to introduce the topics, different ways to reinforce the information. It looks more difficult and confusing on paper than it is to actually implement. But I do like it and I won't have to buy another spelling curriculum, just more composition books.

[MomatHWTK]

I like the rules listed here:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/taylor/taylor79.html

[KristenR]

We use All About Spelling as well and love it. I am amazed but how much I didn't know. I too was pretty much a decent speller but I guess I just had words memorized-- now I'm learning the "whys" alongside my daughter.

[BugsMama]

Huge fans of Logic of English here :)

[Ellie]

Spalding. Phonics Road is a spin-off of Spalding. LOE and AAS may or may not consciously be Spalding spin-offs, but you can see Spalding in them. :-)

 

It isn't that there is always, or must always be, a "why" for how a word is spelled, but there are protocols; for example, there's i before e except after c, and when it says /A/ as in neighbor and weigh...and there are a handful of words which are exceptions. You still teach the rule, though. :-) And English words don't end with u or v. Why? Because they don't. We use final silent e. Does it matter why we do it? No. And you can get yourself in trouble if you try to find a reason for everything, lol.

 

With Spalding, you'll make a one-time purchase of the manual (Writing Road to Reading) and a set of flash cards, and that's it. There are extras, but for most homeschooling parents, they are just that: extras. The first "extra" I'd buy would be the Spelling Assessment Manual, followed by the McCall-Harby booklets. With the manual and phonogram cards in hand, you can do spelling (children learn to read by learning to spell), penmanship, capitalization and punctuation, and simple writing. You can also do grammar, more writing, and more *reading* (literature analysis and whatnot), but just the spelling lesson alone will cover those first things.

[heritagelearningacademy]

We are using All About Reading with my youngest and I can't wait to transition to their All About Spelling with her. I have several friends who use it and it has made a difference in a short time on their older children understanding how to spell.

[boscopup]

Any of the O-G (AAS, HTTS) and Spalding (Spalding, PR, LOE, SWR) based programs will work. I use R&S spelling, which isn't O-G or Spalding based, but it has the children work with each word and learn why it's spelled like it is.

 

I wasn't impressed with Spelling Workout when I looked at it at a convention.

 

Also, please do not teach the two vowels go walking saying. It is untrue a good percentage of the time! Teach the different sounds of the phonograms instead, as the above programs all do.

[dancingmama]

We use AAS for my son who really thrives with the hands-on. I use it for my dd but the hands-on isn't necessary and if it was just her I was teaching, I would probably use LOE. It is very similar but in workbook form and she loves her workbooks. I would look at reviews of the programs listed above and see how they are taught and match that to your child's learning style. Or if you told us how your child learns best then perhaps someone would have a best probable program for you.

[Plateau Mama]

Spalding. Phonics Road is a spin-off of Spalding. LOE and AAS may or may not consciously be Spalding spin-offs, but you can see Spalding in them. :-)

It isn't that there is always, or must always be, a "why" for how a word is spelled, but there are protocols; for example, there's i before e except after c, and when it says /A/ as in neighbor and weigh...and there are a handful of words which are exceptions. You still teach the rule, though. :-) And English words don't end with u or v. Why? Because they don't. We use final silent e. Does it matter why we do it? No. And you can get yourself in trouble if you try to find a reason for everything, lol.

With Spalding, you'll make a one-time purchase of the manual (Writing Road to Reading) and a set of flash cards, and that's it. There are extras, but for most homeschooling parents, they are just that: extras. The first "extra" I'd buy would be the Spelling Assessment Manual, followed by the McCall-Harby booklets. With the manual and phonogram cards in hand, you can do spelling (children learn to read by learning to spell), penmanship, capitalization and punctuation, and simple writing. You can also do grammar, more writing, and more *reading* (literature analysis and whatnot), but just the spelling lesson alone will cover those first things.

 

Ellie, can I just hire you to come teach this to my kids? LOL. I've been trying for the last month to read the Writing Road to Reading and my eyes just glaze over. I tried teaching my 5th grader about phonograms and he looked at me like I have two heads. I decided we are just going thru the ayres word list and when he gets one wrong I will explaine the rule. I am considering a coop class next year that teaches TWRTR for my 5yo.

 

My brain just doesn't work this way. Sigh.

[Hunter]

For just the rules and why's, LOE is the best EXPLANATION. the curriculum is not finished though, and doesn't even cover all the phonographs that we encounter daily.The rh in rhyme and sc in science are in everyday words, and are not "advanced" enough to be skipped. Following up LOE with Phonics Made Plain is doable, though. Both of these programs seem to be based off of ABC's and All Their Tricks. The Phonics Made Plain flashcards actually give the pages of ABC's that teaches more about each phonogram. I don't see LOE crediting ABC's but it's as obvious as it's Spalding roots.

 

The 4th edition of Writing Road to Reading is the last edition written by the author and the last edition to be a stand alone product. I was capable of using the 5th and 6th editions with just flashcards AFTER reading the 4th edition, but not before. The 4th edition is still widely available as a used book, and I highly recommend it for anyone who has failed to be able to implement the later editions, but wants to. The 6th edition is the best for cursive handwriting instructions, though.

 

How to Tutor is my other favorite curriculum if someone has decided to do cursive first. Teaching cursive is more than handwriting for some students, because it requires multitasking, of knowing what letters are coming up, as well as how to write the letter currently being written. How to Tutor gives tables of similar words for the student to copy. I prefer to teach the first 20 or so lessons of HTT before starting Spalding or LOE. I follow the handwriting sequence in HTT, but I use Spalding 6th edition letter formation scripts.

 

 

I reserve the right to change my mind, but if money is no option, I recommend HTT, then LOE, then Phonics Made Plain to finish up a few more phonograms and provide some harder spelling words. And Spalding WRTR 6th edition for the cursive letter formation scripts.

 

If money is tight, I recommend getting ONE of either 4th or 6th edition WRTR, and getting the other edition from the library to take notes from. If teaching straight Spalding, I recommend the author's 4th edition suggestion to teach manuscript first, until the student is spelling in syllables. Spalding was not designed to accommodate cursive first.

[Ellie]

Ellie, can I just hire you to come teach this to my kids?

 

Sure. :-)

 

I've been trying for the last month to read the Writing Road to Reading and my eyes just glaze over. I tried teaching my 5th grader about phonograms and he looked at me like I have two heads. I decided we are just going thru the ayres word list and when he gets one wrong I will explaine the rule.

You can do that if you want, as long as you don't think to yourself that you're doing Spalding. :-)

 

I am considering a coop class next year that teaches TWRTR for my 5yo.

Technically, the school teaches Spalding, not WRTR. :-) Spalding is the method; WRTR is the manual.

 

My brain just doesn't work this way. Sigh.

 

You just need someone to do a little hand-holding. :-)

[Ellie]

The 4th edition of Writing Road to Reading is the last edition written by the author and the last edition to be a stand alone product. I was capable of using the 5th and 6th editions with just flashcards AFTER reading the 4th edition, but not before. The 4th edition is still widely available as a used book, and I highly recommend it for anyone who has failed to be able to implement the later editions, but wants to. The 6th edition is the best for cursive handwriting instructions, though.

I see no reason that the fifth edition would not be a "stand-alone" product. I'm assuming you mean that the teacher guides are necessary for the fifth edition (and the sixth, which I have not yet seen). The first four editions do have some information which I think is very helpful, but they don't have all the charts and sample dialogues and all that. And since 1982, people have been saying that they couldn't figure out the manual, so it isn't only that the fifth and sixth editions are more difficult to understand. Spalding is easy to teach, but it doesn't work the way we homeschoolers think it should. :-)

[WIS0320]

I have learned a lot from Phonics Road. I am a natural speller but had no idea that certain combos made a defined list of potential sounds(like ou can say "ow" "oh" "oooh" and "ugh") I never gave it a thought! I can just read and spell easily.

 

:iagree:

[Kathryn]

I'm a natural speller also, and really enjoying AAS along with my son, who is NOT a natural speller!

[Chelli]

You might just want to pick up a copy of The ABC's and All Their Tricks from Amazon. It tells about all of the rules and whys behind the English language and is arranged by spelling pattern so you could reference the correct section based upon what your child's spelling list is for that week. It sounds like your children are actually in the ps system (I might have read your OP wrong on this one!), so I wouldn't shell out the money for a full blown curriculum.

[Hunter]

I see no reason that the fifth edition would not be a "stand-alone" product. I'm assuming you mean that the teacher guides are necessary for the fifth edition (and the sixth, which I have not yet seen). The first four editions do have some information which I think is very helpful, but they don't have all the charts and sample dialogues and all that. And since 1982, people have been saying that they couldn't figure out the manual, so it isn't only that the fifth and sixth editions are more difficult to understand. Spalding is easy to teach, but it doesn't work the way we homeschoolers think it should. :-)

 

 

If you have already read and used the 4th edition, the missing pieces in the 5th and 6th edition might not be so evident. For those of us who never had a chance to read the 4th edition first, there are missing pieces. Some people can infer things, or have read through other similar curricula. and will be able to just use 5th and 6th alone.

 

The 4th edition also comes with flashcards and a record. Most of us no longer have a turn table, though. Mrs. Spalding wasn't playing games. She didn't produce a feeder curriculum. Yes, she did list resources, but the meat was all there.

 

I know people complained about the 4th not being enough. But the 4th was way more than what we are being given now in the 5th and 6th. And to make it worse we are teased and distracted with the full integrated curriculum which is even less complete, than the spelling. Some lists are only partially explained. Then you buy the teacher's manuals and find out things STILL are not fully explained. Then you buy the videos and get to see the use of expensive and bulky technology, but STILL don't have the rest of the lists fully explained. It just goes on and on spending money, and you finally reach the end with little left to purchase and realize the information is just not there. Maybe it's in the training courses, but I was done buying from Spalding.

 

in each edition, more side dishes and desserts are thrown at you, but less of the meat is there. Except for the lowercase cursive letter formation scripts. That was an awesome improvement.

[Hunter]

You might just want to pick up a copy of The ABC's and All Their Tricks from Amazon. It tells about all of the rules and whys behind the English language and is arranged by spelling pattern so you could reference the correct section based upon what your child's spelling list is for that week. It sounds like your children are actually in the ps system (I might have read your OP wrong on this one!), so I wouldn't shell out the money for a full blown curriculum.

 

 

Here is the link to Phonics Made Plain which is a supplement to ABC's.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I've just finished the first two lessons of LOE with dd10, who is a great reader and writer but a very poor speller. It is so great - we love the phonograms and the spelling rules, we love the spelling dictation method. She really, really likes doing it, which is so very refreshing, and well over 90% of the battle, at least for us. We had tried Spelling Workout in the past, but she hated it and it had no discernable effect on how she spelled when she was writing. I had also tried picking out misspelled words from her writing and having her practice those, but again, it didn't seem to do the trick - she continued to make the same mistakes. With learning the rules, the why behind how we spell, she is so excited -she is definitely the type who can't/won't remember something unless she understands why it matters and how it connects to everything else!

[Plateau Mama]

Sure. :-)

 

 

You can do that if you want, as long as you don't think to yourself that you're doing Spalding. :-)

 

 

Technically, the school teaches Spalding, not WRTR. :-) Spalding is the method; WRTR is the manual.

 

 

 

You just need someone to do a little hand-holding. :-)

 

I don't care what I call it, he just needs to learn this stuff somehow! Today we ran into a few words that he didn't know. Child being one of them and I was able to look up the rule and explain it to him. Then a few words later we got to another word with the same rule, which he misspelled again but I told him it was the same rule as Child and he repeated the rule and corrected the word. Then we came to school. So that was an opportunity to go over the sounds of ch.

 

I don't know how long this will last, but he now can spell 3 words he couldn't before. That's progress, right?

[ElizabethB]

I love The ABCs and All Their Tricks as a reference.

 

The cheapest book for the money with the most rules is Spelling Plus, most of the rules and 1 - 6th grade spelling. It has a companion dictation book for those than need their spelling words in sentences, not just lists. (The sentences pack in a lot of spelling words per sentence. They are not literary masterpieces, however.)

[campmom]

Phonics Road is great and very systematic in the way it teaches. If you want your children to learn the rules, the rule tunes can't be beat.

[NittanyJen]

I'm a WTM minority. We love Spelling Workout here-- the rules for each lesson focus are explained well enough, and the groupings of works show him how a sound ends up spelled differently in different types of words, as well as highlighting the meaning and usage of the words along with the blends and sounds throughout the lessons. For DS9, that really drills the spellings home, along with the periodic reviews of old lessons built into the book.

 

Of course, DS9 also studies Latin, German, and does Caesar's English, which makes a lot of work origins a lot more clear as we go, too. DS11 no longer needs to study spelling, but he studies Latin, German, and is working his way through MCT's Word Within the Word, which works on Latin, Greek, and Old English word roots, which explain a lot of spelling issues.

 

The linguistics major in me is satisfied with the information provided by Spelling Workout, but more importantly, it has been enough to help my kiddo learn to spell, along with the reading he does and our vocabulary work.

[Paintedlady]

Huge fans of Logic of English here :)

 

 

I'm also a natural speller, but my dyslexic dd is most certainly not. We tried AAS, and while we liked it for a while, all the pieces and parts became cumbersome very quickly. Logic of English has been a God-send. It's just so darn logical! ;) Really though, I never knew why things were spelled the way they are, but LOE has really amazed me. I love the way it's presented. I'm a big fan!

[kalanamak]

You might just want to pick up a copy of The ABC's and All Their Tricks from Amazon. It tells about all of the rules and whys behind the English language and is arranged by spelling pattern so you could reference the correct section based upon what your child's spelling list is for that week. It sounds like your children are actually in the ps system (I might have read your OP wrong on this one!), so I wouldn't shell out the money for a full blown curriculum.

 

:iagree: One thinks of it as a bunch of lists, but there is a very long, meaty introduction I have read over and over.

ULOE was also a huge eye opener for me. After doing SWR from K-2 to teach reading, SW through D, AAS through level 3, and at this painful moment I can't remember WHAT else, what finally worked for us was ME knowing those ULOE rules *cold* and starting through Spelling Power. It has a light intro for each list, and a spiral reinforcement that really works, but it is me and my brain discussing situation by situation that has done the trick.

 

A couple years ago I was at a WTM potluck and several smart and experienced moms wondered if one really could TEACH spelling, or if it was just exposure. After reading ULOE, I think I am now *teaching* it while exposing it. And it is a very nice feeling.