AAS for this natural speller?

[Homemama2]

I have AAS 1-6 for my older ds who is NOT a natural speller and it has been wonderful. However my younger ds is a very good speller and is getting very frustrated with AAS. He says the words are "baby words" that he knew in 1st grade. (He's in book 4.) He usually knows the words each week without any practice. In fact my 5th grader often asks him for spelling help.

The funny thing is that the sound are incredibly hard for him, so I haven't tried just flying through the levels b/c I was trying to have him learn those cards... Should I just keep at AAS and try it at a faster pace? Should I not worry if he can't get the sound cards as long as he's spelling the words fine? (I never learned sound cards and survived, after all.) ;)

 

I have a copy of Spelling Power, How to Teach Spelling and the McGuffey speller, and I'm wondering if I should try something else with him.

[Aurelia]

I'd keep drilling the sound cards, but just test him on the word lists and move on if he can spell all of them.

[nansk]

I'd keep drilling the sound cards, but just test him on the word lists and move on if he can spell all of them.

 

Agree.

And you can work on the related words (same phonogram/rule) from How To Teach Spelling.

[suzielou]

I am using AAS with my dd8 who desperately needs it and my DS7, right under her that doesn't. My oldest is a natural speller and has done great with Rod & Staff spelling. He thought that it was so easy what the little ones were doing that I had him run through the cards with me silently counting to three before putting it in the hit or miss piles. He wasn't laughing so much then. He went through levels 1-3 in two weeks, so I decided to let him continue with his other spelling and save my pocketbook.

[mom2att]

I'm of the opinion that some kids just don't need that much direct spelling instruction. My oldest is a natural speller who did Spelling Workout when she was younger. She's 16 now, and if I tested her on the red sound cards from her brothers' AAS, she would probably miss quite a few. But that doesn't mean she needs to go back and do AAS--she just knows many of those spelling rules intuitively and puts them into practice without needing to learn each and every one directly.

 

AAS is super for kids who need specific, direct spelling instruction. For those who don't, it's really okay to take a pass on AAS.

[boscopup]

I'm of the opinion that some kids just don't need that much direct spelling instruction. My oldest is a natural speller who did Spelling Workout when she was younger. She's 16 now, and if I tested her on the red sound cards from her brothers' AAS, she would probably miss quite a few. But that doesn't mean she needs to go back and do AAS--she just knows many of those spelling rules intuitively and puts them into practice without needing to learn each and every one directly.

 

Good point. I've always been an excellent speller (and reader), but I didn't know the different sounds of each phonogram until I started teaching AAS. I intuited the phonics. And really, the AAS phonograms are just *that* program's idea of the sounds of the English language. You go to other reading/spelling programs, and you'll have different phonograms, different numbers of sounds, etc. I wouldn't expect a child not trained in those things to automatically know all the sounds of the letter 'a'. If they can read and spell well, including advanced words, what does it matter?

 

I still have trouble remembering all of those phonogram sounds, and I read/spell phonetically, not by sight!

[Homemama2]

Thanks. I think we'll start trying to work more quickly through the steps and not worry quite so much about the sound cards. :)