How do YOU do Rod & Staff Spelling?

[~Anna~]

We started with the 6 book and went through that faster than we probably should have. Now we are using the 7 book and I plan to also use 8 when we finish that. Problem is, DD does not seem to be retaining anything. She is a good speller, but I am sure it is more from memorization. I was happy to start the 7 book, so she could learn about roots and how words are put together, so she would actually understand how to spell words than just memorize. She is basically doing 1 lesson a week, but all in 1 sitting. And then I give her a test a few days later.

 

Should we be doing it differently?

[Tess in the Burbs]

My kids started this year with book 6. I had them do a section a day. So Mon=A, Tues=B, Wed=C, Thur=test. This way it's spread out over the week, it's a short lesson but daily, and they have retained the info very well.

[SilverMoon]

Spreading it throughout the week could definitely help with retention. Having to work with smaller pieces daily is much more effective with my kids than larger infrequent bites.

 

Our week in the 7 and 8 books looks something like this.

Day 1: A

Day 2: B

Day 3: practice test

Day 4: C + D (D is short)

Day 5: test

[2_girls_mommy]

Wow, mine could never do one lesson all in one sitting. For some reason the days she looks things up in the dictionary take her FOREVER. But mine does 1 section a day right now, Mon=Thurs. No test for her. She knows how to spell them after working with them all week.

[Ali in OR]

We use it pretty similarly to how you use it, BUT my kids seem to be natural spellers and are retaining just fine. It works to have dd copy the list of words in her notebook one day then test on it later in the week (and writing each missed word 3 more times correctly). She reads the interesting stuff on the English language. She also does a separate vocab program, lots of grammar, and Latin, so I just don't feel like investing more time than that on spelling. But were able to get away with it--I'm satisfied with their spelling on written assignments (not perfect but pretty good).

[~Anna~]

Ok, thanks everyone. Sounds like we should split it up. To do one section a day just seems strange to me because it will only take her 10 minutes probably. I like for her to sit at one thing for longer than that, but we will try it!