WWE and AAS Alignmnet

[MrsWeasley]

I plan to do WWE4 with my rising fourth grader this fall. She just finished AAS4, but she struggles with some of the spelling in WWE. If you use both these programs, what level of AAS and WWE are you on? What level of AAS do you think encourages spelling success in WWE4? 

[Dinsfamily]

I didn't use AAS but when I did WWE 3&4 with my oldest, I stressed that it wasn't a spelling lesson. He could ask me to write any hard words on the white board so that he could complete the dictation. I wanted him to focus more on the sentence structure. He got plenty of spelling during our SWR time.

 

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[TheAttachedMama]

Another option is to use WWE as studied dictation...Charlote Mason style.   We had to move to this method because my DS was asking me to spell nearly every word in the dictation passage on the board.    His dictation passages became more like copywork instead of true dictation.    (And he honestly hadn't learned to spell many of these words in AAS yet, so I couldn't blame them.)    

 

My daughter was doing something even worse with "cold dictation"!  She would guess on how to spell the words instead of asking and leave out key punctuation.   So she was often practicing writing the words incorrectly...exactly what I was trying to avoid.   So she would sometimes ingrain those misspellings in her memory.   If I interupted to fix the spelling mistakes right away (so she wouldn't ingrain those words in her visual memory) she would lose track of the sentence.   It was not working well for our family!   

 

So, we started to do studied dictation in writing.  (We still did cold dictation in AAS using sentences where they should know every word.)    My children had gone through all levels of AAR, so they knew the phonograms already.  This helped with studied dictation.

 

To do studied dictation:  

1)   Have the child read the passage ahead of time.   Talk about any punctuation or other mechanics.   (Capitalization, homophones, its vs it's, etc.)  Have the child pick out any words that they think they might have trouble spelling.   

2)   Analyze those words with your child using the methods you are learning in AAS.   (We do things like underline any vowel/constant teams, rewrite the word dividing it into syllables, etc.)    

3)  Have the child study those words until they think they have them down.

4)  Finally, dictate the sentence and have the child write it.    

 

Doing dictation this way really helped the child learn to hold the sentence (or two or three) in their memory long enough to get it down on paper (while still having to focus also on spelling, punctuation, handwriting, etc.)   That to me is one of the main goals of dictation, right?    I also don't consider it "cheating" to do it this way.   It is teaching not cheating.   :)   It is focused teaching that is targeted directly to the student since they are picking out the words that they will have trouble with and the punctuation concepts they need help with.  

 

(We didn't use WWE, but I am answering your question because we have always done dictation passages that are similar in length and level.)

 

 

ETA:  Also, those passages in WWE 4 are really long!  I tried to do them myself and had a lot of trouble.  :)     So I would not be afraid to divide them in half if you need to.   You have to meet the child where they are at.   

 

Edited June 22, 2016 by TheAttachedMama

[ScoutTN]

My Ds is not at WWE 4 yet but we started doing the harder WWE2 dictations as studied dictation last year and it has helped him. It is applying what he has learned about spelling and grammar. He just needs that in-between step.

 

I do often spell words for him in a regular dictation. In the earlier levels of WWE, SWB says that is fine. Not sure about 4, as I have not taught it yet. Dd went to something else after WWE 3. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2016 by ScoutTN

[Amy M]

I also have only used WWE1-3, not 4, but we had similar problems. DS needed so much help with spelling that he would forget what the sentences were. I would also give more help than the workbooks recommend, but I discovered later that SWB recommends repeating as much as needed (but not doing sentence at a time--which is how CAP does it, actually) and giving spelling help as needed. Her lectures on writing are very helpful. She mentions that spelling is often not integrated into other subjects (in the child's mind) until the logic stage, so it is very common for them to make spelling mistakes in their other subjects. You also might be helped by watching, I think it's on youtube, "dictation with Dan" (or is it Ben?) SWB does dictation with her child. All that said, I am seeing my 4th grader get better at his spelling in dictation. Now with my 2nd grader, I do more of a studied dictation approach, which is how WWE2 itself starts out.