Delightful Dictation w/ Spelling VS Spelling Wisdom

[Wholesomemomma]

Can anyone compare these two CM spelling curricula?? :)

[Bics]

I will take a stab at it, even though this is a bit old--

 

DDwS is using The ABCs and All Their Tricks is a reference for the "why" behind spelling.  I opted to buy the student book, as I already had The ABCs book.  However, you see that there is an instructor guide that is optional instead.

 

I felt like DDwS was a good choice for us.  The first one, "Haste makes waste" had us look at the pattern of -aste words, and choose a few others.  My daughter chose paste, baste, toothpaste, hasten.  A different day we looked at VCsilentE words, like "makes."  She chose to also practice bake, brace, bracelet.

 

I looked at Spelling Wisdom, Book 1 recently at a friend's house.  I liked, it, too.  It is based on the Ayers list, if I remember correctly, so basically it is going to expose the student to the most common words, with extras included.  And I am not knocking it; it looks really good.  However, for us, I chose DDwS because my daughter does not naturally make connections, and I don't want her working hard to memorize "I am, I can, I ought, I will" and then down the road not recognizing that "bought" is something she has seen before, from "ought."  DDwS connects those dots.   I didn't see where SW ever actually taught anything--any learning about patterns in words will be inferred by the student, or not at all.

 

I think of DDwS as a safety net.  It is dictation, with the safety net of actually teaching a spelling pattern, but better than the traditional lists because it is in context.  However, I don't want to steer you away from SW, either!  If you are looking for independent work, maybe Spelling Wisdom would be simpler to implement.