Wordly Wise (or another vocab. program)

[Earthmerlin]

I've just learned of Wordly Wise & cannot gather which level would be best suited for my 3rd grader. I'd say she has an above average vocabulary. The site is a bit confusing for me. Can anyone give me some concrete input? Or is there another vocab. development program out there you better like?

[HomeAgain]

We used the online/app based version for middle school.  I liked it a lot, especially since it made him go through and really pay attention to the spelling. 

 

However, I haven't considered it for my elementary student.  From the samples I have seen, much of it looks like every day vocabulary and not something we need a program for.  I have it in my head to use it for middle school again.

 

Right now we have a set of Marie's Words that he likes looking through.  I don't do anything formal with them.  Vocabulary at his age is still done through literature/science/history.  Our focus right now is spelling, grammar, and language connection (like the word 'amo' being related to 'aime', 'ami/amie', 'amigo', 'amiable', etc.).  Still informal, but setting the seeds.

[Trilliumlady]

I just learned about Working With Words which looked interesting but it might not start till fourth grade level.

[Clemsondana]

We have used some of the workbooks. The levels tend to correspond with grade levels. One of my kids worked a year or 2 above grade level sometimes. One problem that we encountered is that, if you get too far above the target grade, your student might struggle with some of the applications. Like, one exercise had students working with parts of speech, which was above what a 2nd grader might know but appropriate for a 4th grader. Even at grade level, there were usually a couple of words that were unfamiliar. I will say that I used wordly wise as a public school student and really enjoyed it. My kids were OK with it, but older prefers Vocab with Classical Roots. We also use the Michael Clay Thomposon series, and it has a good root word-based vocabulary component.

[fralala]

Well, we have a subscription to WW from HSBC, but my third grader only used it a handful of times. She didn't like it and knew most of the words for third grade; she would get a high score on the pre-tests and it made me realize she was doing just fine picking up vocabulary from reading. I didn't really see accelerating for vocabulary study for the same reason I don't make a natural speller do spelling; if they're going to pick it up on their own, why try to accelerate things by a number of months rather than sit side by side on the couch reading our books and sipping our hot beverages, kwim?

 

The thing about WW, which is either a selling point or something that makes it extraneous and unnecessary (depending on how much a kid reads and how good she is on picking up context clues) is that the word lists were created to include words a child at each grade level will encounter commonly in the texts she reads (iirc), but might not already be familiar with. So it might help a kid who isn't a confident reader and has a tough time picking up vocab. from context to become a better reader, but for kids who read just fine the main thing it might help with is pronunciation (if you use the online program).

 

I decided to postpone formal vocab. (beyond reading with a dictionary between us). I think we'll eventually do something that actually focuses on word roots, which I find more helpful in the long run. At this level, I kind of have been eyeing Word Wisdom for vocabulary, because I do so love buying new curricula even if we end up discarding it after a few weeks. We also have Vocab. from Classical Roots (passed down from older child), and I love that, but not for third grade.

[Momto6inIN]

We use the WW workbooks for 4th-6th. Our goal with it is not necessarily to help with vocabulary because I feel like they get plenty of that with good reading but instead to give them something concrete and valuable to do on their own to instill good work habits. I think WW is great for this, they do 1 section/day and it's not overwhelming but still worth while work (not busy work). Just pick whatever grade level they work at with other language arts.

 

We use Vocab from Classical Roots starting in 7th to really focus on vocabulary itself.

 

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[ikslo]

We did WW last year, and I feel like DS retained very little. It was busy work. Whereas he uses his vocabulary from MCT in normal conversation.

[mirabillis]

we use WW for all our kids. we stick with grade level. grade 8 does book 8, grade 4 does book 4. 

[LAR]

We used WW for both of our girls and we were on grade.  This workbooks worked great for us and both girls definitely retained the information.  Each week they incorporate new words into their writing assignments or during conversations.  It became a challenge to see who could use more words each week....and use them correctly. 

[Arcadia]

Link is the word list for Wordly Wise 3000 http://www.nestlearning.com/files/PDF/ww3k_word_list-level.pdf

 

My kids didn’t like it when they were in public charter so they finished the entire book in a week.

[Miss Tick]

Critical Thinking Co. has a vocabulary series called Word Roots that my 3rd grader works on occasionally. The Beginning book focused in roots, prefixes and suffixes.

 

Separately I have her reading a page a day aloud from Wise Owl Polysyllables.

 

When I looked at Wordly Wise it just didn't seem like a good fit for us.

[Earthmerlin]

Critical Thinking Co. has a vocabulary series called Word Roots that my 3rd grader works on occasionally. The Beginning book focused in roots, prefixes and suffixes.

 

Separately I have her reading a page a day aloud from Wise Owl Polysyllables.

 

When I looked at Wordly Wise it just didn't seem like a good fit for us.

Thanks for this. I'll take a look at your suggestions!

[Sneezyone]

DD used WW for a year or two and I didn't see much retention. The grade level recommendations seemed appropriate though. DS is now using Vocab from Classical roots and I like it much better. He is my natural speller/reader/vocab guy and easily gets the meaning of words from context. WW would be too easy for him and, IMO, doesn't seem to 'build' or translate to new/unfamiliar words quite as well.