New to HS. Please recommend spelling programs.

[Letitia]

I will be homeschooling my eight year old boy/girl twins next year who will be in third grade.  Both children now read at a 4th grade level, but just this morning, my son asked me how to spell "when."  None of his attempts included an h.  As a clue, I told him to think of the words what, where, why and which.   He's smart but was slow to twig to this one, which surprised me.   I've been reading the WTM book.  "Spelling Workout" seems like a good choice.   My question:  Should I begin with Spelling Workout A (first-grade level)?  If I begin with Spelling Workout C (third-grade level), will they have missed important material?  Thanks in advance.

[Miss Tick]

We tried Spelling Workout early on, but it wasn't a good fit for us. I later decided not to start spelling as a subject until 3rd grade when they are doing more writing and have opportunities to actually use the words actively - so you are ahead of me there!

We've been using the book Spelling Power for a long time. I think it works well if your kids are average spellers - not super, natural spellers and not struggling spellers. Spelling Power is mainly a bunch of words grouped by common spelling rules. I give the test, write down what was missed and then go on. Every few tests we focus on the "missed list". If you can spell a word correctly on the missed list it gets a check, the second time you spell it correctly on a test it comes off. Sometimes I have people specifically study a few words from the missed list - we've used a number of different approaches that they can choose from. I like that I don't have to get new workbooks regularly, there is no busy work for words they already know how to spell, and it keeps me aware of what spelling words they struggle with.

 

[....]

I am a huge fan of All About Spelling.  I don't even buy anything but the Teacher's Manual and I teach it on a dry erase board.  I used it for Kids #3 and #4 and I intend to use it with my youngest next year.

[Letitia]

Thank you both so much. I will check out these options.  I’ve posted this concern in the wrong forum so will rest with these two recommendations.  Susan, really like your testing method. Thanks for the tips. 

[HomeAgain]

I think you're going to find everyone does spelling differently. 🙂 We prefer a dictation method where words consistently rotate through all year long as new ones are added.  You can probably go on a site like Rainbow Resource or Christian Book Distributors and see a good portion of what is out there and feel them out to see what would work best for you.

[Melissa in Australia]

I am another huge fan of All About Spelling.

 

 I took my older children out of school after a few years. One thing that really helped boost their confidence in some subjects like spelling is we started right at the beginning and did one weeks lesson per day until we hit their level. they loved whizzing through the books.- But my children have Dyslexia so needed some reinforcements of the lower levels AND they needed a major confidence boost. We were very careful to not use grade levels for subject, but rather working levels.

[Dolphin]

I used the Phonetic Zoo and I really loved it. I wrote a huge review about it years ago.  Cool, I opened another tab and it is still there. I am just returning to Homeschool after a 2 and a half year gap.