Ellie or other Spalding folks....

[Terabith]

So, I've read The Writing Road to Reading (at least three editions, some of them several times each).  I took the one week Spalding training course.  I taught Spalding to third graders in a school that uses it for K-5.  I believe in Spalding.  But...there are things I have never understood about it, and ultimately, I didn't really use it much with my kids.  I was wondering if someone could give me thoughts or feedback about it.

My first problem is that it ties handwriting so tightly to reading.  My kids simply were not ready for real handwriting in any quantity at the same time they were ready to learn to read.  So I couldn't figure out how to make that work, even with writing in nontraditional mediums.  But the bigger issue was it was just overwhelming.  They knew the phonograms from the time they were tiny, but trying to learn all those rules at the same time just seemed way too overwhelming for a five year old.  My kids are pretty gifted, but I felt we needed something that introduced rules in smaller chunks.  

[Ellie]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

So, I've read The Writing Road to Reading (at least three editions, some of them several times each).  I took the one week Spalding training course.  I taught Spalding to third graders in a school that uses it for K-5.  I believe in Spalding.  But...there are things I have never understood about it, and ultimately, I didn't really use it much with my kids.  I was wondering if someone could give me thoughts or feedback about it.

My first problem is that it ties handwriting so tightly to reading.  My kids simply were not ready for real handwriting in any quantity at the same time they were ready to learn to read.  So I couldn't figure out how to make that work, even with writing in nontraditional mediums.  But the bigger issue was it was just overwhelming.  They knew the phonograms from the time they were tiny, but trying to learn all those rules at the same time just seemed way too overwhelming for a five year old.  My kids are pretty gifted, but I felt we needed something that introduced rules in smaller chunks.  

Well, the manual is called the *Writing* Road to Reading, so there's that. 🙂

If you took the class, then you should know that the children don't learn "all those rules at the same time." The children learn all the sounds that go with each phonogram; they don't learn the rules (if any) until they meet words that use them in the spelling list. The first rule they meet is Rule 4 (a, e, o, an u usually say their names at the end of a short word or syllable). They write the word, notate it, and say it with you, and then they move on to the next word. They don't have to make an effort to memorize it, because by the time they've written R4 several times and said it aloud with you, they'll know it. The next rule they meet is rule 17: s, f, l, and g sometimes like company--they may be doubled at the end of a short word.

Some of the rules are not even written or learned, as Rule 1 (q is always written with two letters, qu, when we say "kw.") Rule 2 and 3 are about the second sounds of c and g. In any case, rules are never taught out of context.

Younger children can "write" the phonograms with their fingers until they are old enough to use an actual pencil. Five-year-olds don't do the spelling list; six-year-olds can begin the spelling list, but they don't need to do 30 words a week (which is pretty much the only place I deviate from the manual).

[Terabith]

Yeah, part of my problem was I took the class a number of years before I was teaching my children, but my implementation was with older kids who had started it.  So while I'd covered introducing it with little ones, I didn't have a ton of practice doing so.  And I did do that much.  From the time they were toddlers, I taught them all the sounds of the phonograms.  And when I started handwriting, they wrote the phonograms.  I did introduce the rules as we encountered them casually.  But....my oldest was ready to READ at four.  But at that time, she could sorta kinda form the phonograms in a nontraditional medium, but it was frustrating for her.  She was not ready to write words at all at four.  But she was ready to read them.  So while I liked the ideals of the program, it just wasn't practical for her.  In retrospect, I wonder if modifying Spalding to a Montessori way with a moveable alphabet would have worked?  Even my dyslexic kid was ready to read words at five but not really to write them.  And when I took the training, we were told to teach thirty words a DAY (not a week) to first graders.  We were encouraged to do twenty a day for kindergarteners.  My kids would have melted under that!  And by six, my oldest could read pretty much anything you put in front of her.  I can't imagine having slowed her down until she was ready to do it the Spalding way with the word list.  

Edited May 10, 2019 by Terabith

[sweet2ndchance]

I'd say your school was a bit.... aggressive with how many words they wanted very young children to learn. I don't have the manual in front of me at the moment but I am 99% positive that the pace for kindergarten, as written in the manual, was 20 - 30 words per week, not per day. Having kindys write and analyze 20 words per day, even if you broke it up into 4 or 5 sessions a day of 4 to 5 words each session is not developmentally appropriate at all. Maybe some kids could do it in K but most definitely not the majority. I went to a Spalding school as a child and taught my children Spalding and Spalding spin-off programs. None of those experiences I've had with Spalding had kindergartners learning 80 - 100 words per week.

Now that I've got that out of my system, of course you can make the curriculum work for you as a homeschooler. Use a moveable alphabet, teach as many or as few words as your child can comfortably learn in a day. Break spelling list session up into manageable bite size pieces. I did all those things with my oldest kids when they were young and all have grown up into literate adults. Romalda Spalding wrote her manuals with a classroom in mind. Teaching one-on-one, as I'm sure you know, is not the same as teaching a classroom. If some part of the curriculum needs tweaking for your child, then do it. 

Lastly, as much as I love Spalding and Spalding based programs, I'm not afraid to say that there are cases where it doesn't make sense to use it with a particular child or that for some kids, it just doesn't work. I had a precocious early reader who started reading at 3 years old. While she knew the phonograms, I certainly didn't force her to start doing Spalding that young just because she was a precocious reader. I waited until she was old enough to understand and appreciate the analyzing of words. She wasn't ready for that at 3 or 4 or even 5. She was ready to understand it around 6 and could take dictation of about 10 words a day at that age. So that's what we did.

Edited May 10, 2019 by sweet2ndchance

[Ellie]

12 hours ago, Terabith said:

Yeah, part of my problem was I took the class a number of years before I was teaching my children, but my implementation was with older kids who had started it.  So while I'd covered introducing it with little ones, I didn't have a ton of practice doing so.  And I did do that much.  From the time they were toddlers, I taught them all the sounds of the phonograms.  And when I started handwriting, they wrote the phonograms.  I did introduce the rules as we encountered them casually.  But....my oldest was ready to READ at four.  But at that time, she could sorta kinda form the phonograms in a nontraditional medium, but it was frustrating for her.  She was not ready to write words at all at four.  But she was ready to read them.  So while I liked the ideals of the program, it just wasn't practical for her.  In retrospect, I wonder if modifying Spalding to a Montessori way with a moveable alphabet would have worked?  Even my dyslexic kid was ready to read words at five but not really to write them.  And when I took the training, we were told to teach thirty words a DAY (not a week) to first graders.  We were encouraged to do twenty a day for kindergarteners.  My kids would have melted under that!  And by six, my oldest could read pretty much anything you put in front of her.  I can't imagine having slowed her down until she was ready to do it the Spalding way with the word list.  

See, I would have suggested starting with something like Teach Your Child to Read In 100 Easy Lessons, then do Spalding when she was 7ish. 🙂

Mrs. Spalding did NOT recommend thirty words a day, nor even 20 a day. Goodness. In the manuals up to the fourth edition, chapter six is "Teaching in the Different Grades." It is my favorite chapter, and each time I read it, I am inspired again. The fifth and sixth editions do not have this.  🙂 On page 257, Mrs. Spalding says to teach 30 words a week.

Was your training through SEI?

[Terabith]

It was. And I may be misremembering.  A lot. I thought the k-2 classes analyzed those words as as a class, not individually writing them all.  I read and used the manuals however they said to do so when I was using them.  It’s just been awhile.

In practice, I taught my oldest to read with a hodgepodge of stuff.  Mostly she played on Headsprout because she wanted to use the computer like we did and it seemed like acceptable screen time.  And when I realized she actually was reading, then we read books and any word she didn’t know I analyzed on a note card and explained the rules.  And we started a formal Spalding notebook when she was about 7.5 and finally could write more than a word without tantrums.  It all worked out fine.  She’s a great reader and speller.  I just never thought of her as a Spalding kid because even though we eventually did the whole enchilada, it wasn’t how she learned to read, although she was analyzing phonograms and hearing and discussing the rules from pretty early on.   It was how she learned to spell.  

My second kid has dyslexia and dysgraphia and ASD, although we didn’t know any of that when I was teaching her to read.  I used Webster’s speller with her.  Some other stuff here and there (Funnix 2 because at one point she was stuck.  She was above the level of 100 Easy Lessons but not making any progress with books Or Webster’s speller.  Funnix 2 helped.)   Every day we read isolated words from the speller and connected text from books at about her level.  Then I tried to teach her to spell, but it was a disaster.  She couldn’t remember the rules to analyze words.  She couldn’t learn via practice or drill.  At seven she couldn’t spell her first name, although she read slightly above grade level.  We did two levels of All About Spelling, but she couldn’t remember previous rules.  We tried Apples and Pears.  But after we spent ten days trying to learn to spell the word “what,” practicing a thousand times every day, switching media every ten repetitions (spaced throughout the day) and on the eleventh day she spelled it wut, I gave up and sent her to Orton Gillingham tutoring, despite being told she couldn’t be dyslexic since she read above grade level (no matter how much work we’d spent to get her there or how high her IQ was.). Her spelling is still terrible, but it follows the rules and spellcheck can fix it most of the time. And she’s been reading basically at a college level for years.  So, it’s not ideal but she’s a tricky case.  

[PeterPan]

23 hours ago, Terabith said:

They knew the phonograms from the time they were tiny, but trying to learn all those rules at the same time just seemed way too overwhelming for a five year old.  My kids are pretty gifted, but I felt we needed something that introduced rules in smaller chunks.  

You need to remember that Spalding was hanging with the OG people and trying to take their concepts to the masses. It was great intention, but it goes kerflewy when you try to work backwards and take the streamlined program and reconstitute it back, like dried mushrooms, for the SLD kids OG was originally created for.

What you're wanting is SPELL-Links. Stupid expensive, but it's SWI (structured word inquiry) that brings in all your OG principles. Heavy evidence base, very popular in the intervention/SLP community. They have an active forum and email loop and basically every big name in dyslexia will be on there.

Edited May 11, 2019 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

22 hours ago, Terabith said:

In retrospect, I wonder if modifying Spalding to a Montessori way with a moveable alphabet would have worked? 

You can do that now with Barton tiles, the AAS app, whatever, sure. You can also type. Or use visualization and have her spell the word aloud backwards after visualizing it. My ds' writing isn't functional enough to write spelling words (poor VMI), so we've always done it other ways. And sometimes spelling isn't really the most important thing. I think there's a gap between what we feel guilty about and what we're going to get done.

Edited May 11, 2019 by PeterPan

[Terabith]

11 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

You need to remember that Spalding was hanging with the OG people and trying to take their concepts to the masses. It was great intention, but it goes kerflewy when you try to work backwards and take the streamlined program and reconstitute it back, like dried mushrooms, for the SLD kids OG was originally created for.

What you're wanting is SPELL-Links. Stupid expensive, but it's SWI (structured word inquiry) that brings in all your OG principles. Heavy evidence base, very popular in the intervention/SLP community. They have an active forum and email loop and basically every big name in dyslexia will be on there.

Yeah, I pretty much knew from the get go that Spalding wasn’t going to work for Cat.  I had hopes for Anna, and it did work fine.  She was just out of sequence with ready to read and ready to write.  I feel better that basically what I did with her is what Ellie would have recommended!  

I’d been wondering if there was a curriculum that was based on SWI!  That sounds amazing!!!

[Ellie]

41 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

You need to remember that Spalding was hanging with the OG people and trying to take their concepts to the masses.

 

Mrs. Spalding wasn't hanging out with OG people. 🙂 She worked "under the the meticulous supervision" of Dr. Orton. She said that the contribution to his work was to "develop Dr. Orton's training into a method for classroom teaching." Her method is not "OG." Her method is her method. The only place where the "G" comes in is the use of those specific phonograms.

[Ellie]

3 hours ago, Terabith said:

It was. And I may be misremembering.  A lot. I thought the k-2 classes analyzed those words as as a class, not individually writing them all.  I read and used the manuals however they said to do so when I was using them.  It’s just been awhile.

 

In some ways, I am glad that I didn't take any workshops (except for a one-day workshop, in which the teacher directed us back to the manual). I have only read the manual, cover to cover, multiple times; I also had a friend who was a Spalding Certified Teacher who 'splained some things to me. 🙂