Can All About Spelling be independent for a 5th grader?

[Emily ZL]

I expect the answer is "no"! I am going to try AAS for my 1st and 2nd graders next year, and I was wondering if I might use it for my 5th grader too. He's a decent speller but he doesn't know any "rules" of spelling whatsoever. The main snag with that plan is that he works very independently and hates to be "taught" by me, though he is very conscientious about self-teaching and getting correction afterward. I know AAS is teacher-heavy but I wonder if there's a creative way to do this. Maybe giving him the TM? Enlisting him to help teach the younger kids? I don't actually have the program yet so I don't know if this is possible.

 

[egao_gakari]

17 minutes ago, Emily ZL said:

I expect the answer is "no"! I am going to try AAS for my 1st and 2nd graders next year, and I was wondering if I might use it for my 5th grader too. He's a decent speller but he doesn't know any "rules" of spelling whatsoever. The main snag with that plan is that he works very independently and hates to be "taught" by me, though he is very conscientious about self-teaching and getting correction afterward. I know AAS is teacher-heavy but I wonder if there's a creative way to do this. Maybe giving him the TM? Enlisting him to help teach the younger kids? I don't actually have the program yet so I don't know if this is possible.

I think the only way you could manage it being "independent" would be the bolded method, above. It's an extremely teacher-heavy program. Also, the curriculum designers strongly recommend beginning even older students in Level 1, spelling words like "cat." My DD put up with it as a 4th grader, because we had just pulled her out of school and she was greatly enjoying the one-on-one time and the sense of "accomplishment" from being So Good At Spelling!! (We went thru L1-3 in 4th, L4-5 in 5th, and L6-7 in 6th.)

If your DS can be trusted to teach the younger two independently, that really might work. I certainly "learned the rules" along with my DD! I never knew the "Find Gold Rule" for example. (That is, when a single-syllable word contains a vowel followed by two consonants, the vowel generally takes the long sound rather than the short.) Just very dependent on all 3 kids' personalities! My older brother was 4 years older and I would not have put up with him teaching me.

[domestic_engineer]

I think you could, assuming he will truly digest the information and not just skim read and git ‘r done. 

 I’m basically reading the TM anyways to my older kids.   So I’d give the TM to the kid to read and then record the words and dictation sentences and writing station words. In other words, make it look a lot like IEW’s spelling program by recording everything (except the instruction portion) ahead of time. 

 

[EKS]

I would say no, as AAS isn't designed to be used independently (learning the rules by quizzing with the cards, dictation, etc).  I suppose you could make it work by doing a lot of prep work beforehand.