SWR or Spelling You See? Same approach? Either open & go?

[Familia]

Hello,

Anyone with experience with both?   Can either be used as a beginning phonics program to help a first grader begin to read/spell or is a separate reading program necessary?

Thank you!

Edited August 19, 2020 by Familia
Clarity. May not be any better now=)

[forty-two]

5 hours ago, Familia said:

Anyone with experience with both?   Either a beginning phonics program to help a first grader begin to read/spell or is a separate reading program necessary?

Learning to read and spell has been an adventure here, so I've done both SYS and an SWR-like approach with both girls; they complemented each other well, and I blended aspects of them together, but at the core they are fairly different approaches. SWR can be used to teach reading - it's whole thing is spell your way into reading - but SYS would require a separate reading program.  SWR is pretty strict phonics all the way through, while SYS starts off with basic phonetic spelling and then, after phonetic spelling habits are hopefully established, incorporates a visual approach.  SYS is very open and go, and takes about 15 min a day.  Once you learn how SWR works, it's fairly open and go, but you do have to read through it and wrap your head around it first.  As well,  SWR is more involved - both that it takes more time to teach, but also that it covers more and goes deeper.  SWR explicitly teaches and analyzes all words, while SYS has more implicit learning. 

SYS takes a studied dictation approach starting partway through Level B.  (In Level A and the first part of Level B, it's straight dictation, using phonics skills to spell what you hear.)  There's one passage per week, which you analyze each day using their nifty color-coded visual marking system and then use as copywork.  (I use SYS's marking system on everything we use for dictation - WWE, Dictation Day by Day - it's our main tool for the "study" part of studied dictation.)  Then on the last day, you use it for dictation.  The idea is that by study and repetition, the spelling - especially of common words - will sink in.  SYS's visual marking system is kind of a stripped-down version of SWR's marking system; I incorporated some extras from SWR (like numbering the different sounds of a given phonogram) into SYS.  I didn't do SYS till the kids were reading independently (started at Level C); however, I think Level A can be used with beginning readers.

SWR teaches words by dictating them and logically working through them, applying phonics knowledge (phonogram options and the rules governing those options) to figure out how to spell each sound.  They have a marking system that both informs you how to pronounce the word for reading and also helps you remember how it is spelled.  There are several activities you can do to practice the words; I didn't do any of them, which is probably why our SWR-style approach was great for learning to read but not as great at cementing spelling.  (Also spelling has just taken a lot of work here.) 

In short (too late), I like SWR for its explicit, logical phonics analysis - I used a modified version of it to hit phonics really hard.  We went through the words twice, once in print as part of learning to read and then again in cursive to cement phonics as well as to learn both cursive and spelling.  I like SYS for its ease of use and its nifty visual marking system; dictation helped my kids' spelling tremendously, and SYS made dictation very doable for us.

Edited August 18, 2020 by forty-two
Adding in a bit more info.

[Familia]

Thank you, @forty-two, for your explanation!  I think that SYS will be better suited for the student I am working with.  (The student is further along in reading than I had realized).  But, I like your explanation for how to combine them; I will consider that for use in the future.  Thanks!

[PeterPan]

16 hours ago, Familia said:

Thank you, @forty-two, for your explanation!  I think that SYS will be better suited for the student I am working with.  (The student is further along in reading than I had realized).  But, I like your explanation for how to combine them; I will consider that for use in the future.  Thanks!

Yes, the trick is always to figure out how to use the least amount we need to to get where we're going.