butterfly113 Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 We have been using SWO for 2 years now, and ds is a good speller. He knows his phonograms, and has a good basic understanding of spelling. I know that TWTM highly recommends SWO, yet it doesn't seem to "clearly teach" the rules. They are more tips. What is it about SWO that makes it so "recommended"??? What about R&S Spelling??? In looking at the samples, the rules seem to be more clearly stated and I have read that the exercises are challenging. Which program do you feel teaches the rules best, and teaches the student to think and apply, verses just memorize patterns? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhondabee Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 My 5th grader completed R&S-3 and 4 spelling. It is very thorough, and it helped reinforce phonics for him (which was really good because he didn't really have much phonics in ps K-1). The exercises helped him see how to build words which weren't on the list by using the patterns in the list words, which was great. And, the dictionary exercises were much better than SWO. But, this year we are using SWO because spelling was simply taking so much time. And, the "rules" in R&S are just "more official sounding" suggestions. There really *aren't* consistent rules. "Deer" and "dear" sound the same, and at some point, you just have to memorize which is which - and that it isn't spelled like "mere". If you read into the nitty-gritty of the R&S boxes at the bottom of the first page of each lesson, you will see things like "the (whatever) sound is usually spelled..." with a whole list of ways it can be spelled. Occasionally, you will see, "at the end of a word or syllable, the (whatever) sound is normally spelled...." But all in all, it still boiled down to memorizing the words on the list. I really like them both. *I* probably prefer R&S because it does help you teach how to build similar words using spelling patterns. But my ds struggles with handwriting, and often couldn't understand what R&S was wanting, and he has really enjoyed the straight-forwardness of SWO. I'm sure he isn't using the dictionary nearly as much in "spelling time", but I have him look up words we encounter in reading together, so he is still getting practice each week. hth a bit! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butterfly113 Posted February 15, 2009 Author Share Posted February 15, 2009 anyone else? :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali in OR Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 (edited) We used SWO A,B,C, and half of D before switching to R&S. We are very happy with the change and will stick with R&S. We were doing 2 SWO books per year per the WTM timeline. Dd is a natural speller and she really didn't have difficulty with the spelling or the reading in SWO. In SWO D, she did have trouble reading the lists that were in cursive only. We worked with that okay--we just read the lists together at the beginning of each lesson. The thing that was driving me crazy with SWO were some of the activities that felt like busywork or seemed designed to chew up a lot of classroom time but didn't really reinforce the spelling lesson. For example, they would often have an activity where you unscramble letters to form a spelling word from the list. If you don't already know the words and aren't really into puzzles (like my dd), this was a very frustrating activity. When we switched, we got the 3rd grade R&S book and just tested each lesson until dd missed 2 or more words. We ended up starting at lesson 16. The 3rd grade book was 2 pages per lesson and the words were in print and cursive. At Christmas we finished and started with the 4th grade book which has the lists in cursive and the lessons are 3-4 pages long. I much prefer the exercises to SWO--they are not busy work. They are usually teaching some spelling rule, providing dictionary exercises, etc. I think the rules are stated more clearly than in SWO but maybe there are programs out there that are more explicit. Dd handled the transition to the 4th grade book just fine. Now that she's a year older she can read the cursive lists fine and she doesn't complain about any of the exercises as she did with SWO. The R&S spelling program begins with 2nd grade. My youngest will start this book next fall for first grade. It is a lot simpler than the 3rd grade book, has larger print, simple words, etc. Dd is old for her grade and her reading is beginning to take off so I think it will be fine for her. R&S is a Christian text and some of the words they put on their lists would never be found on a SWO list. We had several books of the Bible on this week's list. That's fine with us but might bother some people. R&S is cheaper than SWO. I'm getting both the TM and the workbook for less than the workbook alone for SWO. I'll be able to reuse the TMs with my youngest (I pretty much just use them for the spelling test). And I think we'll be sticking with 1 book per year from here on out. Anyway, I'm very please with R&S. Dd is learning a lot, can do it independently, and doesn't complain! Edited February 15, 2009 by Ali in OR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josie Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 We have used both. I prefer R & S. It is a more rigorous program. They really have to think about the words. SWO seems to be more along the lines of using games to have them be familiar with the words. R & S does take more time to do than SWO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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