If I only do dictation, would that be enough spelling?

[steppingstonemomma]

Background: We've used SWR loosely through the past few years. Kids know phonograms and how to mark words and have worked through MANY lists but still aren't testing very far on the diagnostic tests.

I gave up doing word dictation and marking and quizzing and just have been doing studied dictation of sentences from their school books (also some from the WISE guide). I want to do dictation next year anyway, but I'm wondering if I should do:

1. Studied dictation with another spelling workbook (no idea which one since there aren't any out there that teach SWR's way! Grrrr...)

2. Just studied dictation- is this ENOUGH to produce a good speller (none of mine are natural spellers)

[Spock]

It really depends on your child. While I have tried spelling books off and on with my children, I always go back to just dictation. My older two never had much trouble with spelling, and still spell well as high schoolers.

 

My 3rd grader is probably mildly dyslexic. She couldn't read much at all until mid-second grade. However, she has gone from mid-first grade reading level in October of 2nd grade to late 5th grade (estimated by which books she reads) now in late 3rd grade. She will still guess at new words before trying to sound them out, however, because she says the letters "move around on the page" and the word doesn't always look the same to her. Because of her problems, I originally planned to have her use a spelling book along with dictation. However, I dropped the book a few weeks into the school year because I realized that she remembered the words that kept showing up in her dications, while she forgot her spelling words almost immediately. (We do dictation of 2 sentences per day, every day. I use a variety of sentences from her school books--reading, read aloud/literature, science, history, and Bible. I do show her difficult spellings and punctuation before we start, but otherwise she does dictation cold more than pre-studied.) Her spelling has improved this year, but she still doesn't spell anywhere near her reading level.

[skaterbabs]

If you really don't want to do spelling, have you considered Etymology? It's actually a LOT more fun than plain old spelling and I really liked ACE's course when I was in school. (For two years I attended a private school that used ACE curricula.) The PACEs are fairly quick and easy to work through, and it's not expensive. I think each book/answer key is $4, and there are twelve books + 4 answer keys per level.

 

IIRC, Etymology began in 8th grade, replacing spelling at that level.

[SilverMoon]

That's how my second does her spelling. I use Spelling Wisdom for her. The author has already done the grunt work to get all the words kids "should" know spread throughout the books. I copy the page off for dd. She identifies the words she thinks she'll have a problem with, copies the whole passage and works on the "problem" words. When she thinks she's ready to do it she hands me the SW page and asks me to dictate it back to her. Every couple weeks I'll do a review of the lessons she's already done.

 

I tried talking my oldest (ds) into SW too. Dd and I really enjoy her spelling being done this way. He prefers R&S instead. :)

[Caroline4kids]

I love dictation. When I was studying the CM method I learned that spelling really requires the abillity to photograph a word in your mind. With so many exceptions to phonetic rules it makes sense that seeing a word forwards and backwards really helps to make it stick.

 

My kids study the problem words in their dictation until they can see them backwards. We also pick out any common phonics blends or digraphs.

 

I like Spelling Wisdom too.

[steppingstonemomma]

Hmmm... so, do you all think dictation is a "better" way of teaching spelling than using a workbook with lists since it is in context with a sentence?

 

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around ONLY doing dictation.....

[SilverMoon]

For *our* family it's worked better. Totally. My kid using Spelling Wisdom isn't a natural speller either. We talk about the phonics rules of the words she's learning and how else it pops up. If one is particularly troublesome we just hang out at that lesson until she's ready for it. Spelling Wisdom moves entirely at her pace. She's retaining well and loves that book. She gets excited to see if she knows the author of the new lesson. Spelling workbooks were overwhelming to her, she could memorize the words but didn't internalize the phonics rules well.

 

My oldest, who's not using Spelling Wisdom, isn't using any spelling curriculum right now. He has learned more spelling from dictation and composition writing than he ever did in Spelling Workout though. It just doesn't look like spelling or make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. ;) He is a fairly natural speller. (He and Spelling Workout clashed hard, thus the spelling break.)

[siloam]

As long as you know the SWR rules and such, and can help her apply them when she has problems I think you would be fine. I would have her work extra with a word that gave her problems.

 

If you don't feel you really know the rules and couldn't help her if she didn't know how to spell a word then I would continue with SWR or look into something easier to use like AAS.

 

But I do sympathize with you. I have my oldest a test and she did particularly bad this day, and only tested half a year above the test I gave her two years ago when we started SWR. :glare: Though she has scored higher than that, so I know this was just a bad day.

 

Heather

[MerryAtHope]

Hmmm... so, do you all think dictation is a "better" way of teaching spelling than using a workbook with lists since it is in context with a sentence?

 

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around ONLY doing dictation.....

 

I think it can be. I used only copywork and dictation one semester, and I felt my kids made more headway that semester than they had with other programs we had tried, but they were still struggling. I found All About Spelling not long after that, which teaches the phonograms AND uses dictation based on the words they've learned, and we've made more progress with that. I think some kids can learn and do well with only dictation, others may need something more.

 

Merry :-)

[PeterPan]

Steppingstone, are your dc writing much? I didn't see a writing program listed in your inventory, so I wasn't sure. Writing, writing, writing gives practice, practice, practice. SWR is the start, a good conceptual approach, but you really have to flesh it out with lots of practice. I think dictating the SWR sentences or the sentences in Spelling Plus is better than random literature, simply because you're moving forward in a progression. But putting spelling into my kid is sometimes like running pheasants through a seive. (Feathers fly and it ain't supposed to work!) Haha. We did SWR for 4 years, and this year took off to do other things like the Spelling Works workbook by Halverson. Her scores went up anyway, go figure. Next year I'm going to go back to SWR-style analysis, but try to find more interesting words (either a high school vocab-focused dictionary I have or maybe the vocab from a lit program, I don't know). I have found that with her brain, things really need to be in context and have a reason. Dictation does that. Dictation definitely got her over a hump and showed her how to attack new words. It gave her enough practice that words she already knew became more familiar and easy. So I go back to my initial suggestion that you have them write more. You can't retain what you don't use.

[steppingstonemomma]

OhElizabeth,

Well, this year we've been using TOG's Writing Aids. Most weeks they have completed a writing assignment in 1 week but several times it has been an extended assignment (3-5wks). So, often they are only writing sentences once, maybe twice per week.

 

But, this semester I've started doing dictation about 4 times/wk. My 5th grader is doing about 3/4 of a page in dictation with passages out of her Usborne History Encyclopedia or other similar books. I have seen a marked improvement with the dictation, although, still are not getting better on the diagnostic tests. Maybe I should just forget about them! My goal is to UP the amount of writing they are doing each day, but it is difficult trying to fit all that in with 4 kids (with one who is very teacher intensive while learning to read). What did you do to increase writing?

 

Also, I am curious about the workbook you used with your dd. How did you like Spelling Works? One of my issues with switching over to a workbook is that my kids really only have learned the SWR way of phonics/spelling rules and phonograms and so far I've never found a workbook that uses this same method. (Is it called the OG method?) How easy has it been for your dd to do the Spelling Works book with having the background in SWR? Was there confusion? Also, why are you going back to SWR type analyzing?

Have you looked at Spelling Wisdom? What do you think? The passages are supposed to progress in difficulty...

 

Also, everyone who recommended SW- THANK YOU! This looks great. I am definitely considering it. Do you all recommend the e-book or the printed one?

[PeterPan]

Well I'll tell you what you already know: that's not enough writing. Are you doing all the writing included in TOG? What about the lit pages it includes? What about the discussion questions they could write answers to? What about using the WTM suggestions like having them write a narration (paragraph) each week on something they read about in history? And since they're doing all that reading, they can write weekly book reports! To make book reports easy, pick a day (Monday) and just do it. Plan it, do it, everybody does it. On book report day they don't have to do their regular language arts stuff, if that's any incentive. :)

 

Spelling Works got my dd thinking, is very entertaining, and can be done relatively independently. I highly recommend it. It's not a list of words but more application and discrimination stuff. Even though my dd knew most of it, the whole tenor of the workbook kicked it up a notch, throwing it into more challenging situations where you really had to be SURE of whether you meant their or they're or there, kwim? It was just a really good thing to do. I want to go back to our SWR-style analysis for a while because I want to keep those skills fresh and not lose them, nothing insidious or reflective of a problem.

 

No opinion on Spelling Wisdom. I looked at it briefly, but that's it.

 

For upping the quantity of writing, think independent stuff, stuff you can hand them and make happen. The lit guides from VP are good for that. Or worksheets of any kind. Or handwriting/copywork. This year I have my dd doing the BJU Reading and BJU science, both of which have quite a bit (QUITE A BIT) of writing in the workbooks. It's good for her, very good. She still comes and asks if she can do the questions for the reading orally rather than writing the complete sentence answers, and I still make her write them out, hahahaha. Anything that strikes you as good will do. I'm just showing you lots of ways to get in more writing. Writing class is NOT the only time they need to be writing. Carry that writing over to their science, history, etc.! That's the spirit and essence of WTM anyway, that skills cross over, that history can be used to teach writing.

 

Definitely consider the day of the week thing for writing. It's helped me get stuff done this year with the new baby. I have no sense of time and forget stuff, but I can remember Monday is book report day, Tues-Thurs. we do writing assignments (earlier it was Wordsmith Apprentice), and Fridays paragraphs. And you have to actually give it a time slot, 20-30 minutes, in order for it to happen. I like to leave it till right before lunch, so Daddy can come home and deter any complaining. ;)

[steppingstonemomma]

Wow, thank you so much for all those ideas. My oldest dd just jumped to D and is doing the history questions, but I still don't think that will be enough writing to spur things on. I've really let written narrations fall by the wayside with the other kids so I'm going to UP that for the rest of the year.

 

Another question: how much writing total should a child be doing per grade level? I know that it varies, but just a ballpark?

[PeterPan]

WTM spells out quantities for writing in each subject, so that's where I would look. If WTM says a paragraph each in history and science, but you don't want to do that, flex it, doing say 2 in history or one for history and one lit guide page. Because you have several kids, notice the flow of the assignments and how they gradually build. The book narrations of 1st and 2nd become the book reports of 5th and 6th. That means all your kids are doing the same thing, but at their own level. That way you can have book report day and EVERYONE does their book report or narration, bam, all done. Then you have science day and EVERYONE writes something for science. Then one day a week EVERYONE writes something for history. That way everyone is writing something every day at their ability level. Then for the olders you start adding in workbooks and things with more writing to get those quantities up. All the spelling lessons in the world aren't going to make up for not using the words enough to make them stick.

 

Have you seen the lit guides VP sells for 6th grade? They have a Little Women guide your oldest would enjoy. And they have guides in 4th grade I think for The Hobbit, which would be perfect for your 9 yo boy. Don't get too hung up on grade level. Just find a book that looks like it would suit them and use the guide. He might also like Rolf and the Viking Bow or the Narnia guide. Pick a couple guides for the year and make that you're goal. They're reproducible, making them economical for your family. They're something you can photocopy and put in your olders' independent work pile. My dd has recently started working in her room, which she LOVES. She has a metal divider stand and all her workbooks and things. She just plugs through them in the morning, all by herself. It's her new thing, and I'm LOVING it! :)

 

Even if your kids don't love, love the guides, don't forget the point is the WRITING, not fancy dancy literature discussion. Or use the lit pages in TOG. But those are just the particular guides I thought your dc might enjoy. They tend to be just basic comprehension, nothing fancy, but that suits the goal. If your oldest craves more thought or reflection, she might like a Progeny Press guide.

 

Have fun finding things for them and making your plan. I'm sure whatever you do will be great! :)