Mom2boys Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 I'm looking for recommendations for spelling and grammar curricula that work well for right-brained learners. This is for my ds11, who will be a 7th grader, and struggles with these subjects. Thanks in advance for your help! :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pongo Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 My youngest is a right hand, left eye dominant, right brained learner:D. I thought she was dyslexic when she first started reading, poor thing. I went to Dianne Crafts Seminars last spring and learned a lot. The one thing she mentioned was, that ANY curricula can be adapted to encourage right brained learning. Meaning, if I wanted to use these techniques for my 2 left brained learners, it would help increase their long term memory storage which is really where right brained learners eventually retain their information. So I kept everything I was using, and adapted it for my youngest while integrating it for my older two. Can I tell you that my oldest has learned the COMPLETE order for the first 3 sets of the Veritas Press cards. Her memory of the historical time line is really impressive. My ds is coming along and these two weren't even my right brain learners. For my youngest , who is a RBL she skipped two grade levels in reading ( just as Dianne Craft said many do). Her ability to retain information is amazing, she had all her addition facts and almost all her subtraction facts done and shs is only six. I think checking over Diane Crafts site may help you to adapt what you already have, she has a lot of her seminar handouts on her website. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amber in AUS Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 OK, so fill me in. What's the right brained, left brained thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pongo Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 (edited) Here is the test. Take a piece of blank paper, 8 1/2 by 11 and put a hole in the middle of it, large enough to see through it. Then ask you child to look through the hole with both eyes open while you place a penny on the floor about 5 feet in front of him/her. Get behind you child and cover one eye with you hand and ask if they can still see the penny, which ever eye they lined up the penny with, iS the dominant eye. What happens with RBL that are left eye dominant is, as everyone does when you start reading you start with your right eye but with left, eye dominant people somewhere around the mid line they switch eyes. When that happens sometimes they skip a line of words or even read words backwards . She has some exercises that help to get them to move more fluidly. As far as RBL in general they are sometime called visual spatial learners. This blog Throwing Marshmellows journals a lot about RBL it's an interesting read. Edited April 4, 2009 by Pongo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom2boys Posted April 4, 2009 Author Share Posted April 4, 2009 I went to Dianne Crafts Seminars last spring and learned a lot. I think checking over Diane Crafts site may help you to adapt what you already have, she has a lot of her seminar handouts on her website.;) Thanks for sharing. :) I did hear Dianne speak last year at HEAV and gleaned lots of good info. Primarily though, I am looking for curricula that are already well-suited to right-brained learners and that I don't have to adapt. So, anyone using a grammar or spelling curriculum that is working especially well for your right-brained, visual-spatial learner? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SusanNN Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 I stumbled upon this thread -- have a right brained ds and need all the info I can get! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
periwinkle Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 Winston Grammar worked well. We also tried Hake's Grammar for one year; this was successful I think because it constantly reviews (like Saxon math). The best spelling for us was How to Teach Spelling (EPS) in the elementary years. I'm not sure I'd choose that for a 7th grader, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siloam Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 I'm looking for recommendations for spelling and grammar curricula that work well for right-brained learners. This is for my ds11, who will be a 7th grader, and struggles with these subjects. Thanks in advance for your help! :001_smile: All About Spelling and I am using Junior Analytical Grammar. The second works because the unusual sequence works much better for me (as a right brained learner). Winston Grammar has cards you can use in parsing the sentence, but the standard sequence leaves me confused once the sentence is beyond a certain simplicity. Heather Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pongo Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 Thanks for sharing. :) I did hear Dianne speak last year at HEAV and gleaned lots of good info. Primarily though, I am looking for curricula that are already well-suited to right-brained learners and that I don't have to adapt. So, anyone using a grammar or spelling curriculum that is working especially well for your right-brained, visual-spatial learner? I doctored up the SWR phonograms and spelling rule cards for my dd. I also wrote to Dianne about a workbook to use with my dd for grammar and she suggested Spectrum, I think I still have that email somewhere. I used her Dianne's vocabulary cards and now I make my own. This is a great excerpt . Good Luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizzyBee Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 Another good website is http://www.visualspatial.org I thought my VSL dd would never learn to spell. The curriculum that finally unlocked it for her was Calvert Spelling on CD. It doesn't work for all VSLs, but it was like a magic pill for mine. We used Rod & Staff for grammar, but we did most of it orally and we used the worksheets. My VSL dd really enjoyed diagramming sentences and would ask for more! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccm Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 Greta ~ Not grammar or spelling, but we've had great success with Vocabulary Cartoons. http://www.vocabularycartoons.com SusanNN ~ http://www.diannecraft.com She is also affiliated with HSLDA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
violin69 Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 (edited) Some of the characteristics of VSL apply to dd but she is a good speller. She's never been one to sound words out and we don't do a formal spelling program. She just naturally spells words by picturing and writing them. If she does spell something wrong, I write the correct spelling. She copies it and most of the time that's all she needs. Every 6 months, I test her with Spelling Power placement tests to make sure. I read so much about VSL being bad spellers but is that always true? Edited April 4, 2009 by violin69 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 (edited) Grammar Hands down, Winston has worked well for our VSL DS. Winston uses cards with clues on them to help students identify the parts of speech, which the student then uses for labeling practice sentences. instead of the cards, we used different colors of markers on the whiteboard and used arrows, circles, underlines, etc. to visually show connections on the practice sentences. We also used lots of games and fun visuals to supplement. - Schoolhouse Rock: Grammar (both the DVD and the computer game) - Mad Libs (gr. 1 and up) - Grammar Ad Libs (gr. 1-4) - Comicstrip Grammar (gr. 5-8) Free online games from Fun Brain - Grammar Gorillas (parts of speech) --http://www.funbrain.com/grammar/index.html - 2Bee or Nottoobee (verb/subject agreement) -- http://www.funbrain.com/verb/index.html - Word Confusion (word usage) -- http://www.funbrain.com/whichword/index.html Winston doesn't include grammar mechanics (punctuation, capitalization, word usage, etc.), but these were helpful: - Grammar with a Giggle (gr. 3-6) - Giggles in the Middle (gr. 6-8) - The Chortling Bard (gr. 9-12) - Take Five Minutes: A History Fact a Day for Editing (gr. 4-8) - Editor in Chief series (gr. 4-8) Spelling VSL or "right brain" learners tend to be global (whole to parts) and random (non-sequential) thinkers, so spelling is often a difficult subject for them to master, since correct spelling is all about specific, individual letters in a specific, left-to-right order. Our VSL DS *really* struggles with spelling, still (age 15), but starting at 12yo, and each year after, spelling has "clicked" a little more for him. We finally have made our own spelling, based on ideas from various other programs. The other thing that has *really* worked is Megawords (for gr. 4-5 and up), which teaches vowel patterns and syllabication rules to help students break words into root or syllable chunks to understand the patterns for spelling. See sample pages at: http://www.christianbook.com Spelling related skills in free online games from FunBrain: - Spellaroo -- http://www.funbrain.com/spellroo/index.html - Rooting Out Words -- http://www.funbrain.com/roots/index.html - The Plural Girls -- http://www.funbrain.com/plurals/index.html - Scramble Saurus -- http://www.funbrain.com/scramble/index.html Right Brain Children in a Left Brain World (by Freed) Has some great specific tips on teaching spelling, math, writing, and reading to middle school/high school aged students. Show spelling rules with stories, drawing pictures, and using color help make the abstractness of spelling more visual. Practice spelling outloud to force the child to hear the spelling sequentially letter by letter, rather than just looking and seeing the word as a whole and then not "geting" the need for sequential order. Below are the programs we have used parts of to create our own spelling, using "The ABCs and All Their Tricks" as a reference. All About Spelling Not used this one, but I understand this teaches spelling to various learning types, and might be just what works right off the bat for you without having to look into some of the other less well-known or more expensive programs listed below. Sequential Spelling = http://www.avko.org/sequentialspelling.html Written by a man with dyslexia for dyslexics -- but helpful for many students. Starts with a simple root word and adds on prefixes, endings, additional syllables to build bigger words. For grade 4 and up. Phonetic Zoo = http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/index.php?q=page/getting-started-excellence-spelling Auditory program by phonetic patterns -- student hears and practices the words through outloud spelling. For grade 3 and up. Stevenson Blue Spelling Manual = http://www.stevensonlearning.com/Language_skills/description.htm Very visual drawings (mnemonics) of the vowel patterns and the sounds they make to help the student remember the sound/spelling. For grades 1-5. one-on-one practice - "Toss It" = idea from Carol Barnier's book "How to Get Your Kid Off the Refrigerator and onto Learning" This has really helped our son develop his weak area of sequential learning; I say the word clearly, spell it (by syllable if long), then toss him a beanie toy; then he says/spells the word and tosses it back to me. The tossing helps keep him focused and not distracted as he has to anticipate the beanie coming at him. If he misspells a word, *immediately* correct by you repeatedly (4-5 times) spelling correctly and guide him in spelling correctly while looking at the word so he does not imprint the wrong spelling. - work with words on the whiteboard homophones = tell little stories with little drawings to help visualize the difference between homophones ("meet" = it takes 2 people to meet, and "meet" has 2 "e"s -- see them shaking hands? (draw the "e"s shaking hands; "meat" -- draw the "a" like a heart -- I LOVE to eat "meat"! and see, the word "eat" is IN the word "meat"!) endings/suffixes = use different colors; tell a story (ex.: "stare" and adding ending "-ing", or "-ed"; or "puppy" and making it plural "puppies" -- "when an ending starts with a vowel, and your root word ends with a vowel, the 2 vowels get into a fight over who gets to say the sound, so you have to drop the vowel from the root and let the vowel from the ending do the job") Mary Pecci's Super Seatwork: Word Skills workbook Very gentle, simple workbook pages with fun cartoon drawings and not too much work on a page for practicing Roots and Endings, Syllables, Compound Words, Possessives, Contractions, Prefixes, Suffixes, Alphabetizing, and Dictionary Skills. For grades 3-6. See it at: http://www.rainbowresource.com BEST of luck in finding what works best for *your* visual learner! Warmest regards, Lori D. Edited April 4, 2009 by Lori D. added info; corrections Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SusanNN Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 another vote for Winston Grammar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawn in MI Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 Start with a lower level of Rod & Staff if you use it because it is really challenging. Also, do the daily oral review & quite a bit of the lesson orally too. The daily repetition in both these programs was important for right-brain learning. Hope this helps, Dawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom2boys Posted April 5, 2009 Author Share Posted April 5, 2009 Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. You have given me some great suggestions. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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