Do-it-myself spelling? Think this will work?

[Gwenny]

With so many recent posts about spelling, I've been thinking a lot about it. I'm cheap, so what I have planned on doing for next year (1st grade), is to use Phonics Pathways (already own) and The ABC's and All Their Tricks to make my own customized program. While researching AAS, I found that their website has the scope and sequence of their program available. My plans are to use this as a guide and then pull words and rules from PP and The ABC's books to align with this.

 

PP's website also has instructions on how to use their book for teaching spelling. PP has the students use a notebook divided into a copy, dictation, and trouble words section. For the copy section, they copy the rule and then 5-10 words. The Dictation is next with about 5-10 words dictated. Trouble words is for mistakes. Later, you build up to dictating phrases and sentences.

 

It sounds simple and quick to do (10-15 min they say). Do you think this will work and what problems do you see with my plan? Will this be a thorough spelling course? I don't know anything about spelling myself and am actually excited to be finally learning these things along with my dd.

 

Also, are there any other good spelling type reference books or websites?

 

I think my biggest concern is hiding the PP book. My dd HATES that thing so I always have to copy the section we are working on the night before so she doesn't catch on that we are still using it!

Thanks,

Gwen

[mom31257]

This is interesting because my ds will be in 1st grade next year, and I too am really not sure what to do with spelling. I do know of this website.

 

http://www.spellingcity.com/

 

You can enter lists of your own choosing and there are lots of review games, some online and some printable, to use as review. I have planned on using it along with whatever curriculum I decide on. The doing it yourself sounds interesting to me.

 

Here's a list of spelling rules that looks very complete. You could make sure you cover all of these rules as well.

 

http://www.splashesfromtheriver.com/spelling/spelling_rules.htm

 

I hope these help.

[ElizabethB]

I make my own lessons, basically from "The ABCs and All Their Tricks," but I have almost all the rules in my head from years of teaching phonics! It's working well.

 

If you Google "spelling rules" at Google books, there are some good old books with lists of rules, use advanced search and only use those that have full text available. Switch to text only and you can copy and print away.

 

Pollards Spellers linked from my spelling page are also a good resource for rules and lists of words:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Spelling/spellingforsucce.html

 

Gayle Graham's "Tricks of the Trade," $12 at CBD, has almost all the rules with spaces to write words to work on based on words your child has misspelled.

[Supertechmom]

HI!

 

i am doing the same thing right now with the plan to implement it next week into our school. But mine are 6th and 2nd and can't spell a lick. Off to look at that site where you found the scope and sequence.

[Goldilocks]

I'm planning the same thing. Also using Phonics Pathways and The ABC's...

I would like to integrate spelling with WWE as welll. (I don't use the workbook, just follow the outline in the parent book.) So I will pick a word from our dictation passage, talk about the rule, then learn other words that follow that rule. That is the plan anyway!

[ElizabethB]

Don Potter just found a great book for you!

 

It's called "The Spelling-Book Consisting of Word in Columns and Sentences for Oral and Written Exercises Together with Prefixes, Affixes, and Important Roots from the Greek and Latin Languages" by William D. Swan (1854)

 

Scroll to the bottom of Don's Spelling book page. The spelling rules begin on page 44. I'm going to make a new thread about this find, it's a great book for upper levels as well, with its Greek and Latin roots.

 

http://www.donpotter.net/education_pages/spelling_books.html

[debbielong]

...and it was GREAT! I simply started at "cat" and "hat" (or whatever it was) and read 6-10 words a day for him. Some of the words are repeated, but that is OK. No harm in doing a word twice. On the sections he seemed to "get" right away, I skipped words, and moved quickly to the next section.

 

We spent two weeks on short and long vowel words with suffixes (hoping and hopping). He still wasn't getting it. So, we moved on and came back to it several months later and he was good.

 

My ds also hated PP for reading, but he loved it for spelling.

 

Go figure!

[Gwenny]

Thanks for all the links! I feel more confident now that it will work. What do others do when the child mispells a word that uses a spelling rule that has not yet been taught? Do you simply supply the spelling with a quick explanation of the spelling rule, or do you take the opportunity to use it to teach that rule in more depth. At this point, most words are mispelled, so I would have to cover a lot of rules for every sentence. For example, this is from a sign my dd (age 5) posted over the fireplace: ples gost go uwa and live in a difrit hols. Translation: Please ghost, go away and live in a different house. Should I start spelling now so the inventive spelling doesn't become ingrained in her mind? Or wait until next year as originally planned? She is reading well at maybe a 2nd-early 3rd grade level.

Gwen

[Browngirl]

Thanx ElizabethB for mentioning that spelling book. i saved a copy, i really like it! :)

[debbielong]

For example, this is from a sign my dd (age 5) posted over the fireplace: ples gost go uwa and live in a difrit hols. Translation: Please ghost, go away and live in a different house. Should I start spelling now so the inventive spelling doesn't become ingrained in her mind? Or wait until next year as originally planned? She is reading well at maybe a 2nd-early 3rd grade level.

Gwen

 

Oh, that is so cute! And I wouldn't call her spelling, "inventive" - It looks phonetic to me:)!

 

If you are dying to start spelling and you have a willing 5-year-old, I'd take the words she spells correctly - and what she spelled correctly here is awesome - and write the word she spelled correctly at the top of a page and then list words from the same word family. For example, she spelled "and" correctly. So, put "and" at the top of a page and below write band, hand, land, sand. You could do go, no, so.

 

She is obviously trying to spell words correctly and, in my experience, that is 90% of the battle. I have a child who couldn't care less if she misspells!

 

I wouldn't mess with please, ghost, away, live, different, or house quite yet.