When I began planning for homeschool, looking into curriculums and texts and deciding how we would go about getting each subject completed, spelling was probably the most concerning part. I remember have random lists of spelling words in elementary school that I had to rote memorize and when I started looking into methods for teaching spelling I found lists and lists of “activities” that kids could use to learn the words such as rainbow writing, using them in sentences, writing the definitions and a bunch of other busy work that I remember HATING with a passion as a child.
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As I perused the gargantuan homeschool curriculum catalog I picked up at an expo we went to, I came across a series called Sequential Spelling and was intrigued. The system involves a daily spelling “test” where the student is asked to write 25 words and the teacher writes the correct spelling of each word immediately after the child finishes. The words are grouped in families and building upon each other. For example, one day is pin then the next is pins and the third is pinned and the fourth is pinning. And what it does it teach children how to spell, not how to memorize.
I discuss with Honeybun the different “rules” for spelling such as doubling the consonant before adding endings on some word families. I’ve taught her tricks like “woulda, coulda, shoulda” which has helped her easily learn the spelling for these words and she is doing great.
The system is recommended for third grade and up but I decided to try it with Honeybun because even though she is only in first grade, she is an excellent reader. The first eight days are available online (at www.avko.org) so we gave it a try before buying the first book. Since Honeybun is able to sound out most words and as she is a good rememberer and can easily find patterns, the system has been easy for her and she really enjoys it, sometimes asking to do spelling even on non-school days.
What has amazed me the most with it, though, is how it has helped Sugarplum with her pre-reading skills. Every morning when we do spelling, I have Sugarplum sit down with us and write what she can. Sometimes she will write the whole word, sometimes just the first letter and she has never made it to the end but she has learned so much! I now have her tell me the first letter of each word “Sugarplum, our word is fat. F-f-f-f, what letter do I need?” And she can almost always tell me and we are now working on blends (two letter combos like sh, dr, pl, etc.) and just last week she sounded out “it” all by herself! It’s a tiny little word but a huge accomplishment and the following day she was able to read “fit” and with some prompting “quit it”.
My biggest concern with homeschooling was teaching Sugarplum to read. A month ago she was struggling with the concept of letter sounds (what sounds does ‘b’ make? Would get the response “balloon! Book! Bike!”) and I was considering having to send her to kindergarten just to get her started in reading as I doubted my own abilities in the “teaching kids to read department” but Sequential Spelling has given me hope that maybe I actually can teach her to read without too much stress!
Sequential Spelling is a series of seven levels and each level consists of a teacher’s guide with the words lists and a student book for them to write their answers. If you choose not to use the student workbook, the curriculum’s writers suggest using folded paper (doing multiple lessons per sheet) but I decided to save the money and the trees and we complete each day on whiteboards which I then take a picture of each day to archive the work.
