Spelling Workout

[AudreyTN]

How do you know where to place your child?? Do you just start them on grade level?

My ds6 is catching on very fast. He's mastered CVC and we're getting ready to start long vowel sounds. Should he start level A?

Dd7 has pretty much taught herself to read... and spell. She guesses at what she doesn't know, and most of the time she's right.

Thanks!

[A home for their hearts]

I would probably start him on level A. You can see some sample pages here.
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=628156&netp_id=222191&event=ESRCN&item_code=WW&view=details

I think level B may be too advice for him.
HTH

[periwinklemommy]

I wasn't sure and I figured that there might be important things in level A, even though I knew my ds was a good speller, I didn't want him to miss something, so I just let him do level A (and it was easy, so he started with a lesson a day) and toward the middle he did half a lesson a day. Now he's in B and I'm glad we started where we did because he is used to it and I don't have to wonder if he missed something. My ds5 is in level A now. So I guess what I'm saying (with my limited experience) is that I would put them both in A and let them take it at their speed.

HTH!
Lisa

[WendyK]

I started with A. It was too easy (in WTM it says it will probably be too easy). I stuck with it, chapter by chapter. It worked out well for extra handwriting practice. Then we went onto B and my son was never getting any of the words wrong. So then I decided to pre quiz him on the words and keep going until I made a list of 10 words he spelled wrong. He buzzed through until chapter 19. That seems to be where he is starting to be a little more challenged (where he doesn't already know how to spell all of the words before looking at them). So now we are going chapter by chapter. I don't have him write in the book (so I can save it for my second son). So it isn't a huge waste for me to do that. He turned 6 Jan 21st. Had I not bought a few levels ahead I would have probably looked for a different program, but it is working out fine now.

So you can "play around" with it if it seems too easy.

[GreenKitty]

I would say A also. Though you can always try B and if it doesn't work out, buy the A.

[GVA]

I'm one that delays spelling if they're still working on phonics. For my children we delayed spelling until they were reading easy chapter books on their own. I figured that really getting phonics down was more important and a better use of their short attention spans. Since then it has been pretty painless, and they're both very good spellers. With both I started with Spelling Workout B or it's equivalent (my older one had R&S Spelling 2). For my older one, that was at the end of 2nd grade, and for my younger one, it was halfway through 1st grade.

[AudreyTN]

With both I started with Spelling Workout B or it's equivalent (my older one had R&S Spelling 2).

How does R&S differ from SWO??

I like to wait until phonics is over, but I was thinking that my ds6 might benefit from "practice" with CVC while learning further ahead.

I've done a little bit of "spelling" with my dd7, but we usually just use it as a workbook. I don't test formally.

[GVA]

We switched to SWO when the 4th grade R&S Spelling book blanks drove us both crazy (they were extremely small and the pages were really crowded then). R&S has since revised their books, but I also wanted a workbook for the higher grades (they use texts for 6th and up), so we've stayed with SWO. They're both good IMHO, but more Bible content in R&S obviously!

When we were practicing phonics, I just had them read to me versus doing spelling (both of mine were also allergic to the pencil when they were learning to read). We must have read all the levels of the Bob Books and every easy reader in the library a billion times...

[AudreyTN]

Thanks for all the replies!! I appreciate your time! :)