Spelling Programs

by JulieD

Spelling Programs have been a discussion topic that has come up a couple of times on one of my homeschool lists...so I thought I would share here a little about a couple of those programs and about what I have used in the past.


Spelling Power:

I like methods that teach the necessary items and have methods of reinforcing the material or method incorporated into the program.

I like the lists and the ability to test for progress. I was able to use this with all three at the same time. My daughter the speller still did well with the words, the boys still struggled. I didn't stick to the program but I liked the layout of the rules and example words.

This program seemed to tie in well with the Reading Road to Writing which we also used.

I found that I used a combination of the two methods and then eventually went with more of an emphasis on the Reading Road to Writing.



5 Minutes a Day to Perfect Spelling: This program I feel really gave my boys hope that they could spell. It helped them "see" the words and helped them to focus more on the relationship of the letters to each other instead of rules and patterns. This helped. Do they have perfect spelling -no...but they did improve.

Learning Spelling from Journaling or Reading:
I have tried this. This is where I started -with the boys this method really wasn't the best approach to begin with. However, with my daughter, who reads more and thrives in the world of words I'm convinced it helped her to retain the spelling of words better.

It comes back to the basic differences of how I was teaching spelling when they started school, the differences between boy and girl learning styles and other things like dyslexia. My daughter had the benefit of being the 3rd child...so I made my mistakes in spelling with the boys.

My opinion on this method is that it can be very good but may not be the best option for everyone.

One note, in using a computer to journal, for my boys, the spell checker alerting them to spelling errors did help improve their spelling. The immediate feedback and the corrected word being available provided a visual aspect, where they could see the right way to spell the word. Combine that with a lot of reading and their spelling improved.


Sequential Spelling: I haven't used this program but everyone that I know who has used it gives it high praise. If you use this program please share with us about it and why you use/like it. Thanks