All About Spelling

Okay... I think I'm finally ready to type up my thoughts on All About Spelling. :-)

For the past month or so, we've been using All About Spelling Level 1....
After our track record with other spelling programs I was both reluctant and desperate to start something new. At least now I had a better idea about what worked for us and what didn't work. I thought AAS was a good way to go because it seemed to use the basic concepts that I liked about Spell to Write and Read but in a much more user friendly manner (at least for me). I really liked the emphasis on learning the phonograms first and the fact that you actually learn spelling rules along the way.

Okay... Alex is in third grade but I decided to start him on Level 1 anyway. I figured that if this was the right program for us, it would benefit us to start at the beginning (especially with the emphasis on phonograms and rules). Also AAS is written in a way that makes it EXTREMELY easy to go at your own pace. Clara will sometimes take a few days per lesson, while Alex will do more than one a day. I'm finding it very easy to modify for each child. Finally, Alex was not a strong speller (at grade level according to the test in the back of Spell to Write and Read) and needed to build some confidence with spelling... breezing through Level 1 has really helped his confidence level. I'm not planning on retesting him after this book as I don't really expect that his spelling level has increased. What he has gained from this level is a good solid foundation to build on and a boost to his confidence level and I don't think those will translate to a higher spelling score (yet).

Now, on to the program. I ordered one level one packet (teacher's manual and student material packet) plus one extra student packet. I did this because I am using this program with both kids at the same time. Nothing in this level is consumable (except for the progress chart) so you could use one set for multiple kids if you were not using the same level at the same time. The set really has everything and I was so impressed by the quality of the items!

Here is a look at Clara's card set....
I can tell this set is Clara's because she imediately tried to shut the lid of the box and mashed her first tab. Every set of cards is divided into three sections - Review, Mastered, and Future Lessons. For someone like me who is organizationally challenged... this has been wonderful! With each kid having their own box of cards, I never have to think about where Alex is versus Clara.... I just pull out the cards from the Review section of their box and start with the lesson. I love that the program has lots of review built in.... but that review is customized according to your child's own needs.

Oh... back to the cards themselves.... they are made from bright, heavy paper and came perforated (very well perforated I might add). No cutting or anything so getting started was very easy.

To get started, we practiced the basic phonograms over and over. I sometimes didn't even say we were doing "spelling", it was a game we played at meal times (the cards seem to always be on the dining room table). I also purchased the Phonogram CD-ROM so I could make sure we were pronouncing the sounds correctly. We have used this some, but not that much.... we'll see if we use it more in the future.

Once we got going good on the phonogram cards, we moved on to the sound cards. With these I would say the sounds a letter made and they would have to write down the appropriate letter. Clara really struggles with her fine motor skills and needs extra help with her handwriting so I just typed up the alphabet in StartWrite and let her find the appropriate letter to trace.
Now moving on to the parts that really sold me on this program... the "hands on" parts. Writing is the last step if you do the program as outlined which is great for Clara. With the concentration it takes for her to write, it frustrates her to be learning spelling at the same time. With this program she really knows the word by the time it comes to writing it and she can focus on the writing and not as much on spelling.

First of all, they use tokens to separate each word out into the sounds in the word. They pull a token down for each sound....
This sets the stage for the next step, using the letter tiles....
They start by putting the letters in order and then when given a word, they pull the letters down by sound, the same way they did with the tokens. We do this a lot with Clara. Alex, not so much. Clara needs the "hands on" plus she's just now really learning to spell. Alex doesn't need the hands on as much plus he already knows these words. I just let him go straight to writing the words on paper which is why we can go through a couple of lessons at one sitting. We do, however, get out the tiles with Alex for any new concepts and to illustrate the spelling rules. I love, love, love that this program has the spelling rules. I know it sounds crazy... but I was practically giddy the other day when we learned when to use c and when to use k when the /k/ sound is at the beginning of a word. Not one single program we had used in the past had explained that! (okay... Spell to Write and Read would have explained it if I had been able to figure it out)

Another note about the letter tiles - they are made of a laminated cardstock and are of a really nice quality. You do have to cut them out yourself, but that's not a big deal. They give you the option of ordering magnet backing to put on each tile, but we didn't get the magnets.

So, since I was pleased with Level 1, I placed another order the other day...
I got Level 2 for Alex and the Beehive Reader Level 1 for Clara. Alex hasn't started Level 2 yet (almost done with Level 1) but Clara has started with the reader. Clara is a good reader... she's been reading since she was 4 BUT she has always been a sight reader (she can be very competitive at times and started "reading" Dick and Jane books in order to keep up with Alex who was beginning to read at the time). I thought a good basic phonetic reader would be good for her... especially one that went along with our spelling program. She immediately took it to her room and read it in bed at night. I am, however, having her read it aloud to me. Most of it comes very easy to her but when she does stumble, it has been a good way to show her that the sounds and rules she is learning through spelling apply to reading as well. Since she is a good reader, she really doesn't need a separate reading program.... but this is a really nice supplement to our spelling program that helps her read better. Does that make sense?

Okay, to sum this all up....

I have found All About Spelling to be a good fit for us. The price is reasonable, the materials are reusuable, and the materials are of really good quality for the price. The program makes sense (to me) as far as the word lists and the progression of the program (many of the other programs seemed random to me). The teacher's manual is extremely easy to follow and requires no prep work on my part... I just open it up and get going at spelling time. The program is very easy to modify to your child's individual needs.... spelling with AAS looks very different for each of mine at this point - Clara does lots of tile work with little writing and Alex does very little tile work but lots of writing. It is also easy to choose your own pace without feeling "behind". I can't really tell that it is set up to be a school year program, if you know what I mean.

The biggest downside seems to be that it requires total "teacher" involvement. I will be honest here... I would love a program that I could just hand to my child in workbook form and have them work quietly on their own and then magically know how to spell without any tears! That's just not going to happen... we need this type of program. It really does not take up that much time (actually less time than our old workbook programs when you count in the time I spent dealing with meltdowns...sigh). I was scared about all of the review built in - phonogram cards, sound cards, key cards, word cards. But then I realized the point of the "review" and "mastered" dividers. We were only reviewing what we needed to review each time.... not the whole stack of cards.

Okay.... I think I'm done rambling! I hope that helps and let me know if you have any questions!

spelling - where we've been

Oh wow.... I hadn't really thought about all of the money we had spent on spelling programs until I started to put this post together.... it's a bit ridiculous! Anyway.... homeschooling is a journey and sometimes you read the map wrong and take a wrong turn or two (or three or four)... sigh.

Okay... I mentioned here the other day that we were now using All About Spelling and Jocelyne asked what I thought of it so far. Well... when thinking about that post, I got to thinking about all of the curriculum we have tried so far. I did this mainly to temper my opinion of AAS. I remember being excited about each of the programs below when we started them. I was sure I found the right thing for us each time. I wanted to really think about what didn't work (for us) with the previous programs and see if there was a pattern. Well.... there is a bit of one. One that I wish I could have stepped back and seen before making yet another purchase. Oh well... live and learn, right?

This was our first real spelling program....

A Reason for Spelling

This was a bit of an impulse buy at Mardel one day. Since this was our first spelling program, I didn't think much about the purchase. I thought a spelling program was just a spelling program... not much to think about. So, I bought it and we started using it. This program seemed to teach spelling by giving a list of words and you were to learn to spell them by just writing them over and over filling in worksheets during the week. You had a spelling test on Friday. Alex actually did okay with this... specifically the weekly stuff. But when it came to the review sections, he had retained very little of the older words, just the most recent stuff. This program didn't seem to teach spelling rules either.... just learning to spell through repetition. Spelling does not come naturally to Alex, we needed something more. Spelling became painful and brought on a flood of tears each time so we gave this one up after almost completing the first book.

Next up.....

Spell to Write and Read

So, the next time around I went a complete 180 and bought Spell to Write and Read and all of it's various parts. It was going to be the answer to my prayers... a program that actually taught you to spell using spelling rules and learning the parts before the whole.

However, I'm apparently not bright enough to figure this one out. I tried, seriously I did. Perhaps I'm just too easily overwhelmed and this one seriously overwhelmed me. We tried to use it. We worked on the phonogram cards and attempted the special journals. Eventually I got frustrated and gave up. I have heard from other people who absolutely love this program... I wanted to love it... I just couldn't get a handle on how to use it.

So for third grade, I decided to try this...

Sequential Spelling

Again, I was sure I had found the answer. Sequential Spelling takes one root word and then builds on it to form other words. You do a new list every day. Unless I read things wrong, you don't review words, just give them the list of words, making spelling corrections immediately after they spell the word. This started out good... but quickly went downhill. It was supposed to be for grades K-6 (I think) so I started both kids with it. Not a good idea.... Alex naturally was able to spell better given that he is two grade above Clara... this frustrated Clara. I discontinued the program for her. Alex and I plugged on. He eventually got overwhelmed. He never felt like he mastered anything... it just kept moving forward. We made modificiations.... two days per list, one practice day... one "real" day. But it still didn't work out. Again this one had lists of words with no real explanation of the spelling rules. I love the idea of it.... and after a couple of books of AAS we may come back to it in some form... but it wasn't working to "teach" spelling for us. It might be great to "build" on our spelling vocabulary for us later.

For Clara we've tried...

McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book

This is one that I did not end up spending money on, it was a free download from the Project Gutenberg site. Clara was bound and determined to have her own spelling program, so since I didn't have time to research something for her, I downloaded this and got started. Again, we started out pretty good and then stalled out. We hit a stumbling block with her spelling and this book and it included no guidance on how to move past it.

The last attempt was this...

Spectrum Spelling

Poor Clara... I tend to put so much more thought into Alex's curriculum than hers at times. Perhaps because he's older and I always feel like I still have time with her. Anyway.... one day I was impulse shopping my way through a homeschool e-book site and decided to purchase this for Clara. I was so worked up about Alex's spelling (and our trail of failed programs) that I just wanted to give Clara a workbook to do on her own while I focused on him. This one was over before it even began. There was some glitch in the formatting of the download that made the pages a mess.... nothing lined up and about a third of the page was cut off. The e-book company was fabulous and tried to work with the publisher to get it corrected. When they could not, my money was refunded. We tried to work with the messed up pages, but it was frustrating. I could have bought the real book but I could already see that this was not the right program for us either. A hands off workbook approach was not the right route for us.

So, what did I learn from all of this?

1) Workbooks are not the answer for us.

2) We need something interactive and hands on.

3) We need spelling rules and I need clear explanations for the "whys" of spelling.

4) I need something structured but not so structured that it is laid out with a plan that ends with a spelling test each Friday. We need to be able to go at our own pace without pressure. The ones with the 5 day plans gave me anxiety and the feeling of always being behind.

I'm sure there may be more that I think of and if I do, I'll add to this post.

Next post will be (hopefully) be my review of All About Spelling so far.

DISCLAIMER: This post is just about what works/doesn't work for me and my family. I'm sure these are all good solid programs and work fabulously for other people. My reason for posting this because when I was researching programs I wish I would have looked more closely at that details of the reviews rather than just weighing good versus bad reviews. Sometimes the main reason someone gave a program a bad review is the key element that makes things work for your family and would be a positive for you.