I don't know about your kids but mine are sick, sick, sick of the grammar and spelling treadmill and honestly, so am I. I needed to find a better way. Spelling lists and grammar worksheets, where the kids may or may not already know the material were such a waste of time. Sometimes it is hard to access what your child knows and doesn't know in these subjects because I have found over the years that so much more is caught than taught. Many times I would present words or grammar concepts that I thought would challenge the kids only to discover they already knew it, and then other times I would find that they did not know words and concepts that I thought they had already mastered because we had gone over it so many times already.
Well, I have come up with a solution! My friend Jen shared with me all about this spelling program she had found that was based on Charlotte Mason's amazing methods of teaching. The book was loaded with great quotes, passages from really great children's literature and poetry, scripture, wise sayings and so on - high interest selections for kids. The kids would be learning spelling words through studying the passage, memorizing words they thought they might struggle with and then writing it from my dictation. I really liked the idea of it but still wanted the kids to understand why words are spelled the way they are. We had previously used Wanda Sanseri's amazing reading/spelling program called Spell to Write & Read, which I loved for the analytical aspect of it, but disliked because of the weekly spelling lists. So what I came up with was a combination of the two with a little Ruth Beechick style thrown into the mix.
So here you can see what our spelling/grammar/writing class looks like in a week, from a page of directions I wrote up for the kids to use:
Day 1: Dictation - Have Mom dictate this week's passage to you. When completed, compare yours with the model. What mistakes did you make?
Capitalization?
-If you know why the word/words should have been capitalized, explain your mistake to Mom.
-If you don't know why, look it up in the Punctuation Power guide to find out why and then explain it to Mom.
Puncuation?
-If you understand why the puncuation should have been there, explain it to Mom.
-If you do not know why, use the Punctuation Power guide to find out why and then explain it to Mom.
Did you exclude any words or phrases?
Any misspelled words?
-make a list of these and save for tomorrow
Day 2: Spelling (following SWR spelling markings)
Using the list of misspelled words:
1. Write each word out, breaking it into syllables.
2. Underline all multi-letter phonograms.
3. Underline all vowels that say their name at the end of a syllable.
4. Does each phonogram make its first sound?
-If no, put the number that represents which sound it makes above it.
-If it does not make any of its common sounds, put an X above it.
-If it is silent (except silent E's), underline it twice.
5. Does the word have a silent E? Mark it according to which job the silent E is doing
6. Are there any spelling rules involved in the spelling of this word? Explain the rule/rules to Mom.
7. Check your word against the Alpha List Dictionary and correct any markings you missed.
Days 3 and 4: Get instructions from Mom
(This is where Ruth Beechick comes in. Using her fantastic suggestions from her book You Can Teach Your Child Successfully: Grades 4-8 and making up my own similar lessons based on the passage of the week, we do all of our grammar and writing lessons. I will also use this time ocassionally to have the kids seek out Biblical principles of language or topics related to the week's passage.)
Day 5: Dictation - Look the passage over again one more time, making an imprint of it in your mind, and have mom dictate it to you.
How did you do?
Do you need to spend more time on this passage or are you ready to move on?
So far this is working well for us. The kids generally only have a few mistakes in each passage so far and are learning to analyze and research their mistakes for themselves. They really are liking the passages from the Spelling Wisdom book and look forward to each week's new passage. They are already familiar with the marking system and love that they don't have long lists of words to write and mark each day. I love that we are narrowing it down to what they truly don't know, it feels like we are using our precious time much more productively this way.
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• Jan. 31, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Peace to you,
Renae
http://lifenurturingeducation.com/