Spelling

I was asked about Spellwell, the spelling program I'm using for R this year.

Spellwell is your basic grade level spelling program, but I like that it groups words by a rule and then has 1 or 2 "outlaw" words-- words that don't follow the rules. You can see some samples here.

http://www.epsbooks.com/downloads/samplers/S-spellwell.pdf

Each week also has alternative words and alternative homework if the words that week are too easy. The assignments seem to have more variety than "Building Spelling Skills" which we used last year.

I wanted spelling to be something R can pretty much do on his own, other than the pre and post tests. Plus, he likes to work ahead and be done for the week, then just review quickly the day of the post test.

We also pull words out of his writing and sometimes he practices them 10 times or he does the HWT method of wet, dry, try (copies it on the chalkboard, trace/erase with a wet sponge, trace/dry with a paper towel, then rewrite and repeat a couple times until he thinks he has it.) Those words are added to the post-test or the next week if he's still struggling with them and he just uses the alternative activity for those words. He likes the activity pages and I like not having to build them myself-- I did that one year and it was a pain by mid year.