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Angel
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I've basically decided to buy Spelling Wisdom for use with my olders (age 14 and 11.5). I'm trying to decide whether to buy the whole set ("best value") since right now I would hope to use the books with my younger kids eventually, but am feeling a little leery of buying a whole set of books without first "trying out" one of them. My 14 yo has some "issues" with spelling as well, which makes me both a little hesitant to buy all the books as well as to buy only one book, which may not fit where he is right now.
If you use Spelling Wisdom, can you give me some advice? Also, are there advantages (beyond price) of buying the e-book rather than the printed books?
Thanks!
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Angela
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Mackfam
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I felt the same way as you when I purchased Spelling Wisdom...not sure I'd really use them (I often pull my own dictations out of literature selections)...wanted to try them out...so I didn't buy the entire set. I wish now that I had purchased the set because I've found them to be a very helpful tool and used every week consistently, but that isn't to say that they may not be a good fit in your family... My 5th grader is in Book 1 and my 9th grader is in Book 4. The selections are lengthy in Book 4!!!! It's great exposure to wonderful thoughts and ideas...and as a side bonus I LOVE the many selections from CM's own Home Geography for Primary Grades! When there are Bible verses selected, I do substitute the chosen KJV for our more familiar RSV...just a preference.
Since your oldest two are close-ish, would it help to know that there is a sizable disparity in one book between the beginning lesson and the ending lesson...meaning that if you were really on the fence you could try just one book and probably use it with both of your olders to get a feel for it and whether or not the series would work for you. Also, it does take a good while to get through a single book so if your budget is stretched right now it could be far easier on the budget to just purchase as needed. Book 3 seems like it might be a good place to start if you want to just try one book, Angela. Did you download their sample lessons? They include a lot there so that you can get a really good idea of whether or not this program would be a good fit overall.
The great value I find in them is the ability to look up in the WONDERFUL index particular words I may really want to hit on, words with blends or just single words that I notice being frequently mis-spelled. The index lists words and then references the particular dictation lesson that covers that word...it's a big help! The fact that Sonya has compiled dictation selections from two word lists of frequently used English words, adding another 6500 words to those making a total of 12,500 words covered in the entire Spelling Wisdom series is SO FANTASTIC!!!
I do a lot of printing on my own for various things already, and for that reason I just prefer to purchase the bound books. I also prefer a spiral bound book (and this is a preference I think I'm in the minority on). The quality of the print is very nice, and the covers are strong. If you purchased the ebook, you could print and then give a student a single page to work from, but it would be a lot of printing!! Book 1 is 172 pages printed front & back. HOWEVER...if you're overseas, the ebook is a FANTASTIC option! You don't have to deal with the shipping or the waiting on the book.
HTH! I'm a huge fan of this series and...of course with dictation in general!  While the series isn't necessary AT ALL to do dictation in the home, it is super helpful and very well done!!!!!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Erin
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Angela
I bought the whole set, ebook version.
I guess I decided that was it, we were going to do something consistently and systematically, despite their whinging (which some do).
Wasn't there a few sample pages though that you could trial with ds to see if he takes to it? (disregarding normal teenage boy grumbling that is  )
Once I printed out and bound all the books,(I have a laser printer and comb binder) seeing the full program gave me a far better idea of the quality of the program overall.
In my case it was certainly cheaper with an ebook due to postage, either way I probably would go by what works out the cheapest, if a big margin that is. Btw my favourite occupation at the moment is placing labels from the label maker on comb binders, so helpful. I know, I'm crazy  
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pmeilaen
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We bought the first book for my then 4th grader, but finally I gave up on it. The more advanced text selections were too long for our taste. I found a free online dictation series that is much shorter. Here is the book for grades five and up and here for second grade. You can find them for most grades online if you keep looking. These books also have selections for poetry that are age appropriate for each grade. We now do dictation once a week and combine dictation with The Natural Speller and/or Sequential Speller.
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Angel
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Thanks, all, for your advice.
I decided to only buy one printed book, Book 3, to give it a shot. My printer -- an inkjet -- got rather battered in our move and lost its feed tray. I realized after Jen mentioned the printing issue that printing a huge book would drive me batty.
Eva, I'm a little worried about the length of some selections, too, but I thought I might try to alter them. *Try* being the key word here, of course. The free online series you linked to looks like a valuable resource; I'm bookmarking it.)
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Angela
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Betsy
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I wouldn't be afraid to do long passages two-three sentences at a time. Or, use the entire passage for copy work and then only do dictation on two sentences and move onto the next passage.
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Mackfam
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I have a student for whom some of the longer passages are challenging, and one that just recently began to be willing and able to write very lengthy passages with ease. Since my goal is not to overwhelm with dictation lessons, I offer dictations of a length that is a little challenging without being overwhelming. This means that for one child, I sometimes drop a sentence or four. One week, I split a lengthy dictation selection to be covered in two weeks rather than one. I've noticed that this particular child has really lengthened their ability/willingness this year as we've been consistently writing both copywork and dictation. Penmanship is improving, speed is improving, and increasing dictation selections slowly, a little at a time each week has really worked well. I didn't realize how well it was working until I started thinking about your concern, Angela...about the length of dictations. I pulled out this child's dictations from this year and looked at the beginning year work as compared to now and I find myself pleasantly surprised at the slow but steady improvement. Anyway, just wanted to share that I do sometimes abbreviate lessons to gently stretch a student's attention and abilities without overwhelming...and that the gentle progression of this has really improved this child's abilities in general.
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Jen Mackintosh
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pmeilaen wrote:
| I found a free online dictation series that is much shorter. Here is the book for grades five and up and here for second grade. You can find them for most grades online if you keep looking. These books also have selections for poetry that are age appropriate for each grade. |
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These are great links, Eva!!! Thanks for sharing them!!!! I'm bookmarking as well!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Erin
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Mackfam wrote:
| One week, I split a lengthy dictation selection to be covered in two weeks rather than one. |
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I was thinking about suggesting this option.
Eva,
I'm embarrassed to admit I really don't comprehend google books. How do you print them?
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Jen, you mentioned your fifth grader is in Book 1. I'm trying to figure out if this would be too challenging for a third grader. From what I've been reading about CM you really don't need to worry about a "spelling program" in the younger years. My second dd will be third grader next fall and so far I'm extremely pleased with her independent reading and narrating; dictations we haven't started at all she is just doing copy work. How do you determine when to start this program?
I looked up Eva's link for second year (really liked it). Does this look like a step below/before Book 1?
As for my fifth grader, we are slowly introducing dictation but to be honest I haven't been consistent. I've let her continue with the Sadlier Oxford Vocabulary that Kolbe recommends only because she is so familiar with it. I would like to try something different next year. Lingua Mater 6 is turning out to be a nice transition towards this goal. Thought: Where to begin with her? 
Angela, I hope you don't mind me asking about younger ones in your thread. This is one of those subjects/programs I've been meaning to ask about as well, so I'm very glad you did.
Ladies your wisdom is always appreciated .
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Jenny
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pmeilaen
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Mackfam wrote:
pmeilaen wrote:
| I found a free online dictation series that is much shorter. Here is the book for grades five and up and here for second grade. You can find them for most grades online if you keep looking. These books also have selections for poetry that are age appropriate for each grade. |
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These are great links, Eva!!! Thanks for sharing them!!!! I'm bookmarking as well! |
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Your are very welcome, Jen. 
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Erin wrote:
Eva,
I'm embarrassed to admit I really don't comprehend google books. How do you print them? |
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On top of the book you want to print out there is a line that reads: Plain text, Clip, Link, Feedback, and PDF. Click on PDF and you will be able to change the book into a PDF document which you can save on your desktop (or somewhere else). From there you can print it out.
If it doesn't work, please let me know.
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pmeilaen
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Grace&Chaos wrote:
I looked up Eva's link for second year (really liked it). Does this look like a step below/before Book 1?
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Yes, I would say it comes before it and is just the right level for grade 2.
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Erin
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Thanks Eva Now I know how to try, I'll let you know if I have problems
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Angel
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Grace&Chaos wrote:
| Angela, I hope you don't mind me asking about younger ones in your thread. This is one of those subjects/programs I've been meaning to ask about as well |
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Ask away! I have a 2nd grader right now who is still struggling with reading, but I am hoping that as my younger kids grow I can be more consistent with their educations. Unfortunately, my older 2 get to play the role of guinea pig quite often. When my oldest was in K-2, we did narrations, copywork, poetry memorization, etc., but then for various reasons got away from it. As I was sorting through all our stuff in preparation to move this past summer, I found our old notebooks and began to wonder if maybe I shouldn't have kept patiently plugging away all those years.
Anyway, as far as length goes... it's good to know that some of you break up the passages. That was one approach I'd thought of, and also excerpting... although I suppose you might lose some of the spelling words that way.
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Grace&Chaos wrote:
| Jen, you mentioned your fifth grader is in Book 1. I'm trying to figure out if this would be too challenging for a third grader. From what I've been reading about CM you really don't need to worry about a "spelling program" in the younger years. My second dd will be third grader next fall and so far I'm extremely pleased with her independent reading and narrating; dictations we haven't started at all she is just doing copy work. How do you determine when to start this program? |
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Good question, and the answer will probably vary from child to child. In general, I look to the child's writing abilities. Are they able to form letters correctly and fluidly? Is their writing laborious and tedious or are they able to write well and with ease? If you have a 3rd grader that is able to write well and you consider writing to be a tool to be used rather than a skill needing to be learned, then it would probably be fine to start with very simple dictation exercises - one sentence only. With both of my oldest children I haven't started offering dictation lessons until the 4th grade. My next child is a very good writer. He's a student for whom the act of writing comes very easily already and he's only in the 1st grade. I could see me considering simple dictation exercises for this child in the third grade...but it wouldn't be anything I'd really stress over, and the exercises would be very simple!
GraceandChaos wrote:
| As for my fifth grader, we are slowly introducing dictation but to be honest I haven't been consistent. I've let her continue with the Sadlier Oxford Vocabulary that Kolbe recommends only because she is so familiar with it. I would like to try something different next year. Lingua Mater 6 is turning out to be a nice transition towards this goal. Thought: Where to begin with her? |
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Lingua Mater is a wonderful program! I used it with my oldest daughter. We stretched the program over 2 years and found that worked well for us. It allows plenty of time for your copywork and dictation lessons on alternating days. These dictation lessons can support the lesson studied in Lingua Mater - for example, if you're working with adjectives, you can ask your student to point out the adjectives in the dictation exercise. My daughter and I set up a private blog for her to do her Lingua Mater writing and exercises and she really enjoyed that format for working on her writing. If it were me...I'd drop the vocabulary and all other extra programs because they begin to add up and feel weighty...both to the child and to me. I've done it before so I know! If you want to try LM, I really recommend the 2 year stretch for the program because it really offers extra time for the writing and leaves time for the simple but extremely effective CM exercises of copywork, dictation, and narration.
Language arts is one of the areas of CM that is so simple and so effective in its application...but it is such a leap of faith to trust it to be enough. In years past, I've backfilled my plans so that they're overwhelming, trying to do some kind of CM inspired vision of language arts and it left me overwhelmed and my kids utterly frustrated. I finally took a deep breath and stepped out and into what I knew in my heart was working...I could see it working...I just kept telling myself that surely it couldn't be enough. What works is the gentle, consistent application over the days, weeks, months, and years - narration, copywork, dictation - from a feast of living books and thoughts.
This is totally off topic now so I'm going to stop rambling. Just wanted to relate some of my experiences.
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Jen Mackintosh
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Thanks Jen ! You always have great advice. I have been considering dropping the Vocabulary for dd. You just gave me the extra confidence I needed. (I'm pretty sure she thanks you too ) I looked up what we're using and its the third part of Hillsides ILL. She is enjoying it now that we're on our 9th week of using it, but it took her a couple of weeks to get rid of the "not enough" feeling, especially after using Voyages in English for three years. I do look forward to the actual Lingua Mater and was thinking about spreading it over two years like you've suggested. Will be using PLL for dd 7 and will give SW a try to supplement. These suggestions have just been added to my Language Arts file folder.  (I feel I'm getting a grasp on our learning style. Advice on this forum is much appreciated.)
Eva, I printed the second year and will test it out as copy work for dd 7 (no stress, keep it simple) in order to prepare for the next level. Thanks for the link .
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Jenny
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pmeilaen
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Grace&Chaos wrote:
| Eva, I printed the second year and will test it out as copy work for dd 7 (no stress, keep it simple) in order to prepare for the next level. Thanks for the link . |
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Good luck with it. My daughter, also 7, really enjoys it.
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My turn for a Spelling Wisdom question; ds11 is using Bk 2, despite studying the words he is still getting many incorrect. Would your advice be to take him back to Bk 1 (which could embarrass him as dd9 is using that already, plus he is in Grade 6 next year and really needs to step it up a notch) or to continue with Bk 2 and undertake other steps? If so I'd appreciate suggestions.
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I probably would start to pull selections from Book 1 for your ds 11, Erin. Here's how I would do it.
Without much ado:
** Move the Spelling Wisdom books around - stash them on a different shelf, in a drawer, somewhere different from the familiar place you've been keeping them. (I know you're using an ebook - are you printing as you go? If so, ignore this!)
** Print pages or make a copy of the daily selection to give to the children for their studied dictations - don't hand the book to any of the children. If you're copying, just crop off the very bottom footer of the page that identifies which book the selection comes from.
** Start by jumping to the middle of Book 1, or an area that ds 9 is not using right now.
** If you find that they're really in the EXACT same spot in Book 1, have ds 9 complete the exercises on the odd pages, and ds 11 complete exercises on even pages.
** Do ds 9 and ds 11 dictations in different rooms, apart from each other, at different times of the day.
** Pull out all of ds 11's dictations from this year - can you find a pattern? A particular blend that always gives him trouble? Certain words? Make a list of those words, or note any patterns of trouble he has and use the index of Book I to flip to appropriate selections.
** Offer short selections only.
** Let his studied dictation selection be his copywork for the day. I don't like to do this (prefer to use something different for their copywork), but I've seen recently with one of my children how this has really helped solidify challenging words. It also gives practice at placing punctuation in proper places, and another opportunity to briefly address other grammatical/mechanical issues in the sentence.
** Does ds 11 have a desk or a place he usually sits to do his work? I found that hanging a small dry erase board (about 14 x 16 - I found these peel and stick dry erase sheets the other day and thought they would do perfectly for this! We use these small boards from Rainbow Resources) right in front of my ds10's work space was a big help for him! We write words down on his board that he needs to really study from his dictation. He writes the word in blue and underlines the blend that challenges him in red. This week, his challenging word is separation...he underlined AR in red because he says he keeps thinking it should be ER. Every time he looks up during the day, he sees the word and it helps in making that visual picture of a word. Simple.
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So, if it were me, I'd move him back a book and try to make that as seamless and a non-issue as I possibly could so that the two boys may not know they're working out of the same book. I know you know this, but keep in mind that the middle and end of Book 1 is VERY different in terms of selections than the beginning of book 1 and that could help as well.
A final idea would be to pull his dictation lesson out of his literature reading once/week just for some variety. If he's reading a REALLY fantastic book he enjoys, grab a sentence or two from his reading and let that be his dictation once/week. My son enjoys it when his dictation is something exciting from his reading.
My goal would be to get him to a place in Spelling Wisdom that fits. A place that he can feel like he only needs to study 1 - 2 words at a time (for now) so that he can focus his energy there, write well, and build confidence in dictation.
Hope this helps! Good luck, Erin!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Topic: advice re: Spelling Wisdom
