Jesse,LoveBaby wrote:My daughter loves spelling by sound and structure and I'm wondering why MFW suggests switching to Spelling Power instead of staying with Spelling by Sound and Structure. I need to be convinced that it will be worth switching, since she enjoys SbSaS so much!
Why the switch? Spelling Power works best with 8 year olds and up. So SbSaS gives something to use for 2nd graders. SP can be modified for youngest users. But the SbSaS is a nice grade level workbook that isn’t overwhelming.
SP is a one book for all ages from 8 through high school --- so over time it is very cost effective because it is a one time purchase for everyone.
SP is multisensory in its approach. It isn’t just worksheet, it isn’t just tactile spelling.
One of the features of SP is that you only study words in each of the phonics spelling group that you don’t know how to spell. The word lists are group by phonics sounds and then some of the lists deal with non-phonics based spellings such as irregular plurals, certain capitalization rules for spelling, adding suffixes, etc.
In order to determine which words to study, I tweak SP a little bit from their recommendation for the initial pre-test. We don’t really do the pre test the way it says to do it. My middle child studies the whole list without any pre test involved (she likes to practice words that she knows). My oldest child does better to modify that pre test step --- we’ll call out the words on the group rule list, she spells out loud the ones that she 100% knows and just says “I’ll study that one” for words that she is unsure of. If she guesses wrong, she tends to guess it wrong for a long time, so I eliminated the guessing aspect.
Then I re-sort the list in each phonics rule so that similar words are together. In other words, when you study a sound, there are several options for making that sound, such as long A can be spelled A silent E, ei, eigh, ay, ai. Well, in SP you are learning words within a phonics sound, I just reorder that phonics sound list so that we first study all of the ai words, then all of the ay words. Then on test day at the end, I mix it up.
In addition to the things that we say about it, you might want to look off of this message board onto what is known in some internet circles as The Paula H Archives. That’s not a mfw site or anything. So it’s nice to see other homeschoolers in other curriculum using and liking SP.
http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/SPmenu.htm
but of course come back to MFW's site for purchasing it <wink wink>
I think the Quick Start Video is very valuable (on the paula archives, she doesn’t think so.) I think the quick start video helps to guide you through the program and it is included in 4th edition.
And the MFW teacher’s manual guides you through which pages to read in the SP book so that you have time to get use to the program. The SP gives very long and very detailed instructions.
-crystal