I understand how to use Spelling Wisdom and how to do dictation. We are finishing Level 2 of AAS and moving into Spelling Wisdom and ULW.
I’m having a difficult time understanding how the week will look. Can someone share with me how you use the two together using a more detailed/longer lesson? What does a week look like?
So you will be starting with book 1 with SW and ULW? It starts with copy work/transcription and 1/2 way through the book (approx 4th grade) moves into dictation. Oh and ULW are not long lessons, and actually it works really smoothly to use SW lessons as part of the grammar for ULW. Over all my 3rd grader spends maybe 10 minutes on SW and ULW together. My 5th grader a bit longer, because she is studying new words more in depth but over all the lessons are a nice length.
My 3rd grader started book 1 this year.
Monday – ULW exercise this includes copying the SW passage
Tuesday – he and I review the SW passage and any new words. He writes each new word three times and we discuss any spelling rules are why it is spelled that way, if needed. I often verbally check him, asking him to spell words that he knows and new words. Not a formal “test” just checking with him.
Wednesday – no SW or ULW lesson
Thursday – Repeat of Monday with the next ULW Lesson which includes the SW passage as copy work
Friday – Repeat of Tuesday with the new words from the SW copy work.
My oldest is in book 2 of SW
Monday she does the ULW exercise and we review the SW passage that goes with it for new words. She studies those new words.
Tuesday – I dictate the SW exercise to her, after she has reviewed and I have verbally “spot checked” her for the new words.
Wednesday – no SW or ULW
Thursday – Repeat of Monday with next SW and ULW lesson
Friday – Repeat of Tuesday (dictating the SW passage)
I also fully expect that at times my oldest will need a full week for one exercise if there are too many new words. We had a passage a couple weeks ago that I could tell by spot checking she was not ready for dictation exercise yet, so I helped her study her words, breaking them apart and helping her learn methods that work for her to study them. If it takes a week to do one SW/ULW lesson that works too 🙂
She is 9 (grade 3) and we are starting Book 1 for both. I’m also curious about the longer passages later in the book. Are those easy to transcribe or dictate in one setting? Right now she copies in cursive one page of Hymns in Prose per day. The passages appear to get lengthy.
She is so excited about starting it. She is tired of the constant review in AAS.
Later in the book those will be used as dictation passages. For long dictation passages I have my oldest study all the new words and let her know that I will not dictate the entire passage but don’t tell her which section I will do.
I gauge it by what she is able to do. Right now (5th grade) she is comfortable taking close to 5 minutes to do the dictation, so we can go further than last year when 3-4 minutes was about as long as she could go at full attention and doing her best. I think it depends on the student and how you choose to do longer passages. I fully expect our dictation time to continue to grow as she matures.
Oh and so far in book one, my son is on Exercise #27 I think it was, they have not been to long for him to do in one sitting. They do get longer, but so far so good. If they become too long that is when we will decide if he copies the entire passage, a portion, or we break it into a couple of days. With the longer passages, my DD (5th grade, book 2) is not copying the entire passage, just studying new words. She is doing written narrations and other writing activities (she enjoys writing for fun) so I don’t feel that copying the entire SW passage would be beneficial at this time.
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