More Spelling Wisdom Questions

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  • October 20, 2015 at 9:26 am
    pangit
    Participant

    How do you do 2 passages per week and have time to really learn the new words and punctuation?  We have so far been following this schedule:

    Day 1: Copywork passage (or sometimes dictate passage)

    Day 2 and 3: Work on learning new words and punctuation

    Day 4: Dictate passage

    Also, one of my children seems to be a natural speller.  If she knows all the words, do I skip the passage or still do it so she can work with the punctuation?

    October 20, 2015 at 4:14 pm
    jmac17
    Participant

    I think it all depends on the child and what level you are working on.  For some, 2 passages a week would be appropriate, but for some that might be too much.  My understanding is that there should only be 2 or 3 words in each passage that the child doesn’t already know, so one or two days to learn them would be enough.  If there are more than that, you would either move down a level, or take more time, possibly by dividing the passages up.

    Also, the new Using Language Well resource suggests using the first 70 lesson of Spelling Wisdom Book 1 as transcription (copywork) before moving on to dictation at lesson 71.  That is what we are doing.  My kids are currently doing one lesson a day.  When we get to dictation, we’ll slow down to 2 per week, studying the lesson on one day and writing from dictation the next, with a day off or an extra study day if needed.  If/when the passages get long enough that two is too much, we’ll slow down.  It’s all about what’s appropriate for the student involved.

    We do all the passages, even if they know all the words.  They don’t take very long, and we also discuss the meaning of the quotes, which I think are just as valuable for the messages they contain as for the skills being developed.

    October 21, 2015 at 8:10 am
    Sonya Shafer
    Moderator

    You already have a great answer here, but I’ll tag onto it too. 🙂

    Here are the steps to a Spelling Wisdom dictation lesson:

    1. Read the passage together and look for any words the student doesn’t know how to spell. Ideally, there will be no more than three or four. If there are more than that, back off to an easier passage.

    2. The student studies those words however he learns best. If he is visual, he could look at each one until he can see it in his mind’s eye; if he is auditory, he could whisper the letters to himself while looking at each one; if he is kinesthetic, he could build the words with letter tiles or fingerspell each one.

      If copying the passage helps him, he could copy it; but he doesn’t have to do the passage as copywork unless that is a big benefit to him in studying it. For some students copying it is a valuable aid; for others, it is busywork.

      While he is in the studying stage, he could also look at the punctuation and capitalization, depending on when you make that a requirement.

      How long the studying stage takes depends on the student, the passage, and the number of new words to learn. For some, this stage can take a day or two; others could be ready in five minutes.

    3. When the student is sure he knows how to spell every word in the passage, he comes to you and says, “I’m ready.” You don’t believe him. 😉 You spot check to set him up for success. Ask him orally how to spell the three or four words he was working on. If he’s struggling or uncertain about one, work with him to solidify it.

    4. Once you’re convinced he knows how to spell each word, then (and only then) you dictate the passage a short phrase at a time, saying each phrase once, for the student to write. Feed the phrases at the student’s pace; this is not an exercise in rote memory. The focus is on the spelling, not the speed.

    5. Keep an eye on the student’s work as he writes. If you have done all of the steps listed above, mistakes should be few and far between. If he does happen to misspell a word, cover it with a small sticky note or some white-out tape and keep going so he doesn’t mentally lose the phrase he is working on. When he is all finished, have him go study that word again and write it correctly on top of the sticky note.

    I hope that helps clarify the process a bit.

    October 21, 2015 at 8:13 am
    Sonya Shafer
    Moderator

    Oh, I forgot to address the question about your daughter who is a natural speller and whether she could still benefit from dictation.

    Even if the spelling is not a challenge for her, she will be getting other benefits from doing dictation.

    • She will have practice reinforcing the mechanics of capitalization and punctuation (especially if you from time to time ask her why a particular punctuation mark or capital letter is in that particular place in the passage).
    • She will be looking closely at good sentence structure and writing styles, and she will be internalizing good ideas from the selected passages.
    • You can also use the passages to review/reinforce grammar concepts that she has learned (e.g., find five nouns in the passage; what kind of verb is this and how do you know?; is this word an adjective or adverb? what word is it modifying?).
    • If she is learning typing, she can type the passages for further practice.

    And she will most likely encounter some words she does not know how to spell along the way. 🙂

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