Formal grammar we save for middle or high school. The only thing we do before then is introduce the basic terms for noun/verb/etc. using the World of Language picture books by Ruth Heller. We only do that because we take standardized testing each year (state requirement) and it’s on there beginning with 1st or 2nd grade.
Spelling – We’ve done a mix. One child used All About Spelling for about 2 years and it was okay. What we’ve found works best for us is to relax about it. We pick up Spelling Wisdom (from SCM) beginning around 3rd/4th grade for a child, they use is slowly as a combination copywork/spelling/looking at punctuation/prepared dictation. And they just keep working through that over the years. I have some kids who are more visual/natural spellers and others who are not. I’ve also seen that for my later to read independently kids spelling tends to take longer to pick up simply because they haven’t been exposed to the volume of written print that a child who started reading two years or more earlier than they did would have.
Another key for me – if it bothers the child that they have trouble spelling – then we work on it specifically using their own writing and words they tend to misspell.
