Sequential Spelling – How does it work?

I just received my book today.  It is the revised edition and has one page in the back with some spelling rules for those who may want them.  I am disappointed in the beginning of this edition because it is not as thorough as the sample I linked to on page 1 of this thread.  I want to encourage anyone starting this with the revised edition to print out the sample of the older edition and read through it.  If I had an older edition, I would like to compare it to this new revised to see which one I like better.  But I guess since we did use the sample and have our teaching method down now, it is the word lists that are most important.

We are using a blank spiral notebook, but may switch to whiteboard.  I have been erasing the word before moving onto the next word on my teaching white board.  Is this correct, or should I be listing them?  When the child uses the whiteboard, do they keep a running list until the end, or erase each word as they go?

I always erase before moving onto the next word. 

For day 5 yesterday, I tried keeping a list on my board.  My daughter sometimes looked at my board when writing the next word, so it may help her figure out the patterns, even though she keeps a list on her paper.  The drawback is that I have to write smaller to fit them all in on my board.  But the colors may help her figure out the patterns better than her seeing them on her paper.  I will try listing half the words and then erase, so I can write a little bigger.  

And she missed the “test” word of “beginning”, but I think it is because she got in a hurry and wrote beging.  I told her to take another look at it and she corrected it before I wrote it on my board.  She is starting to learn the double the n rule.  And she is starting to slow down when writing so she can hear the sounds the letters make.

We did not get the new workbook.  I like that they can see how they can take a blank notebook and fill it in an orderly, meaningful way.  It costs less too.  But I like the idea of an activity to help them use their words, though I do not care for the word search, unscramble, and fill in the blanks.  I like having her make up some sentences with her words.  Depending on age and ability of the student, they can write their new words in their own sentence.  For my daughter, I will have her tell me her sentence and I will write it, leaving a blank for her to write her spelling word(s).  But the older or advanced student could write their own sentence(s).  I think this would have more CM flavor than the workbook.  She likes to put drawings with some words too.  She is really having fun with it.

As for the kinesthetic and oral component at the end of each word, we forgot to do that yesterday.  And the lesson was around 15 minutes instead of 25 minutes.  Are you including this?  I will try to remember to have us say it and write it in the air after each word.

I thought some kind of letter tiles could be used too, instead of writing in the air.  You could use scrabble tiles, magnet letters, foam bath letters, or letter cards (we have some from Hooked on Phonics) for something more hands-on, if that is how they learn better.  This would take more time, but may be what some students really need.  

I’m ashamed to say that in the busy-ness of life, we’ve left spelling slide.  🙁

After the holidays I’m going to try to put it back in.

I still like the idea of Seq. Sp.  And for my oldest daughter, I think it’s a good enough program (it makes more sense to me than the random words her CLE Lang. Arts curriculum uses).  I am one of those people who are always on the look-out for better things, so maybe some day we’ll change – but for now (when we start back up!) Seq. Sp. is what we’ll use for her.