Good question. I wanted one exercise per page to make it easier for kids to keep their focus and attention on the correct exercise. Some moms use that extra space for the word-studying portion of dictation, yes. The student can write the words to be studied, copy the words, or whatever. You can even use that space for your “pre-test” if you fold the sheet over.
I’ve used Spelling Wisdom both ways: e-book and printed book. When I used the e-book format, I would print 4-6 exercises at a time. That would hold us over for 2 or 3 weeks. Once we finished with the sheet of paper, I put it in a stack of “drawing scratch paper” that I keep under my desk, so we could use the back for something else.
Now that I’m using the printed books, we don’t write in them; however, I have used them for three different students and have another one coming up. So I feel like we’ve gotten good use out of them.