@nerakr – lots of good info above to help you, but just wanted to clarify on the writing component. In RLtL children do have to write more than just the phonograms because they write the spelling words from a teacher dictated list (teacher’s choice whether to schedule a dictation 1x per week, twice, or 3x per week…but either way there are around 15 words per week at the young age…or for older students she suggests around 40 words per week. 40 sounds like a lot, but if you want to make it less heavy and you like short lessons, you just break it up accordingly, i.e. do dictation 2x per week for 20 words each time, or 3x per week for around 13 words each time).
In short, 2x per week you do a “phonogram quiz” (where you dictate the phonograms and you student writes), and 1-3x per week (your choice) you do a spelling list dictation. Now, keep in mind, the student should find it pretty easy becuase YOU are to dictate the words by saying each phonogram aloud and they bascially “create” the corrected spelled word from the way you’ve dictated. In essence, they’ll never spell a word wrong if they know their phonograms because you are actually dictating the spelling words phonogram by phonogram.
Hope this makes sense!
Oh, and the spelling list dictation doesn’t start until after phonogram “z”, so that part of the routine only kicks in about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through level one.
Last point – the child writes their spelling words in their own spelling book (just a plain composition book or spiral bound lined paper book) and THIS book (their OWN book) is the book that they read from each day as they review the words previously written out. I’m pointing this out because my DS6.5 happens to have unusually beautiful printing and with this, the system of reading-spelling-words-from-your-own-book is working great. He LOVES looking back on previous “tests”, reading the words from there and always prints even more neatly than usual (which is pretty perfect!) because he knows he’s constantly going to be looking at it. Now, if it had been my second son at that age it very likely would have been a nightmare because his handwriting was horrific (he still struggles to write neatly at age 9.5). Anyway, if HE had been forced to look back on his lists from yesterday and last week (etc.) he would have been very unhappy…i.e. a constant reminder that he struggles with printing/always having to try to read from sloppy printed words.
Sooooo, I guess with a child who struggles on writing you would be very much wanting to keep the list dictation super short and hopefully if you were only dictating 3 or 4 words, he/she could do that tiny amount very neatly. (I know this is what I would have had to do with my second son)
