Here it is, the post I've been attempting to write for two years, and never had the time until now! Cadence has always struggled with spelling, but along about 5th grade we finally hit our stride in helping her cope with those struggles and overcome them.
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| ReC way back in PreK, having an All About Spelling lesson. My baby! |
We use two parts to spelling every week. She really needed the rules and phonics base that All About Spelling provides, and she also really needed a base of frequently used words she could draw from as quickly as possible. So we have combined All About Spelling with practicing 'sight words.' In this post I will describe how we use All About Spelling with multiple kids and low storage space.
First let's talk about storage -
Here is everything inside the basket:
I keep all the pieces we haven't gotten to yet in the blue lidded pencil box.
Inside a half inch binder are all the paper and loose parts that come with each kit. The front pocket has the stickers for each level, along with notebook paper.
Everything paper that comes with each level is hole punched and filed in the right section of the binder. The exception is completion certificates - I keep those on a shelf in my room. When it is time to do a lesson, I just flip to the level that child is on, and get started. It is easy to pull out a page if they need to write on it, or leave it in the binder if they are just reading through a word bank.
The rule breaker jail goes in the back pocket for easy access, since it is used in more than one level. Pieces that will need to be cut apart for use later I keep in a page protector at the back.
Because of the way we do our card review, I keep cards we are done with in the bottom of the basket, to be pulled out a couple times a year for reviewing the mastered cards.
On to how we use it!
I'm sure everyone uses this program slightly differently. That's the beauty of curriculum, right? It's there to serve you how you need it! Because this program is parent intensive, we only use it three times a week instead of daily. We also break up the lesson over those three days so it isn't overwhelming.
Day 1: Lesson Day
On lesson day I put the basket and tiles on the table, bring a kid to the table, and jump into the lesson book. We skip the card review and go straight to the review with tiles and new teaching sections. We work through the new teaching, write only three to five dictation sentences, do the writing station in the older levels, and then put our sticker on the chart.
Day 2: Card Day
Card day this year is in the van waiting on siblings to be done with piano. I keep all the cards for the levels we are currently using in a bag with pencils and paper, and the kids sit on the floor of the van beside my seat while we do all the card reviews.
Day 3: Dictation Day
Since dictation is also often done in the car or a waiting room, I just grab the book we need and head out. I have a notebook and pen in my purse they can use if they don't have any other school work with them to write on. I keep track of which sentences they have successfully completed with a tiny check mark - if they struggle with a word I underline it so we can practice it several more times at the end of our practice, and start with those words again the next time to make sure they remember them. We usually stay about a lesson behind in our dictation, but that is ok, because...
Summer!
Ok, yes, I make my kids do spelling in the summer. At least the older two, because they are struggling spellers. The poor dears. During the summer we only do a new lesson every two or three weeks, and spend the rest of our spelling time reviewing the cards and dictation sentences so they don't lose ground.
And there you are - that is how we make All About Spelling a perfect fit for us!
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