I am currently using Headsprout Phonics to teach my 5 year old son to read. He is doing well and should have the program completed by Christmas. I am currently trying to decided what LA program to dive into from there. I am fascinated with Spell to Write and Read, but am wondering if it is the best Spalding program out there or if there is something else just as wonderful, but easier to use. I also like the looks of All About Spelling, but feel like I don't have enough information to make a good choice. I wish that I could lay hands on the curriculums to choose. Does anyone have an opinion or experience to share? I also have 3 younger boys that will eventually use the same curriculum and so want something that will last us for years to come and not be costly for each child.

selah,

I don't know anything about the Spalding programs, but I will share my experience thus far. I was very stumped (and frankly quite stressed) over what to do with a little one that is actively asking for and ready for spelling. Our limiting factor is the mechanical writing skills.

I was relieved and quite delighted to discover that the Spelling Power, 4th Edition recommended by TOG actually provides alternate implementation instructions for early spellers.

I use the simple spelling words as hand writing practice and this is working quite well for us.
It allows me to make sure he has his phonics down (he taught himself to read and I am concerned about how well he mastered phonics). I plan to take the A and B lists at a slow pace until the writing skills are up to par.

This one program will probably go the distance for all of your children as it is not consumable.

Hope this helps
educaring

As a new user of SWR (and having seen no other Spalding programs), I can't offer insight into the relative value of Spalding programs, but I do have an opinion of the relative value of Spelling Power for problem spellers. Obviously there are lots of people that Spelling Power works for, but I wanted to put in my two cents here.

As the mom of two natural spellers and one struggling speller, I can say that Spelling Power did not work at all for any of our children (nor for other problem spellers of my acquaintance). My struggling speller could easily memorize a missed word and get it right the rest of the week, then a week after that misspell it as if she'd never seen it before. I tried all kinds of modifications (re-testing the words over a period of weeks at increasing intervals), but it simply didn't do the job. After a couple of years with Spelling Power, she still couldn't reliably spell predictable words like hatch and slit.

I think one problem is that Spelling Power (like Sequential Spelling) focuses entirely on one concept at a time. So for a few days you focus on the long a sound, for example; then after that, you might not see a long a sound for quite some time, until the review. My daughter is quite capable of spelling aw/au words properly on spelling tests for a week, and then a week later having no idea what letters are used to make the aw sound. She needs systematic, constant review.

Plus, Spelling Power offers relatively few helps for logically figuring out WHICH of the long a spellings might be used. It offers exercises like looking at a word, trying to visualize the spelling, and writing it in different ways (none of which helped my daughter with long-term retention). (Sequential Spelling offers NO helps of the logical kind, relying entirely on pattern recognition, which is one of the things I understand tends to be weak in problem spellers.)

I switched to an Orton-Gillingham program for her; we started with Angling for Words and worked on that for a while. It took her successfully through the basics of phonics for both reading and spelling, but after she finished the basics, I was going to have to develop my own program for her. So in the past few weeks we've been doing Spell to Write and Read. I am quite impressed so far with SWR, and am using it with both a 6yo natural speller and my 11yo problem speller (both of whom tested at high grade 5 on the diagnostic test). It's too early for me to offer a real opinion on SWR, but it has most of the characteristics that I've been looking for, especially a systematic, constant review of the basics while spelling a variety of words. I also can see some potential limitations of this program, but I don't know how they'll work out in practice. We'll see how it goes.

Hi Selah~
I am familiar with a few programs that use the Spalding method. If you want to e-mail me at your convenience I'd be happy to share with you a little of what I know about Spell to Write and Read, The Phonics Road, and All About Spelling.
~In Christ's Love We Stand~
Deb
Mom of 6 Fishers of Men
lilgrazie @ earthlink.net

I am using Spell to Write and Read (SWR) along with a natural language approach.

What I like about SWR: It teaches all the sounds up front so there is no need for sight words. The gals on the SWR have some great ideas in teaching the letter sounds that have really clicked with us. The games, sand letter cards and writing in sand.

What I like about the natural language approach: it uses word families, which I don't like for spelling purpose but for learning to read I love it. They also have the child read easy readers, which SWR doesn't because they aren't good literature, but I think it gives the child incentive to read. The natural language approach has the child do dictation with some of the phrases from these simple readers, which is very similar to spelling. I think having it come from the child's readers makes it more fun then using random words (SWR words are all easy, but they don't relate).

I continue to do dictation from my children's readers daily, one sentance a day, but I also do 10 words a day from SWR. My oldest is a natural speller, so I don't use the program as prescribed. She doesn't like to do the finger spelling and doesn't need the activities. I simply give her 10 words, let her spell them and mark them up. If she gets them wrong at all I have her correct it immediately, then I make a note of it and we work on it daily till she gets it right, then I will cover it weekly, then monthly to make sure she has it down long term.

The problem I had with doing the program as it is supposed to be done is that it takes so much time, and my dd didn't need it. She gets most the words right (now working in lists a year ahead of her grade level). Why should we spend a lot of time working on words she already knows? By making it our own I feel like we still get the benefit of the phonograms and spelling rules that SWR uses without the huge time investment.

That is how we have made SWR meet our needs.

I haven't tried the other Spalding programs out there because, well mostly cost. They are more expensive. All About Spelling is cost effective, but it uses word families which I have a philosophical problem with using them to teach spelling, so I won't use it.

Heather

We are using a little known version of Spalding called "Sound Beginnings". It was recommended in Mother of Divine Grace 2nd Grade curriculm. What I like about it is that it's set up specifcally for homeschooling.
You can go to Mother of Divine Grace web site (don't let the name put you off - it's classical curriculm just like TOG) to find a link to the only seller I could find which was a person in Washington, Our Father's House/World. That's the downside.
The good side is that Sound Beginnings has a day by day easy to follow format written for homeschooling moms. When we did the sample online I literally cried because it was just what my son needed and I wished I had when I was his age.
Start Write Now just didn't click for me, though a friend recommended it.
Sound Beginnings includes phonogram writing, dictation, spelling, etc. Schedules for incorporating all of these included. 1/2 way thru they start reading a kid's bible as a suggested book. We aren't there yet.