The Joy Of Learning

"Spell to Write and Read" Program Review

* Nope, this is not a paid review. :-)

I can be a real annoying person. The teacher in me likes to correct mistakes. When people say “off/on the light”, I sometime told them that “off” and “on” are not verbs.:-)

I don’t know how many of us in Malaysia never learn the parts of speech (articles, nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, pronouns, interjections, conjunctions, adverbs)during our school days. I attended a Chinese primary school in a New Village and a national-typed Malay secondary school in a small town (a “pekan’), and a local university that still had some ramnants of English speaking professors in the early 90s, yet I had never heard of “parts of speech”, either in 20 years of formal English lessons or in my own attempts to improve my English.

I didn’t know “sentence analysis” nor did I know how to dissect a sentence into its parts of speech. Taking up Montessori training, going through the mechanics of presenting this vital informations to pre -schoolers, to a level that they can absorb, is so much an eye opening experience for me! Then, when I went through “Spell to Write and Read”, it felt like my first English lesson after all this years of getting by.

Since many of you have contacted me on details about this program, I will try to write a review here.:-)

“Spell to Write and Read-SWR” is written by Wanda Sanseri, she offers a method of learning to read that begins with spelling, based on Romalda Spalding’s phonograms taught in “The Writing Road to Reading-TWTR”. Mrs Sanseri has expanded and adapted the technique to create a program that is thorough and will last from the earliest years through the end of high school. For about USD100 (the core kits), the program can be used for more than 10 years, I think it’s a program well worth the money spent.

The teacher’s manual is called “Spell to Write and Read”, it is the heart of the program. It explains how to teach phonograms, how to create a “learning log,” the book in which all rules and spelling words are written, and when and how to start using “The Wise Guide”.

“The WISE Guide for Spelling” has two thousand spelling words broken down into twenty word lessons. Many of the sections end with reinforcement ideas and “spelling enrichments, including playing games, deaf-signing the phonograms, and how to set the table properly using the alphabet, different activities related to grammar or other aspects of language i.e. compound words, oxymorons, alliteration, and suffixes are a few of the items discussed. Students are also required to write original sentences in these activities.

The program begins with phonemic awareness for the youngest (preschool) students. Students learn to speak and print the single consonant and vowel phonograms and then begin spelling before learning multi-letter phonograms, moving on to spelling in as brief a time as three weeks before complete mastery of the phonograms. Handwriting is taught to non-writer as we go along.

Mrs. Sanseri recommends that the parent/teacher should make a learning log of her own from a composition notebook before beginning with the child. Older students who can write are expected to make their own learning logs; however, for younger students, the teacher/parent can help to log.

Since the method is rather alien to most of us who learn the “hole” language way, several readings of “Spell to Write and Read” will be needed in order to understand the method. I found putting together the “learning log” was instrumental to my understanding of the big pictures and what needs to be done.

It is a thorough, rigorous, and offers a logical approach that may be tailored to the individual student. The diagnostic tests help the parent/teacher to identify the level of an older child and to chart the progress of the child. Frequent repetition offers reinforcement to students who have difficulty with spelling, and the suggested games allow spelling to become a fun and interesting subject. My students often go home talked about “Bingo”, “tic-tac-toe”, some parents did wonder: did I just play with them that they were so excited to come to class on a Saturday morning ?!!

Filed under Uncategorized |