The spelling binder is ready.

I cobbled together my own spelling program last year, and it’s not been too much work to get it ready for next year.  I’ve been following the study-test-study algorithm (more or less) set out in the inexpensive ($60 gets you all the way through high school) program Spelling Power, but I don’t use (yet) the word lists provided in that program.  Instead, I am using lists I generated myself, organized by sound-spelling correspondence.  For example, here is the very first spelling list I gave Oscar at the beginning of his second grade year:

/n/ is most often spelled n

an, and, ant, bin, born, can, end, fan, fun, gun, hen, in, man, men, net, no, not, on, pan, pen, ran, run, sent, sin, son, sun, tan, ten, van, vent, went, win, wind, won

Actually, I gave him a longer list of words, including things like “spinach,” “volcano,” “pancake,” and “money,” made him read the whole list of words, and then asked him to choose a sample (so many from each line of the list) to be tested on.  You’ll notice that he chose the “easy” words!  That’s okay; the point here is for him to learn that the sound /n/ is most often spelled with a single letter n.  Later, when we get to the list “/ee/ is sometimes spelled ey,” or “/u/ is sometimes spelled o,” he’s going to see “money” again. And then, “money” will be one of the easier words on that list.  Maybe that time he’ll choose it.

He copied his list onto a form for studying, and I tested him later, and we repeated missed words until he didn’t miss any more, and then we went on to the next sound-spelling correspondence.   The first 42 lists were the most common spellings for the 42 most common sounds in English.  (Did you know that /ee/ is most often spelled with a y?)  We almost got through all of them in second grade.  I have a few left over to do at the beginning of third.  The next set of lists are the next most common spellings for those sounds.

Anyway, I just cleaned out the binder — threw out all the old spelling papers to make room for new ones.  I did, however, keep the study forms Oscar filled out when he chose words from my lists, and put them in a section in his binder.  The backs of each sheet are blank — I decided he will use the backs on his second tour of English sounds, so that on the back of “/n/ is most often spelled n” he will write the list called “/n/ is often spelled ne, especially at the end of words.” (Airplane, alone, anyone, bone, borne, brine, caffeine…)

One subject down.  I forget how many to go.