I was so honored to receive the 4th grade level
of Spelling Mechanics Homeschool Word Study for review.
This company was started by Rosanne Cowan and Eileen Mattman. They
have a combined 50 + years experience in elementary education and both have Masters
degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. They have dedicated more
than 10 years to make this program happen.
My First Impressions
Spelling Mechanics Homeschool Word Study is so complete and so full of information, it
is difficult to know where to begin my review.
Spelling Mechanics is most definitely named correctly. The authors break down the mechanics of
spelling for your students in very clear and clever ways.
Each lesson is organized and allows you to choose how you would like to
present it to your student. Implementation
Instructions and Pacing Suggestions are included in the Teacher Documents. These are very helpful, and include very
detailed instructions on how best to use this program. If you can work a computer mouse, you can
find what you need to use this program successfully with your child.
One of my favorite features was the website links provided
for both teachers and students for reinforcement of the lessons we just spent
time learning. It really helps break up
the day to have fun sites like these to practice spelling rules!
How We Used It
We chose to skip around for each lesson, but here are the
lessons, in order that are available for the 4th grade level:
1.
The Dictionary
2.
Contractions
3.
The Silent But Powerful E
4.
Hard and Soft c-
5.
Hard and Soft g-
6.
Words that end in f or fe
7.
Doubling one-syllable words
8.
The Final Y
9.
R-Controlled Vowels
10.
Unusual Past Tenses
11.
Review & UN and PRE
12.
Homophones
13.
R-Controlled Vowels (ear, ir, ur)
14.
Analyzing Words
15.
Ow, ou, oi, oy
16.
Unaccented Syllables with le, al, el, il
17.
Unaccented Syllables with et, it, ate
18.
Accented Syllables with au, aw, al
19.
Silent Letters
20.
Other Spellings of Short e, i, u
21.
There, They’re, Their
22.
Plurals and Singular Possessives
23.
Possessives
24.
Then and Than
Here’s Abbey’s work from an exercise found in Lesson
4: Hard and Soft “C”:
For each lesson, I teach Abbey the new rule
and then have her do the worksheets, usually two a day. Then, if I feel she needs more practice, I visit one of the recommended websites with her to practice what she had
just learned, or I have her go back over the worksheets again with
me. Once I felt she had mastered a
level, I quiz her to make sure.
One of the greatest ways I can
tell if a program is working for my child is that she will apply the skills she
has learned in everyday life. When we
were camping last weekend, she was writing a letter to her Mimi and she
excitedly showed me the letter, saying “Did you see I spelled ‘coming’ right? I
left off the ‘e’!” Lesson 3 (The Silent
but Powerful E) has paid off, and that makes this mama very happy.
What will you get for your money and how much does it cost?
With your order you will receive a CD with ALL the materials you will need to get
started. We printed off each lesson as
needed and I referred to the teacher document to implement and teach where
necessary.
One last thing, customer service with this company is
top-notch, and they are willing and ready to answer any questions you may have
with the program. I highly recommend
this program and we plan on purchasing the next level for our upcoming school
year.
Disclaimer: I received one level of this program in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was received.
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