Evan-Moor’s Building Spelling Skills – Grades 1 – 6

Are you looking for a quality spelling program for your elementary kids?  When my daughter was a 2nd grader, we found a delightful program that was phonics based and developmentally appropriate, from Evan-Moor called Building Spelling Skills.

Evan-Moor is a publishing company that serves both public school teachers and homeschoolers.  We loved their spelling program so much that we continued using it through 6th grade.  Here is my review of this program, using their 2nd grade book as a way to introduce it to you.

As a second grader, my daughter loved to write and create her own sentences and little stories. I was so pleased that she liked to write but not pleased with the number of misspelled words! I didn’t want to correct each word, as that would affect her free thinking writing attempts.

So I consulted with the staff at our local teaching supplies store and the homeschoolers in my group. They all agreed that correcting each mistake was unnecessary and that the spelling skills would come over time with practice.

Evan-Moor’s Building Spelling Skills

When I found Evan Moor’s Building Spelling Skills – Grade 2, I knew I had found what we needed! Easy to use and fun spelling practice for my daughter.

Features of BUILDING SPELLING SKILLS – Grade 2:

• A well set out program!! Each lesson includes 10 spelling words and room to add two more.
• Spelling words are based on the 200 most commonly used words in the English language and the words frequently misspelled by second graders.
• They are printed in large font with black and white illustrations.
• Lessons are centered around common phonetic elements – easier to learn!

Each lesson in BUILDING SPELLING SKILLS includes the following activities:

• Visual Memory Shape Activity, using the shapes of the letters to make a puzzle.
• Spell Vowel Sounds  – Practice  with the sounds/vowels.
• Word Study – Cut and glue activities.

The activities in this book are repeated in a predictable sequence.

This helped my daughter to feel mastery and to work independently. All I needed to do was to remind her when it was spelling time, give spelling tests and to reinforce her work!

We used stickers and a chart for rewards. My daughter would chose her own stickers at the local store. Friday was sticker day – after the spelling test! She loved Fridays. With time, my daughter became a good speller. She began to integrate her knowledge of English (from her reading), with the spelling skills (from SPELLING SKILLS – grade 2).

Gradually there were more correctly spelled words in her writing! And this learning happened naturally. There are many good spelling programs out there but for my family, we liked BUILDING SPELLING SKILLS.

Here’s to equipping the next generation with the skills to become excellent writers!

Where to Purchase Building Spelling Skills

Building Spelling Skills is available in multiple levels from grade 1 through grade 6. There are two books per level, the Teacher’s Edition, and the Student Workbook.

I was confused by this at first so I thought I’d make it clear here, you do not need the Student Workbook. The Teacher’s Edition is fully reproducible. However, if you’d rather just have the student pages all printed and together for you, then you can purchase the Student Workbook.

• Evan-Moor – On Evan-Moor’s website you can view a complete book, and you have the option to purchase the e-book! You can also purchase a Student Workbook bundle if you will be using it with more than one child.
• Rainbow Resource Center – If you want to see some more of the pages inside this book then you can head on over to Rainbow Resource Center where they have examples of at least 3-5 pages of each level of this book.
• Amazon – Amazon also offers the Teacher’s and Student versions of these books.

More Evan-Moor Book Reviews from The Curriculum Choice

• The World Reference Maps and Forms
• Habitats Study
• Evan-Moor Science Series – All About Plants
• History Pockets I & History Pockets II
• Building Spelling Skills
• Daily Word Problems
• ScienceWorks for Kids Series I & ScienceWords for Kids II
• Hands-On Elementary Science – ScienceWorks Book – Energy
• Daily Paragraph Editing
• Early Math – Geometric Shapes and Fractions
• Design a Poetry Unit with Read and Understand Poetry
• Sequencing Simple Stories

Betsy’s most important role  is mom to her college student whom she homeschooled from day one.  She blogs at BJ’s Homeschool about the early years, high school and college, and is the author of “Homeschooling High School with College in Mind“.  She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ’s Consulting.