Spelling Workout Review for Homeschool

When you stick with a curriculum throughout your homeschool years, I believe it speaks volumes to its success and ability to meet the needs of different learning styles. Spelling Workout is more than just spelling.

Besides Spelling Practice, Spelling Workout for Homeschool Teaches:

• Learning how to spell a word
• Phonics
• Dictionary skills
• Editing and proofreading – including proofreading marks
• Word analysis
• Classification
• Word application
• Optional – Building a Spelling Notebook and a section of reviews or ‘tests’

Spelling Workout for Your Youngest Homeschool Spellers

• Can practice sounds, letters, words, word meaning, rhyming words, 1-4 proofreading exercises and a writing exercise.
• Example of Writing Directions: Write sentences that tell how to play a game you like. Tell the name of the game, too.
• Spelling Tips: You can hear the long i sound in kite. What sound do you hear in the words like, ride and bike?

Older Homeschool Spellers

• List words in cursive plus classification, scrambled words, proofreading, puzzles, missing letters.
• Additional handwriting practice (optional)
• Practice writing (e.g., writing a recipe using list words)

Natural Speller? Struggling Speller?

Two of my children are blessed with a natural ability in spelling. Both pick up spelling easily from reading and writing. For one child, though, spelling has been a challenge. So, for my natural spellers, Spelling Workout is fun practice, building confidence and layering spelling skills. For my struggling speller, Spelling Workout is the thinking challenge needed for success, addressing spelling in many simple ways.

Spelling Workout is not strictly memorization. When my children complete a lesson they are reading a passage, applying the words in sentences, creating their own stories, viewing the word in a dictionary and/or completing a crossword puzzle and more.

We honestly do not complete each and every exercise in each workbook. However, as I see a child has mastered a word list, we do a few complimentary practices and move on to the next lesson.

Which Spelling Workout Level Would Your Child Use?

I was introduced to Spelling Workout when I read The Well Trained Mind. The Well Trained Mind site has A Guide to Which Spelling Workout Level Your Child Would Use (scroll way down for the chart).

Spelling Workout by Modern Curriculum Press is:

• available for $12.47 from Learning Things.com
• consumable, workbook style
• published in both 1994 and updated 2002 versions. We’ve used both.

In summary: Spelling Workout is the basic, thorough spelling program we have needed for spelling success. I like that spelling practice includes fun word games plus challenges older children with editing and writing skills. It’s all in one place – in a workbook. Based on a child’s mastery, I can assign a portion of a lesson or be assured of plenty of practice with all the exercises offered.

Be sure to check out Adelien’s review of Spelling Workout for EFL Learners. She shares the success of using this spelling curriculum for her English as a foreign language learners.

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