Reviewed by Lorinda K. F. Newton
Title: Spell to Write and Read
Grades: K-12, also useful for ELL and remedial adult
Author: Wanda Sanseri
Publisher: Back Home Industries, bhibooks.net/swr.html
Spell to Write and Read CORE KIT $105
- Spell to Write and Read($35)
- W.I.S.E. Guide: 2000 spelling words for K-12 ($35)
- The Basic Phonogram Cards ($17) and Spelling Rule Cards ($9)
- The Phonogram CD: teaches proper sound for phonograms ($9)
The only other required item for this program is a new Learning Log every year for each student. The teacher also needs to buy a Learning Log for herself as a master text. ($6 for K-2 Primary Learning Log and $12 for 3rd grade and up Black Learning Log)
Looking for a phonics and spelling program that will provide your child with a solid foundation in the English language? I examined several phonics programs before deciding on the Spell to Write and Read (SWR) curriculum. Because I struggled with spelling, I wanted to make sure my children could spell well.
Using Dr. Seuss books, I taught myself to read before kindergarten. I loved to read and write. Still, I could never spell well during my school days. At my first homeschool conference, I discovered that children who learn to read before age six see words as Chinese characters, not as a unit of separate phonograms. That was part of my spelling problem. The color-coded phonics charts used by first- and second-grade teachers in the mid-1970s probably contributed to it as well.
I majored in English in college, but my spelling remained weak. Wanting to be a freelance writer and editor, I studied some adult books on spelling. However, not until I started teaching SWR did the spelling of English words make more sense to me. I wish I had SWR’s 28 spelling rules when I was in school!
Phonics
SWR is based on the Writing Road to Reading program developed by teacher Romalda Spalding and Dr. Samuel Orton, a neurologist who worked with dyslexic children in the 1920s. This complete language arts program was designed for classroom teachers and is unwieldy for a homeschooler. SWR author Wanda Sanseri, a student of Spalding, redesigned and simplified it for homeschoolers.
The core of the program is 70 basic phonograms and 28 spelling rules. Instead of teaching the letter names, you teach your children the sounds of each letter and multi-letter phonogram. For instance, for the letter A, you teach three sounds: short a, long a, and ah, as in was. For the multi-letter phonogram ough, you teach its six sounds. As you teach the phonograms, you also instruct your children in penmanship. They write the letters as you dictate how to write them.
Spelling
After your child becomes familiar with the alphabet phonograms, you introduce the W.I.S.E. Guide (Words, Instructions, and Spelling Enrichments). This book contains 20-word spelling lists and accompanying language arts exercises. The 2000 spelling words are arranged by frequency of use.
Unlike other programs that give a child a list of words on Monday and expect him to memorize them by Friday, you dictate the words in SWR. The first time your child sees the word is when he writes it in his Learning Log. You, the teacher, dictate the word by sound, not by letter name. For example, you would say, “black. The cat is black. /b/ /l/ /a/ two-letter /k/, black.” Once the child has recorded his first spelling list, the Log becomes his reading primer.
This curriculum works because of its multi-sensory approach. The child hears the word first, then writes it, then sees it, and finally reads it. This method accesses the four language centers in the brain.
Spelling Rules
As you work your way through the W.I.S.E. Guide, you will introduce more phonograms and the spelling rules, and create spelling-rule reference pages in the Primary Log. The Black Log also contains other reference pages to learn usage, grammar, and other language facts.
Many people complain that the English words breaks too many spelling rules for the rules to be worth learning. With this program, amazingly, nearly all the words do fit within the rules, especially when you use the “think to spell” method. Most reading programs treat the word the as a sight word. Not SWR. By following the rule that A, E, O, U usually say a, e, o, u (their long sounds) at the end of a syllable, you pronounce the with a long e for spelling purposes.
The program provides diagnostic tests you can use each month to monitor your child’s progress. These tests are also used to place your child at the correct spelling list level. If he finishes the curriculum, he will be spelling at the freshman college level.
Both of my children used this curriculum through the seventh grade. We didn’t finish the W.I.S.E. Guide because after eight years they were eager to move on.
Reading
As your child builds his logbook of words and practices reading them, reading should come naturally, though perhaps later than with most programs. I started my son in SWR in kindergarten, but he didn’t read much until the end of first grade. When I had him assessed at that time, he had a firm grasp of phonics but could only read at primer level. By the end of second grade, however, he was reading at the fifth-grade level and always had his nose in a book. My daughter, who joined our family at age six and only knew a handful of English words, on the other hand, took several years to learn to read independently.
For developing reading comprehension, SWR introduces the McCall-Crabbs book at about the second-grade level.
Learning to Teach
SWR doesn’t offer scripted lesson plans, just guidelines. But this makes the program flexible to meet your child’s needs.
If you find this program appealing but daunting (After my first reading through the curriculum, I was overwhelmed.), you can find excellent help at the author’s website, Back Home Industries. Back in 2004, I used their Yahoo group extensively. But now the author has provided training DVDs: Hidden Secrets to Language Success DVD (excerpt available) and An Introduction to SWR: A Blueprint for Language Arts Success.
I also benefited from in-person training courses, which official SWR trainers make available in many locations throughout the United States. I highly recommend the Advanced Seminar for teaching older children. (The videos and most of the other supplementary materials didn’t exist when I started.)
One trainer, Liz FitzGerald of California, has a fantastic website where I noticed she is developing lesson plans for busy teachers. There’s an app, too! Other trainers have also created supplementary material for this program. Explore the websites to learn more.
The grammar, usage, dictionary, and writing exercises included in the W.I.S.E. Guide are not systematic but more supplementary and designed to reinforce the spelling words. The author states that as the child progresses, you need add grammar and writing programs to complete your English instruction.
The SWR requires hard work from both the teacher and the student. But the reward of a strong reader and speller is worth it. Of all curriculum, this is the first one I recommend to new homeschoolers.
Lorinda K.F. Newton began homeschooling her children in 2004, and her family joined Academy Northwest in 2014. Her family lives on beautiful Whidbey Island north of Seattle, Washington. She writes about faith, culture, and governing from a biblical worldview at Lorinda’s Ponderings and Lorinda’s Ponderings on Facebook.
