How to teach Spelling

Here's how I'm doing HTTS this year....I already responded to your e-mail, but I thought the info might be helpful to others.

I purchased AAS for my ds who's going into 2nd grade and we'll use it as written. But my dd who's going into 7th and still working on the spelling thing, I'm going to do it like this:

Set up an index card box to review the material. Here's how (this is the part I got from AAS): Make 3 tabs - rules, sounds, and phonograms. Put all the phonograms that your dc hasn't mastered behind the phonograms tab. Then, use the page toward the beginning of the TM to make a card for each sound and its spellings and put those behind the sounds tab. You'll add to the rules section as you move through the program. I would then use the workbook your child is in as a guide for what to do in what order.

Here's how I would proceed each day. Quick review of the phonogram cards, dictate a couple of the sounds, review any rules you have added to the rules tab. Then go to the workbook and do the next page(s). If there is a rule to learn, have dc copy it onto an index card and file in the rules section of the box. Discuss the rule and then do the workbook page. As you're going through the workbook, you will see notes on the bottom of the pages that tell you when and what to dictate. I'd spend several days on this, but each day I'd still do the review of rules, sounds, and phonograms. As you move through the workbook, the dictations will automatically review previous words. The index box will keep you reviewing everything else. As you get a lot of rules behind that tab, you may need to rotate them and only review a couple per day. When you get to a page of sight words, just spend however much time is needed to learn these before moving on. I'd first let dc study them and discuss what's weird about them. Then just dictate the words. Then the next day only the ones missed. You could add any that were troublesome to a master problem list and dictate from those each Friday. Maybe you could put stars by it when it was correct and when you get 5 tars it comes off the list. If your child still needed the hands-on thing, you could always use the letter tiles for the word dictation.

I have been using HTTS for 4 years now and I so wish I had come up with this simple review system earlier. It would have boosted the effectiveness of this program tremendously.