We needed ways to practice spelling. This was an area of struggle for my daughter and up until now I’ve learned that although she’s learned spelling rules which have been helpful, she also learns through repetition.
I’m now really seeing how my daughter learns and so is she. We’re at a place in our homeschool where we’re able to talk about various homeschool curriculums, what they offer, the goal and what she thinks she can commit to. By this, we’re able to determine whether we’ll invest the money and the time to achieve the goal.
I had a look at the Evan-Moor Building Spelling Skills Grade 3 E-book, and had my daughter look at it, too. She was able to feel confident about giving it a try, so we did. I reached out to Evan-Moor and they gave me this product in exchange for my honest review.
How My Daughter Learns
My daughter appreciates learning why words are spelled the way they are. Though the rules are not enough to hold a word’s spelling for her. She needs more. She needs repetition.
Incorporating PRACTICE is an absolute must when it comes to spelling. Just like learning to read requires repetition, everything else does too, including spelling. Well, at least it does for my daughter.
So, we looked for ways to practice spelling without it feeling too mundane. (Let’s face it, word lists aren’t that much fun). Another important item on my daughter’s wishlist, was that it needed to have some fun elements.
Fun elements involved different ways to incorporate spelling without it feeling like spelling. Activities, exercises or games are the perfect compliment for her learning style.
What We Like About Building Spelling Skills
- Variety – each day’s assignment was different and each week’s involved different elements
- Amount – easily doable each day
- Practice – lots of repetition in different ways
- Printable – we could review a portion of a day’s lesson again if needed by printing it out
- Inexpensive
What We Left Out
Some portions of exercises we left out.
This had nothing to do with the program itself, except that we had other work that day that required a lot of writing.
This is the best part of homeschooling – you know what you’re doing for the day. So, don’t do it all. Just because a book has a portion in it that you’re doing in a different way that day, doubling up can be too much.
What We Think About Building Spelling Skills
I really like being able to ask my daughter what she thinks about a program. I can see how much it’s helping her and she can give her honest feedback, too.
My daughters thoughts – she like this style of program. Although spelling is not her favourite subject, she knows she needs repetition to master it. As a result, she highly recommends the program because it involves different exercises and it’s helped her remember how words are spelled.
My thoughts – my daughter was able to retain words that she was spelling. She doesn’t always think about the rules when she spells (and neither do I). My daughter is very much like me. So although she doesn’t quite understand that she’s a visual learner through seeing words and remembering how something is spelled by how it looks, my guess, is that she’s like me. So we’ll continue to use this program because it’s been effective.
Check It Out!
I highly recommend you check out Evan-Moor’s Building Spelling Skills. They have samples of their product which is really helpful to gauge which grade is appropriate and if your child would like it!