Spelling Plus

[HollyD]

Has anyone used this? Likes and/or dislikes? The author is Susan C. Anthony. It's for grades K-6 and supposed to be similar to Spelling Power.

[WendyW]

I have this and have been reading through it the last few days. I got it at a garage sale last year for $1! I have also used Spelling Power in the past.

Spelling Plus is based on the 1000 most used words. It is broken down into lists that cover K-6th. The lists are much shorter than you would generally find in a complete grade-level listing. They are arranged in weekly lists of 15 words, but if you did only 5 words/week, you would complete each grade in one year.

In the explanation of her philosophy, she rejects the idea of forcing memorization of lots of subject-specific words. The continued use of them is so rare that it's not worth the time spent to memorize them. The 1000 most-used words account for (I think) 90% of what kids write, and therefore complete mastery of these is more important than a lot of infrequently used words. (Many of which will be learned naturally as the child develops an understanding of the roots and affixes, and has a thorough knowledge of the phonics system)

It is similar to Spelling Power in the sequence of steps used to practice the words (read, spell, write, check, etc.) It is NOT similar in the words used on each list. Spelling Power is sorted by the SOUND, and each list contains numerous different spellings of the same sound. It THOROUGHLY confused my ds when we tried it. Spelling Plus sorts the words by spelling patterns, gradually increasing in difficulty through the years.

Spelling Plus also strongly encourages the use of dictation to practice spelling and grammar. There is a separate volume that has dictation sentences to go with every spelling list. (Which I also got for $1 at the same sale :))

The Spelling Plus book is very interesting reading. It includes lots of background info of how the English system of spelling developed, and the quirky origins of many spelling patterns.

[Hope]

I have used Spelling Plus and the Spelling Plus Dictation Resource Book for the past few years. It's a very good spelling program. Through dictation the previous weeks spelling words are constantly being reviewed.

I have used some of Susan C. Anthony's other resources as well: Homophone Resource Book (An EXCELLENT course!), Spell Well, and Facts Plus Almanac.

Her books are great.

http://www.susancanthony.com/Books/books.html