Finding Spelling Lists That Make Sense

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I am a long-time fan of All About Spelling, as we have used it in our homeschool for over 6 years now.

I loved the concept of All About Spelling for my children that are natural spellers, but I love it even more for my child that finds spelling to be tedious and just plain hard.

While we certainly go over vocabulary words for the unit studies that we’re working on, I very rarely ever use those words as an actual spelling list.

I am not a give-a-spelling-test-on-Friday homeschool mom.

All About Learning does a great job in explaining why that type of spelling curriculum is just not a good idea.

From the post:

Many spelling programs are based on spelling lists. In fact, most of us learned to spell—or at least weattempted to learn to spell—with some type of spelling list method.

But if you take a close look at them, most spelling lists really aren’t designed to help a child learn to spell.

The fact is, most spelling lists don’t make sense to the student.

I couldn’t agree more!

I had a moment of insanity where I switched my struggling speller to a different program with the List #2 described in the referenced article.

I quickly saw that my daughter could not piece together why these words were similar. She just didn’t have that frame of reference yet.

Thankfully, I came to my senses and quickly went back to my tried-and-true All About Spelling!

→ Make sure you download All About Learning’s free spelling resources!

Lauren Hill

Lauren Hill is a Christian mom to 5, ages 19 to 7. She homeschools her children in the classical education tradition and is currently in her 15th year of homeschool. She creates engaging worksheets and hands-on printable activities for Preschool and Elementary age children to supplement their daily studies.

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