Spelling Power, Fourth Edition

I am reasonably happy with this. The system works, but I find the whole thing to be incredibly rigid and somewhat frustrating. We have yet to get down to 15 minutes of study, simply because the individual bits and bobs take so long to do. It is a very, very rigid system; the author does her level best to insist that if you do not do things exactly as she has said, you will fail. I have found that the study system is not at all intuitive to my children: the author wants children to go through each and every step with one word before moving on to the next, whereas for my children they find it much more sensible to do one step with each word and then move on to the next. So, do I correct them and have them do it the prescribed way, or do I let them go along in the way that makes sense to them?I will say that I have completely given up on the author's suggested enrichment activities. They badly, badly need updating. It's so out of date it's almost painful. The Internet does not exist in this book, but it's suggested that children tape record themselves spelling their words! There are activities that assume daily newspaper delivery and over-consumption of magazines. Oh, and you really need to have a sand board for some dang reason. (We write words on a dry erase board and then erase them with fingers for our kinetic activity, something else my children find confusing and useless.)Moreover, this is written from the perspective of a parent who was doing remedial teaching for her own child. And when it comes to my child who desperately needs remediation in spelling, it works fairly well. It seems rather punitive for the younger one who is only learning, though. There are spelling rules given--with absolutely terrible formatting on the page, by the way--but no real lesson in how or why to apply them. You just get to know they are there. I have been heavily supplementing this with other resources, mainly to take the place of her useless enrichment activities, but I am still in search of a resource to TEACH spelling, rather than just drill and help fix. There's no why in this book at all.

After seeing Cathy Duffy's website give this book a good review, I decided to buy it. I almost let the negative comments persuade me not to purchase it. Don't let the size or the comments about the size of this book scare you. It does take some time to learn the program which is expected. The DVD says about an hour but with my kids running around and needing my attention it took me about 4 hours. A small price to pay for my child's education. You read about 36 pages in the front of the book (most of them are not even full pages because they include pictures and diagrams) along with watching the DVD and that's it. The program is very easy to understand and I like it already. We easily completed the survey test and then the placement test and now we know exactly where to start in the book. This book will work for every student and has specific study steps for learning the misspelled words. My son loves that the daily tests are not graded. He's one that gets nervous when testing and very upset when he fails. He also loves that his spelling lesson will only take 15 minutes of his time. I definitely recommend it.

This is a great research-based spelling program! I highly recommend this program for anyone looking to improve their skill. It is all you need. You don’t need to CD as long as you are willing to read the first several quick start instructions. It looks overwhelming but it’s actually quite simple after you understand how to use it. I have tried several other programs over the past couple of years but this one is the keeper! It is individually tailored to the student, well researched, affordable (3 grade - college in ONE BOOK), and user friendly.

I am so busy with many kids that I have not read too much in this book. I skimmed over the main part and plan to read more soon. The part I love is the lists of spelling words. They group the words in categories that really helps the child to learn to differentiate between the meanings and rules for making a word plural etc. Or groups like through and threw. So for now I am benefitting by choosing the group I feel my kids are close to and using those words. The dvd is honestly very confusing to me when it comes to how to put the words lists on the computer program. From what I did figure out I had to type in the spelling list and the first time is was so confusing and time consuming that I just now write on a paper their words and make a copy for my teacher records (or incase that student loses his or her list) and they write each word how ever many times I ask of them for practice.There is probably some awesome advice that I hope to gain by further reading this book. It is great though in the lists of words it provides.

really like this, tried it with one of my homeschool students when another program (Sequential spelling) wasn't working for him. I am seeing progress and this book will be useful for many many years. At a glance the book looks "thick and overwhelming" but a big part of it is just looking at which level to start at. I watched the intro dvd one time ..and that was all I needed (and I don't use the other cd or the optional flash cards etc.) Spelling Power also has the most commonly misspelled words in it (words that are spelled differently than they sound) so my son wasn't discouraged knowing that. Takes about 5 minutes a day. Some words I see progress immediately, some take a few days...but once he has it "in his head"...he retains it. FINALLY something that WORKS for us!! (Each student is different, my daughter did well with another program..but my son is not a "natural speller" despite being a strong reader....so this has been a real blessing to us)

Simple, easy, effective way to teach spelling. Kids don't mind it because it takes 5 minutes a day and they only ever have to practice 3 words. It has a million different ideas for reinforcing spelling concepts and teaching kids who have difficulty learning to read/spell. You have to be careful with this book, however. The word choices for different phonics rules don't always make sense, so I use my judgment and delete words from lists when they don't make sense with the rule. I'm really glad I bought it, though, as it's made spelling a mindless part of my day with the kids. I find it worthwhile to buy the accompanying workbooks as they're inexpensive and make it easy for the kids to practice their spelling words.

Great book!