Tricks of the Trade

When the author's daughter was having an inordinately hard time spelling, she evaluated different spelling programs, eventually creating her own How to Teach Any Child to Spell method. Focusing on how words sound, and then recognizing how those sounds look when written down comprises the main theme. Children are taught to pronounce correctly and make sure they're not confusing sound-alike letters like "i" and "e" or homophones. When they--or the teacher--finds misspelled words, they are to be categorized according to spelling error, in this notebook. Pre-organized according to phonetic structure (vowels, consonants, blended sounds) the student can learn what kinds of words give them the most trouble, and create a systematic study method. 87 pages, softcover, three-hole-punched. The companion Teach Any Child to Spell Teacher's Guide is available separately.