Natural Speller

There was a question on a yahoo group about a spelling curriculum I LOVE - it's the Natural Speller.

For spelling through all the grades, hands-down, I prefer Natural Speller. I cna't selpl. Neither can my oldest daughter. So I read a bunch of posts and this was recommended after you've tried everything else - so I decided to try it.
I use it by asking kids to orally spell the words until they have 10 words they don't know & they study those for a week using the suggestions in Natural Speller.

*It is E-A-S-Y to use.

*An inexpensive non-consumable investment for all my kids for 1st - 8th grade, words by category, foreign words.

*It's the word lists organized by sight/sound patterns so the kids get a bunch of words that are teaching the same thing at the same time (all the long 'a' silent 'e' words are together, etc.

*Spelling Rules (which I don't use, but you could - it's all greek to me)

*Suggested spelling practice activities / dictionary skills using spelling / grammar skills using spelling / vocabulary with spelling

*Teaching aids - letter formats for friendly, business & writing rules of capitalization & punctuation.

The question on the yahoo group wanted to know a jumping off point to starting the program. I use it like this :

• Each of the kids works at his own pace. I begin spelling after the kids are fluent readers (usually by 2nd grade or so.)
• I ask a kid to spell each word orally in the lists until he hits 10 missed words. Those are his spelling words for the week. I write them on index cards for them to study throughout the week and in his student planner. Natural Speller has suggestions on how to study words throughout the week on page 4 of my copy. They study them throughout the week. On Friday I test them (orally - it's quicker). If they miss 3 words or more, they have the same list with their additional 10 the next week. If they miss 2 words or less, they just have those words added to their 10 for the next week. This has worked out GREAT for us.
• The words are based on sounds so all the -ent words are together in a list. I don't tell them which ones they got right or wrong until they've accumulated 10 wrong. I don't want them guessing to get a word right. If they don't know it, I'd rather they study it. If they study 10 -ent words in a week, I'm fine with that. I feel like studying the words they don't know as a group will give them "pegs" upon which to hang future information and allow for better recall when writing them in a real world situation.
• There are spelling rules in the back of the book. I personally don't use them (meaning I don't make my kids memorize them). Either they are a naturally good speller and don't really need them -- or they are as rotten as their mama and memorizing the rules won't make much difference. Many people just LOVE the rules in the back, though. I checked and I didn't find the difference between -ent and -ant words in the book, so I typed in "ent ant spelling rule" in yahoo and came up with this site. All those rules are a little more in depth than I prefer to go, but some people really dig that stuff.
• One question asked was about teaching all the kids the same "rule" or set of words at the same time on their own grade level. Since I'm so thrilled for my oldest daughter to be just 1/2 year behind in the spelling level of her grade and thrilled my middle daughter is a year ahead of what grade she'd be in -- meaning I want them challenged to the best of their ability -- I'm not so interested in combining spelling lists. I'm not sure how this could be accomplished.

My goal in teaching spelling is to make them the best they can be -- not necessarily spelling bee champs. This product helps me do that cheaply, easily (as far as how much teacher time is required) and effectively.