Part 4B - A Reason for Spelling

I had intended to write about both the writing & spelling in my last post, but it was getting so long (& I was out of time) that I decided to write a separate post about spelling. My son Alex has been doing Level C of A Reason for Spelling this school year (2nd grade). I placed him into Level C because of his placement test results. Yes, this curriculum has placement tests for spelling. Sample lessons & placement tests There are so many things I love about this curriculum that I am hard-pressed to name them all, so I'll stick to several.

1. Research-based activities: As an educator who loves to research, I loved seeing the objectives of the curriculum and the reasons behind them. In fact, there is a bibliography page of their research in the teacher notes.
2. Teacher notes: The Teacher Guidebook contains a HUGE amount of notes & helps, including helps for ESL students. 
3. Language Arts connection: Each lesson begins with a character story, and language arts skills are applied with the spelling words in activities such as proof-reading, alphabetizing, and other word forms. Oh! Can't forget the journaling activities. 
4. Variety of practice: My son's former curriculum required him to orally spell the words and write them. That was all. Bo-ring! There are many different activities in each lesson. In fact I'd think that you'd be hard pressed to do them all, so it's nice to have a good selection to choose from. My favorite part of the activities in the learning style practice. Each week the teacher is given 4 different activities to in general, visual, auditory, and tactile styles. My son is an auditory learner, but I like mixing it up and giving him practice in other styles as well. 
5. Christian-based: Each week has a verse (same verse as in corresponding A Reason for Writing textbook) as well as a character story/lesson that is emphasized in the lesson. 

Those are some of my favorite aspects of A Reason for Spelling. I am very happy with it and have already ordered Alex's materials for next school year (Pre-owned from www.abebooks.com too to save $$). Please check them out at their site www.areasonfor.com or your favorite textbook retailer, such as Rainbow Resource where I just won a $25 gift card for my review of this curriculum on their site! My Rainbow Resource Review