WRTR Teacher’s Manual!!!

I found mine for $10 on ebay.  Boy, are they eye opening!  It’s not as pretty as AAS, but many of the things I like about AAS are in the manuals.  Here’s what’s NOT like AAS.  Spalding expects the teacher to already understand the rules and phonograms.  The program doesn’t teach the teacher.  It assumes the teacher already knows the content.

For comparison sake, WRTR 3GRD manual starts somewhere in the middle of Level 4-5 of AAS.  So, the first week of WRTR in 3GRD is comparable to that first bulky review lesson in AAS 4-5 (all the definitions, syllable rules, phonograms, sounds writing, suffix rules, etc.)

Week 1 Review-fest

In general, in the first five days of 3GRD a Spalding teacher reviews all of the following:

  • Review the “purpose” for learning phonograms, writing legibly, using good position and posture, etc.
  • Review pencil grip, paper position, seating position, 6 rules of handwriting.
  • Say/write all manuscript lowercase letters according to formation type and then in order.
  • Say/write the phonograms 27-70.
  • Say/write all manuscript capital letters according to formation type and then in order.(2 o’clock versus line letters).
  • Daily, shuffle the current deck and sound any 30 phonograms, separating the deck into hard and easy.
  • Daily, say/write any 20 phonograms on 5/8″ paper, dividing the list into hard and easy.
  • Have the child check his handwriting for 1 of the six rules and star the best one.
  • Review segmenting, counting, blending, syllable rules, consonants, and vowels using the M-N lists.
  • Review Rules 1-15, 17-29 using the M-N lists.

WHEW!  After week one, things settle down a little.  Notice, however, that there are NO NOTEBOOK PAGES YET.  All writing was done on Spalding 5/8″ paper.  Week 2 starts the notebook, but not the rule pages yet.

Week 2-32

Dictation of 20-30 words a week starting on List O.  The teacher says the word and segments it by sound or syllable.  The child softly repeats each segment, writes, and marks the words.  At the end of the list, he dictates them to the teacher.  He corrects his notebook based on what she writes on the board. THEN, she goes back and discusses the syllabification and marking and rule application for each word.

  • Daily choral phonogram reading of hard cards.
  • Daily phonogram writing of hard sounds.
  • Daily choral dictation of 5-10 words into the notebook.
  • Daily choral segmenting and reading the words “for spelling” from their notebooks.
  • Daily choral “normal speech” reading from their notebooks.
  • Each day there is a 10-word quiz.

What about the notebook pages???

Well, they have less to do with spelling than HANDWRITING. They don’t come until cursive instruction is complete, like WEEK 6.

  • Week 3 they practice writing the manuscript alphabet and then “connecting” on top of it.
  • Week 4 they do the tall and short upswing letters
  • Week 5 is the ends and hard connections.  Starting at the end of this week, all phonogram writing and dictation is cursive.
  • Week 6  is the cursive caps.
  • Week 7 is Notebook Page 1 in cursive
  • Week 8 is Notebook Page 7 in cursive
  • Week 9 is Page 2 in cursive
  • Week 10 is Page 3 in cursive
  • Week 11 is Page 4 in cursive
  • Week 12 is Page 5 in cursive
  • Week 13 is Page 6 in cursive
  • Week 14 is Page 8 in cursive

Interesting, no?