This review of Spelling Power includes a comparison with Phonetic Zoo and My Catholic Speller.
Spelling Power is a single volume, non-consumable resource for teaching spelling to children (and adults) of all ages. It includes over 5,000 spelling words organized by rule and difficulty level, dozens of activities to help the child remember the correct spelling, extensive notes explaining how and why the program was designed and a clear explanation of how the program is to be used.
Unique to this program is the built in review of misspelled words and the use of words that are most frequently misspelled by students on essay exams. Students also study only those words that they don't know, unlike other programs that require the student to study both familiar and unfamiliar words.
The program begins with the student taking a placement test to determine what "level" they will be using. Following placement, the student spends 15 minute each day studying spelling. Each session begins with the parent reads a list of words to the student for 5 minutes. The student spends the next 5 minutes going through a series of review stages with the misspelled words that research has found helps students retain the correct spelling. The final 5 minutes are spent in fun activities that reinforce the correct spelling of misspelled words. We have found that our children, including one who is not naturally a good speller, did not need the last 5 minute activity block.
We have successfully used this program for many years and find it particularly suitable for grades 5-7. The program is flexible in that it allows for words that the child frequently misses on their own school work to be entered on to the spelling list. We've found that in grades 5-7 the children took Spelling Power more seriously then spelling workbooks (that is, they benefited from having the teacher looking over their shoulder while they were spelling to keep them on task) and it allows them to accelerate beyond other spelling programs by focusing on just those words that they don't know how to spell and is therefore time efficient. A drawback to this program is that it is teacher intensive. This is especially a problem for large families. We resolved this problem in our own home by using My Catholic Speller in grades 2-4 and the high school level of Phonetic Zoo when the child had finished level H in Spelling Power.
My Catholic Speller is an excellent spelling program for young children. Not only does it teach them the correct spelling of many words that they will be using in their writing, but it also imparts knowledge of and an interest in our Holy Faith. Our children enjoy using this program and are able to do so independently (after reading the list words aloud with a parent.) After completing Level D, our children have entered the Spelling Power program at above grade level. My Catholic Speller is available from Catholic Heritage Curriculum.
Phonetic Zoo is reviewed separately, however it should be noted that we found Spelling Power to advance children to the high school level of Phonetic Zoo rather quickly. There have been some debates about the appropriateness of the "rules" found in Spelling Power. Phonetic Zoo provides different rules that were quickly learned by our oldest child (who is not naturally a good speller.) At the beginning of eighth grade he worked through the entire Phonetic Zoo high school level in 3 months and was able to apply the spelling rules in his essays. We did a follow up test to the effectiveness of Phonetic Zoo by using the final Spelling Power lists. He missed less then 5% of all words on the last two levels of Spelling Power, and the words missed were rated as college level.
