Using McGuffey's Spelling Book: Part One

I was asked recently about our use of McGuffey's Spelling Book. First of all, I think it's a waste of everyone's time to give children an arbitrary list of words, which they may or may not be able to spell already. Also, I believe children should move at their own pace, regardless of age or grade level.

Here's how we use McGuffey's Speller:

Monday

Each child spells aloud words from the speller as I call them out. Think of it as a spelling bee. Each misspelled word is added to the week's spelling list (on an index card) for that child. The spelling bee ends when we have 10 words. I place a post-it in the speller to mark where we left off so I'll know where to start the spelling bee the next Monday. I have two children so that means two spelling bees each Monday.

Then, the child writes his or her spelling words five times each.

Tuesday

The child finds and writes the part of speech and definition for each word on his or her index card.  This improves the child's vocabulary and dictionary skills.

Wednesday

We have a written spelling quiz for each child.

Thursday

Each word missed in the spelling quiz is written ten times each.

Friday

We have a written spelling test. Any word missed on the spelling test carries over to the next week's word list. We just keep working on a word until it is memorized. Only a few times has this happened and never for more than three weeks.

As of today, my 10 year old fifth grader is on lesson 44 and her words this week were thirst, mirthfulness, thirtieth, virgin, smirch, chrome, folio, glorify, locate, and scold.

My 7 year old second grader is on lesson 28 and his words this week were nectar, maggot, insect, balcony, delicate, desolate, limitate, immolate, faculty, and devastate.

As you can probably tell, the lessons include some easy and some hard words. There are 247 lessons in the book.