This post is for anybody who stumbles upon my blog after googling something to the effect of "how the heck do I get started with my "Spell to Write & Read curriculum?" or "Why is SWR written so complicated!" or my emotion 12 hours ago: "how do I use this to teach my child to read if I can't get through the directions?!?!" SWR is a classic form of education that uses 70 phonograms of 45 sounds and 29 rules to teach spelling writing and reading. It's a beautiful concept but you need a degree to get through the manuals...but wait, I'll get to that later...
I write because there is hope!
I need to preface that I haven't started yet. So I actually don't know what I'm doing, but a light bulb clicked and I think that there is enough light to not only have hope that B will read (which I actually never doubted), but also that I might be able to use this curriculum successfully enough to help B excel...to love letters and language and learning! (And that my friend was in serious question!)
So I bought this curriculum (which was expensive upfront, but super affordable long term,) because it made sense. It had rules. I love rules. I like knowing what's expected. Cause and effect. I don't know a lot of answers, but I hate the answer "just because", and sight words and simple phonics are mostly that, "just because" answers...I feel stupid teaching that way, and my 1st born reacts to "just because answers with a "stop learning attitude". So I fell in love with Phonograms and any teaching style that uses them. There are actually few words that do break the rules, you just have to be patient enough to learn. EEEEEKKKKK! stop everything. "patient enough to learn." Although I don't like stupid answers, I also don't like patiently learning. The patience or the learning part. And that's where I've sat the last month. pretending to be a SWR user, drilling B with phonograms because I wasn't ready to learn how to do anything else...
So there are 3 books and two sets of flash cards that were spilling over me on my couch. I knew if I threw them together I could come out with a little boy genius, but I had no idea how to do that. I would start reading and it would refer to Reference pages, and the Wise Guide and then back to the SWR book, then the back of the learning log and then a different section of SWR and (I'm not lying), I would start to laugh at how socially inept these writers had to be, that they were so brilliant they couldn't relate to any other living soul...After flipping and flopping, I was no further post flop than pre flip. Regroup.
I realized that there was a laid out progression steps 1 - 40 and I just couldn't retain them because the book was so ugly. so text heavy. so boring. in each step there were so many instructions and references that I would get lost. So I grabbed some paper and wrote them out in simple form (Ok, I think I only got to #26, but seriously Bnjmn's 4 yrs old so I don't think I need to get much further than that right now!) ...I skimmed the hundreds of pages explaining all the steps, but just for a minute or two on each step. I then went back and figured out how far along we were in the process. Having a simple visual was so helpful for me. Now that I think about it, there's actually a Table of Contents exactly like the one I wrote out already written for me, but I needed to figure it out/write it out and briefly skim and understand on my own. I needed to own it!
Then was the exciting/hard part of my discovery process. I am seeking to teach this intense, less traveled road to reading and writing...with no teaching education...formal or informal. Time out. People spend lots of money and 4+ yrs to be able to successfully do this in the class room, and I was wanting to be able to make my little guy a rock star by opening a book and reading off a pretty colored chart, and do the same thing for 15 minutes the next day and voilà! Light Bulb Moment. I'm going to have to create the teachers edition log like they suggest. I'm going to have to prepare for class. I'm going to have to learn along side my little man about 12 hours before him, and think that its worth it to put in 15-30 minutes of prep...Otherwise, shoot! resell the material before it gets damaged and send him to school outside the home.
So all that to say I've returned to my excited state. I'm pumped to hurry up and slow down, and do the process like its written and stop pushing B to read. I'm ready to go back to "night class" and study to be a teacher. I can't wait to tell you how it goes!
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