Spell to Write and Read and Special Needs

 

Spell to Write and Read (SWR) by Wanda Sanseri has been used effectively to help children with a wide variety of special needs overcome reading difficulties.  Historically, some of the programs that were precursors to SWR were created specifically for children with learning difficulties.  Dr. Orton, a renowned neurologist, created a system of learning (including 70 basic phonograms) that would help dyslexic children to learn how to read. 

 

Romalda Spalding, author of The Writing Road to Reading, learned a great deal working under the direction of Dr. Orton.  Spalding taught the phonograms and spelling rules to a class of dyslexic children. At the same time she taught a class of "regular students" and taught them using the traditional methods of the day, which included sight-reading methods (or whole language).

 

 After a time Spalding saw that her class of dyslexic children had SURPASSED the class of "regular students" in spelling and reading ability. This is when she started to develop what is now called the Spalding method with her capstone work being the book: The Writing Road to Reading.  She wrote this book so that both learning disabled and "regular students" could excel in reading, and this great work is where Spell to Write and Read originates. 

 

Mrs. Sanseri first studied with Spalding and later taught courses on how to use The Writing Road to Reading (WRTR) by Spalding to other homeschool moms.  She then wrote a companion book called:  Teaching Reading At Home and School (TRHS) to go along with WRTR.

 

Wanda Sanseri has since been expanded the TRHS book to Spell to Write and Read.  In addition Mrs. Sanseri wrote the WISE Guide which is an expansion of the Orton/Spalding based method and making it all user friendly.

 

SWR is now used in public and private schools, in many home schools, and is a favored choice for ESL (English as a Second Language), tutoring for dyslexics, and adult literacy programs.  Students who have failed with other reading programs find success with SWR. 

 

 

One first hand example is directly from the book Spell to Write and Read on page seven.  It tells the story of A 57 year-old illiterate woman who had spent years and thousands of dollars on different tutors and courses but failed to learn to read, finally found success when tutored with SWR. 

 

One stormy evening in February, Bernadine Ruark, a 57-year-old stranger knocked on the door of a tutor using this program and pleaded, “Will you teach me to read?  Doctors and teachers have told me that I have a brain problem.  I’ve spent thousands of dollars on different tutors and courses but still can’t read. I’ve heard you could help.  Can you?”

 

Sandra Nelson assessed the situation in seconds.  Bernie could see, talk, hear, think, express herself in clear, logical sentences, and she was highly motivated.  “Yes, I can teach you how to read,” Sandra replied with confidence.  After three months of three 45-minutes sessions each week, the once-illiterate woman could spell, write, and read independently.  Today, the excited woman reads with understanding newspapers, magazines, and how-to-books.  She recently thanked her instructor, saying, “I was blind but now I see.”  Sandra is thrilled to have help transform a life this way but is not surprised.  She proclaims, “I knew she could learn because I had a proven method of teaching her.”

 

We rejoice that a program can work where so many others fail.  When taught from the beginning, such a successful system can eliminate much unnecessary frustration and lost productivity. (End of quote from SWR, page 7)

 

 

Following are some posts from the Spell to Write and Read Yahoo group on the topic of:

 

Spell to Write and Read and Special Needs

 

This first post was written by Wanda Sanseri on February 28, 2006

 

Kathy,

 

Q.  Can you use this program with someone who is learning delayed (the mother said the school had tested her son and told her he was mentally  retarded with an IQ of 40 -50).

 

A.  Yes!   An IQ of 40-50 is extremely low, but I have heard stories of success with parents using SWR with severely retarded students.   Much more patience is required because things will need to be repeated over and over and over and over before they will be remembered by these types of students.   It is vital for them to have the core foundational materials without any fluff.  We provide that.   SWR is good for any type of learner.   Let me give you one special example of a great breakthrough with a special needs student.

 

A teacher who uses SWR taught in a small private Christian school on the east coast.  Some parents wanted to enroll their son.  The principal could tell that he had a severe mental limitation and decided to hire a professional evaluator to test him.   The boy had the same IQ as your friend.  The evaluator told the teacher that this was the most  "unteachable" child he had ever seen.  Most people have some type of  learning strength:  seeing, hearing, touch, etc.  This boy had no discernible strengths.  The boy, however, did not appear to be a troublemaker.  The school decided to allow the boy to attend on a trial basis.  He came to class in his own grade level and quietly listened and observed material that was well over his head.   After school each day his teacher gave him private instruction in SWR.   Six months later the principal had the boyreevaluated.   When the evaluator had finished the exam, he begged for a conference with the teacher.   When he met her, he excitedly ask her, "Please, tell me what you have been doing with this student!!!   You have made unbelievable progress and I must know how you have done it."

 

The boy was still far below his grade level but the breakthrough was profound, even miraculous.  We believe a loving, praying teacher with proven methods made the difference.  So does the professional evaluator.

 

I recently read a Chinese proverb: "Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."

 

Blessings,

 

Wanda Sanseri

 

PS.  I like the idea of you teaching the mom to help work with her son.

   I often do this by having the parent quietly observe me as I teach the student.  The parent could at times help echo student responses, but should not be wearing the teacher's hat for these sessions.   I make it clear that I am the teacher so the student is not confused.  Then I have the parent go home an help practice what I taught during the week.  At home the parent is the teacher.  With me the parent is a fellow learner.  Maybe others in the church would be willing to be trained to help this dear mom as well.   This program will work, but it will take a lot of persistent work.  The more support the better.

 

 

Hi Wanda,

 

  I would like to jump in on this one.  We had a severally mentally handicapped girl come to our school for just over a year.  She came as a non-reader (in third grade) and had little to no phonics background.

 

 Her student assistant worked with her every day and she spent time in our kindergarten class when they were learning phonograms, printing, and learning to apply it to their spelling lists. 

 

Because of her adjusting issues it was decided that she would be better off back in her previous school.  So a few months ago she transferred back there. 

 

Within a couple of days the resource teacher from her school was phoning me to ask for more of the materials for the SWR program because Melissa knew all of the phonograms and was beginning to apply them to reading!!!!!!!!!!!!  They were utterly amazed. 

 

Until now, it was believed that she would never read.  At my next seminar, the resource teacher and 2 of her learning assistants were in attendance!!!  Yes, SWR works with children of a wide range of abilities. 

 

Nicole Cull

Endorsed SWR Trainer

Canada

 

 

Dear Wanda:

 

I've been using SWR for the last six years of homeschooling, before it was even called SWR.  I attended Mary Tanksley's SWR seminar a few years ago after having struggled through for years trying to figure it out for myself, and discovered that even with the mistakes I made, the program was still working well for my kids.  My 6th grade son is almost finished with the program and my 5th grade daughter is over halfway through. 

 

I have struggled with teaching my 5th grade daughter. She just doesn't seem to get things when I explain them and has a hard time staying on track.  Last week I finally took her to see Marian Soderholm, a Learning Disabilities Specialist.  Turns out she's ADD and has some auditory processing problems, as well as Perceptual Motor problems.  But here's the kicker: she scored at 10th grade level for reading and letter/word identification and 11th grade for passage comprehension.  Marian was amazed that with all her glitches, she still scored so highly in Language Arts and had such good phonological skills.  It was when she said the word "phonological" that I realized why she did so well; SWR has helped her learn despite the problems she has.  In fact, now that I think about it, spelling is the only subject in which she doesn't struggle (except maybe art and music!)

 

She came home from that appointment on cloud nine, telling me that she felt smart for the first time in her life.  I chose SWR because Mary Tanksley recommended it and when I looked it over, it was the only phonics program I'd come across that made sense to me.  I had no idea what a gift I was giving to my daughter by choosing this curriculum.  Just another example of God filling in the gaps for us homeschoolers; I know it was His guidance that led me to it.

 

Thank you so much for putting this program together.  Now that my younger daughter and son are approaching school age, I'm starting over again from the beginning (my younger daughter and I just did the first two words of List A yesterday... it brought back happy memories for me!).  I don't know yet if either of them have learning glitches, although I suspect my son might, but I'm confident that even if they do, I'll still be able to teach them to read and write confidently.

 

Sincerely,

 

Julia Schmidt   julia.schmidt@sbcglobal.net  Southern California

 

PS - I just realized that you might remember my daughter - last year I sent you a couple of cartoon strips she did based upon her experiences with SWR.  They were called "Little Penguin."

 

 

Spell to Write and Read and Autism

 

Last year, my 7yo daughter had an evaluation at the public school.  In her reading/spelling, one of the tests they gave was autism-specific.

 

The test went through all the "normal" testing of easy words, all the way up to big medical/scientific words.  During the reading portion of this evaluation, my daughter was able to read words that even the person administering the evaluation couldn't figure out how to pronounce. 

 

After all the "normal" levels had been gone through, there was an additional section for autistic people.  Often, people with autism have very good memories, and this test wanted to look at the abilities and be SURE the child hadn't simply memorized all the words (even the big scientific ones).  Whatever expert created the evaluation had added a section of "nonsense words", phonetically correct, phonetically difficult up to high-school and higher, but they were completely nonsense words.

 

My daughter had never been exposed to the scientific words before, and obviously hadn't ever seen the nonsense words, yet she only missed one of all of them.  (She misspelled a nonsense word, but I saw the word and since it was a nonsense word, all my daughter had done was used a different 2-letter phonogram then they had wanted...(I think she used oo (1st sound) instead of ou (3rd sound), in a word where either would have been appropriate, and since it was a nonsense word....)

 

SWR's method teaches you the tools you need, and uses words for examples/practice.   SWR isn't going to teach your child to memorize lists of words, so you can use and apply the rules to all words even when you've never been exposed to them before.  The goal isn't so much that the lists of words "stick" as the lists are just a tool for practicing.

 

Kind of like in math, you teach a concept, then you give the child practice problems to reinforce the concept...that doesn't mean you expect the child to learn each individual problem given to him/her...it is just a tool to help the overall concept "stick". 

 

SWR has helped my kids read faster, because they can sound out words faster, more accurately, with less frustration, and at a much higher grade level then a different phonics program would have. 

 

When my kids were in private school (using WRTR) I had to attend w/ my autistic daughter.  Since I'm a single mom, this meant my youngest daughter (4 at the time) also had to attend.  When we started, she could visually recognize some letters, (not all) from a phonics program we had been using the year before.  She knew a few basic sounds (cat, dog, mom, dad) but most of those she recognized by sight.  She couldn't tell you "D says /d/". 

 

Sitting in class, she learned the phonograms along w/ the rest of her sister's class.  By Christmas, my 4yo was able to read second grade level books with no problem.  The only thing she had done at all was learned the phonograms and how to spell the words that were taught in class...the books certainly contained words she had never seen before!  But here was my 4yo reading these books.  The reason is easy to see for me.  SWR's method teaches the rules completely (I agree that Wanda's Senate Speech is a wonderful place to read more about this), so my daughter didn't have to struggle to know what the sounds were.  She knew more then just the basic sounds, which gave her the tools she needed to sound out these 2nd grade words at age 4.

 

And, to me, the more important thing isn't that she can read so well, but that she can SPELL!!!  A few weeks ago, her Sunday school teacher even commented to me how well she spells and writes in cursive.  I saw something one of the other kids in her class wrote...His handwriting was horrible (almost unreadable) and he was spelling CVC words wrong.  This is a child who can read fine, but he can't spell.  I don't share this to sound prideful, I'm just truly thankful that my daughter didn't have to chose reading at the risk of her spelling...SWR is giving my kids the blessing of being good at both.

 

 

Jodi 

 

 

Spell to Write and Read and Dyslexic 6th grader

Improving Reading

This post is an answer that Wanda Sanseri gave on the

SWR yahoo on January 18, 2006

 

Susan,

 

I am so happy to hear that your daughter with severe reading delays due to dyslexia is making good progress with SWR.  You have seen how her spelling has improved and feel this is the best program you have used so far.  However you write:

 

"My oldest is 6th grade and reads on a 2-3 grade level. Her spelling has increase to about a 4th grade level with this program.  She is doing great with the spelling but has a hard time reading the list back.  I feel unless we get intense with reading as well as spelling she will never catch up.  She is your typical dyslexic- smart.  She is losing interest in reading because books she is interested in, she can't comprehend, because it takes so much effort to decode the words!  I feel the clock ticking away every year and we stay behind at least 3 years from her grade level and worse her intelligence level."

 

My response.   The best way to increase her reading level is continue with the spelling development.  Ideally a developing reader should be spelling two to three grades above reading level to avoid the type of frustration you describe.   Reading is not pleasant if the student struggles too much with just identifying the words.  It is hard to concentrate on the meaning of a sentence if you can't remember the meaning of the individual words.   This will change as the spelling is mastered.

 

It is hard when a child is 6th grade by age but not by academic standards.  It makes it tempting to add something more to help.  Trust me.  It is important that you stay the course.  Forcing outside reading before the student has mastered the code is counterproductive.  I know it is hard to be patient and keep plodding.  I understand the pressure you feel to try to make up for the lost time.  It is best to concentrate required "reading" instruction as "reading" the spelling words from the log or cards with the words placed in different order or sentences made up of the words.   Go through the words this way.   Say "We think to spell ____" (and say the word broken down into individual sounds.  "We say ____" (and say the word normally.)   Until the magic of blending sounds into words is mastered, any reading you force can be negative.

 

Research has shown that the best  (and for many the only) way to overcome the gap is for the student to master the foundational sub skills (stages one and two of reading acquisition).  Until these first stages are mastered, a student will remain behind regardless of the age.   One woman that I tutored was an intelligent high school graduate in her fifties who spelled on a 2nd grade level.  She had gone to many different "experts" and paid as much as $50 an hour for tutors to no avail.   The key was learning to spell with our form of dictation.  I'll never forget the thrilled look on her face when she learned for the first time to sound out and spell "she."   I also remember the day she excitedly told me that she had just gotten her first library card. 

Also read the story about Bernadine on page 7 of SWR (and in the introduction above).

 

A dyslexic student has not mastered stages one and two will tend to never overcome that deficiency without the concentrated type work we do in spelling.   I have seen students like your daughter plod with spelling for some time before they start reading fluently and with eager joy.   Once these pieces come together they can jump to reading subjects at their thinking level.  

 I have witnessed our spelling students transition seemingly overnight from non-reading to reading the King James Bible with smoothness and expression.  Think of spelling the way we teach it as the way to build their sub skills that will give them the desired goal of being able to read at grade level without frustration.

 

 Your daughter is making great gains in spelling.    Focus on helping her to read those words fluently as you continue to add new words to her vocabulary.  This work will open the door to overcome her roadblock in reading.  You are on track.  You have made exciting progress even though you cannot see the full fruit of it yet.  Just keep going.  Do not lose heart.

 

Be sure to share the good news with us when you find her one day curled up with a good book reading with confidence for joy of it.

 

Blessings,

 

Wanda Sanseri

 

 

 

To purchase a full line of Spell to Write and Read products using PayPal or your Credit Card (Visa, Master etc.) go to www.morningstarlearning.com

 

 

For further reading on the topic of Spell to Write and Read check out these links:

 

Back Home Industries (BHI) Home Page  (BHI is Wanda Sanseri’s publishing company)

http://webs.integrity.com/backhome/

 

To Find an SWR Course in your area:

http://webs.integrity.com/backhome/BHI_Itinerary.html

 

SWR Basic Course, June 2nd and 3rd,  Cochrane, Wisconsin

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/82648/

 

Cursive First

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/74689/

 

SWR and Preschoolers

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/74652/

 

How I Got Started With SWR—(I Was Scared too!!!)

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/66558/

 

What Is Spell to Write and Read (SWR)?

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/66553/

 

Does SWR Work for Wiggly Willys?

http://homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/64551/

 

Phonogram Bingo-SWR New Release!

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/90140/