Well, after having tried an assortment of spelling programs, (Spelling Power, Spelling Plus, Natural Speller, Sequential Spelling) and having attended the CHOH conference recently, I decided to try yet another spelling program.

Yep... I bought another spelling program! I bought PHONETIC ZOO. I didn't splurge and buy the audio cds this time around, opting to say the words and correct spelling myself.

Here's my instant message to my girlfriend....

Okay, first lesson in phonetic zoo (not earth shattering words, mind  you. LOL) but DD got all but two right. She was THRILLED. I focused my introduction of this "new spelling program" to her by saying her goal is to beat her scores. (She got +13 this time)  and said that when she gets the words right 2x in a row she gets the reward ZOO card (which was exciting to her) LOL

Her incorrects ... "always" and "contain"..... always was that she doubled the "l"... allways.  For contain she was just lost, she spelled it ctain... skipping the whole first syllable.

But she was happy, and that is better than any other thing we've done! She usually dreads spelling. So we shall see. DD thought me saying the rule every 3rd word in the list was a bit lame, but did say at the end it helped her remember the rules as she was spelling the list. 

So anyway... it is a start. We'll see how it goes. I do like the "built in" personal words feature every 5th lesson. I had all our lesson cards laminated and can just write her "trickster words" on the card as we go along, and those will be her spelling words when we come to that 5th lesson (or 10th, 15th, etc.)

As I said, I opted to not purchase the audio cds at this time. Cost was definitely a factor, but more so, since I'm just homeschooling one child, I have plenty of time to say the word lists and rules each day. I can DEFINITELY see the benefit of the audio cds to a larger family. If this program works out for us and we stick with it, I will reconsider purchasing audio cds for the higher levels.