Apples: Daily Spelling Drills for Secondary Students

An Apple a day will help keep your spelling woes at bay! Apples is designed for the older student (junior high or high school) who struggles with spelling. Have you ever felt like taking your older student back to the beginning with phonics - but hesitate to do so because the available phonics books are so....elementary!? What you don't need is another spelling program. You don't need spelling lists and tests and more language arts. You just need some simple (but not elementary), daily phonics drills that go over again and again the basic phonics rules. That is exactly what Apples does. Your older student simply goes over one Apple each day, and it will help keep his spelling woes away! Apples is different than any other spelling program out there, taking into consideration the unique needs of poor spellers. Once a week your student is introduced to a spelling rule (called a clue). He will study that rule for the entire week, applying it in all kinds of spelling situations: puzzles, fill-in-th-blank, complete-the-Bible-verse, etc. Some of the clues break a word down into syllables. For example, your student will be taught that the syllable that sounds like "-shun" is usually spelled "-tion." (Exceptions are addressed as well.) Your student will then apply that rule over and over in many different ways: action, motion, redemption, caution, etc. Apples builds another important skill in poor spellers. A good speller can look at a word, and even if they aren't sure how to spell it, they know it doesn't "look" right. Apples introduces your student to this skill by teaching them to recognize mispelled words in sentences with carefully-controlled vocabulary and specific rules. Possibly for the first time in his life, your student will be taught to recognize when a word doesn't "look right" - and if your student is like mine, that's a skill he really needs!

Apples takes less than ten minutes daily. Use it in conjunction with your current language arts program.