The Score-Soaring
Spelling Strategy

Syllable Savvy focuses the student's attention on difficult syllables, and reinforces their skills with expected syllables. For instance, here is a difficult word to spell:

Is that a word you can spell? Let's break it down the Syllable Savvy way.

There is only one difficult syllable. That is the second syllable which has one sound but three letters.

The Syllable Savvy List gives the student the number of letters for each word. Therefore, the student would know there are three letters. It might help to remember that "eau" is also in the word "beautiful." (Hmmm, beautiful bureaucrats. Doesn't seem to fit does it? But it is easy to remember!)

In short Syllable Savvy focuses the students' attention on the syllables and number of letters in each.

And, at the price of $5.95 per year, the program is not only effective but very reasonably priced. The best thing about the Syllable Savvy Strategy is that it can be used with any word list. Whether you make up your own list, use a language arts curriculum with assigned words, or use the Syllable Savvy Curriculum; this strategy will improve your students' scores.

How to Teach Spelling using the Syllable Savvy Strategy

The first day the parent reviews the word list with the student and they note which letters (if any) in each syllable are irregular. On Day 2 to 4 the student reviews the words alone. On Day 5 the parent evaluates the student's ability to spell the words on the word list.

Click here for complete information
on HOW TO TEACH with Syllable Savvy.

3rd to 8th Grade

Syllable Savvy is available for third to eighth grade. Each level consists of:

• 30 lessons
• fifteen words per lesson
• five spaces for problem words each lesson
• a different theme for each grade.

Click here to see the themes for each grade level.

Worksheets or Workpages

Crossword puzzles, word find-it boxes, mazes: many programs have worksheets that have the student use these activities to reinforce their spelling words. Does your student enjoy crossword puzzles and such activities? If he or she is going to be doing those activities for fun anyway, it makes perfect sense to use them with the weekly word list. In such case, you can purchase software or find free on-line programs to produce such activities with the words.

On the other hand, puzzles may not be your student's favorite past-time. If so, there is no particular value to them. Your goal is for the student to spell the word correctly when writing, not find it in a word search box.

Syllable Savvy uses a weekly workpage for the student's daily work. This workpage is simply a regular 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of writing paper folded the long way into two columns. With the front and the back, the paper now has four columns. Each day on the first through fourth day, the student will use one of the four columns of the workpage.

What is the value of the workpage? First, there is only one piece of paper to keep track of. Second, the instructor does not have to check the work every day to make sure the student is staying on track. At any point you can find the workpage and see how many words were written correctly each day.

Click here for the FREE DOWNLOAD of the Syllable Savvy Instructor's Guide OR to ORDER Syllable Savvy.

Quizzes and Tests

There are two plans to choose from to give quiz and test grades with the Syllable Savvy Strategy. Of course, you may devise another scoring system.

PLAN A

Daily Quizzes - Use the daily work on the workpage (see link) on Days 2 through Day 4 as quiz grades. Each are worth 10% of the grade for the week. Weekly Test - Use the final work on the fifth day as a spelling test worth 70% of the weekly grade.

PLAN B

Daily Workpage - no grade given (or give a bonus of 3 points if all words are correct.) Weekly Quiz - Use the fifth day's work as a Quiz Score. Each quiz would be worth 10% of the quarter grade. There are eight quizzes per quarter. Quarterly Test - Give a quarterly test made up of 20 of the quarter's words. The test would be 20% of the quarterly grade.

Click here for a FREE DOWNLOAD of the Syllable Savvy Instructor's Guide or to ORDER Syllable Savvy Spelling.

View Our Other Spelling Pages