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Building Spelling Skills Grade 5 Review by Camilla Anderson

Jo Ellen Moore
Evan-Moor Educational Publishers
18 Lower Ragsdale Drive
Moneterey, CA 93940-5746
1-800-777-4362
http://www.evan-moor.com/

Building Spelling Skills Grade 5 is a workbook that contains 30 spelling lessons, 18 words each. Each lesson includes dictation sentences, as well as four pages of various activities for practicing the spelling words while building other skills such as grammar and vocabulary. The whole workbook is reproducible.

Moore did a wonderful job of compiling her lists from not only the most common words used in the English language, but also from frequently misspelled words. She couldn't have chosen better words for the fifth-grade level, a very thoughtful and educated compilation. Her lists are grouped using common phonetic elements, and she also focuses on spelling issues such as prefixes, suffixes, homophones, compound words, contractions, and much more.

The activity pages for each lesson are creative, challenging, and useful. When I asked my daughter what her favorite workbook was this year, she said without hesitation, "spelling." She was referring to this exact book. She loved the activities. They were short, effective, fun, and most of all, varied. Some of the activities you'll find in this book: editing for misspelled words, crossword puzzles, matching syllables, sorting spelling words phonetically, marking vowels, filling in missing letters, filling in blanks with appropriate spelling words, matching spelling words with their meanings, opposites, rhyming, verb tense, contractions, and more.

The book is designed so that a child can work through it completely independently, or have teacher involvement. Dictation sentences are provided for both testing and for some of the activities. There are two "blanks" at the end of each spelling list where bonus words may be added (we always added a couple books of the Bible). Also, there is a blank spelling test form in the back of the book that can be copied to use for each test. There are other reproducible forms, and a master spelling list with all the words in the unit in alphabetical order. There is an answer key in the back for every activity.

For me, the Evan-Moor Spelling is a "no-brainer." I will most likely never bother to look at anything else when I need a spelling unit. It is superbly compiled, well written, easy to use, very complete, and as effective as a spelling book can be. It retails for about $20, and you will definitely get your money's worth. Evan-Moor offers the Building Spelling Skills workbooks for grades 1 through 6.

Product review by: Camilla Anderson, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, July 2008.

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