Susan has done it again. She has written a series of spelling, poetry, and dictation books for use in either the home or classroom environment. These books are perfect for those families who need to brush up on their spelling skills, or maybe need a program that is thorough, and comprehensive, but can stand alone and doesn't require extensive teacher preparation beforehand.

I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the Spelling Plus program. Susan has gathered and compiled into lists, the 1000 core words that she encountered again and again in working with and teaching elementary students. This is a good cross section list using many entries from experts such as Dolch, Ayers, etc. Any word that occurred on three or more 'expert' lists is included here. You will also find a lot of words from the most frequently misspelled lists. Susan has really created a gem here. This book has all the lists as well as cool additional facts such as a timeline of the English language and a whole section on incorporating dictation to your spelling program. This plan works well, with a list a week being the norm and a very workable method of practice and repetition instituted right away. The results are measurable and my kids found this book a helpful and painless way to improve their spelling skills. I used Susan's Spell Well book for my older son and he also found it very helpful. This one is aimed at those in grades 6 and above who have struggled with spelling and want to improve their skills quickly and efficiently. Spell Well is a one-year plan for these older kids and requires minimal parent or teacher intervention.

The Dictation Resource Book is just that - a wonderful compendium of sentences and paragraphs to use while dictating to your students. This neat little book eliminates the need for extensive culling through novels and other sources to find excerpts. You can find all you need right here. Susan also has a dictation from the Bible resource book available. Many busy moms will be thankful for these resources.

The Dictation Resource Book was designed to be used with the Spelling Plus book. The book is divided into sections labeled with a corresponding spelling list. After the list has been introduced, you use the dictation examples and they incorporate all the spelling words currently being worked on. This, along with Susan's expert advise on why and how to use dictation, make an excellent spelling program that is useable and doable by all.

The Spell Well book also has dictation sentences provided that corresponds to each list in the book. Sentence dictation is a powerful tool for helping students to transfer good spelling into their writing. In order to remember their new words, they must use them. This is a great remedial program for those older kids who need some help and review in getting their skills up to grade. Susan does recommend implementing dictation sentences that reflect your particular student's lifestyles and environment. If you don't have time to do that, the sentences provided work very well and also act as a guide for checking things like punctuation and capitalization. I predict many families will find this a very helpful aid to their middle school child's success.

Writing Poetry from the Heart and The Homophones Resource Book are two more of Susan's very helpful aids. Both slim and easy to navigate, they provide excellent instruction and reference for those children who love poetry and love to write. Writing Poetry is basically an anthology of children's' poetry along with some excellent lesson plans and suggestions for making poetry a part of your child's life. The selected poems are written by children in grades 4 through 8 and are shown here in different formats and styles. Different topics are introduced and then examples of how kids have handled them are presented. I like the variety of topics and I enjoyed the diversity of presentations. It all helped me to believe that poetry was not beyond my grasp and maybe my kids would enjoy it. I really love poetry myself and we have always read poems together but encouraging them to write was sometimes a daunting task. It can be so rewarding and enriching, and I am glad for Susan's books to help me encourage them along. These books would work well as a 'breather' unit in between other, larger projects. I highly recommend you take a look at the web site, Susan has many more resources available and the variety is extensive.



-- Products reviewed by: Heidi Shaw, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine