Daily Skill Building: Vocabulary & Daily Skill Building: Spelling are thirty-six week, independent, open-and-go curricula. Once you download the PDFs all you need is a printer to produce the worksheets and a pencil for students to complete them.

We received PDF downloads of Daily Skill Building: Vocabulary & Daily Skill Building: Spelling for grades three to seven. You can purchase Daily Skill Building: Vocabulary for grades one to seven separately for $19.00 per grade and Daily Skill Building: Spelling for grades three to seven for $14.95 per grade, or buy the two classes bundled together for $29.95 per grade.

The Spelling course comes as one PDF and the Vocabulary course as two PDFs; one contains the worksheets while the other contains flashcards in two versions. One version has the definition of each word already typed on the card while the other version leaves room for the student to look up and write down the definition of each vocabulary word.

Daily Skill Building: Vocabulary has one page per day to complete. Each day students will define the given word, use it in a sentence, as well as give three synonyms and anonyms of it. Every four weeks there is a Unit Review when students use the vocabulary words in sentences or paragraphs.

Daily Skill Building: Spelling is a page-a-day program. The first day is to write a synonym and antonym of four words to build their list. On the second day, they write the words twice each. On the third day, they have some copy work to write the definition of the target words, there is also practice writing sentences of the synonyms or antonyms as well. Day four sees a pre-test to help students know which words they need more practice with, and on day five is a spelling test.

As the grade levels rise, the difficulty of the spelling words and vocabulary become complex. More work and thought are required as well. For example, every four weeks there is a unit review and students in grade three a paragraph using at least three of the target words and draw a picture to illustrate it. For grade seven students are asked to write at least two paragraphs using at least eight of the twelve target words. Students are expected to write in complete sentences at all grade levels.

To start, I thought these classes would mainly benefit my fifth-grader, but after a couple of weeks, I had decided that my seventh-grader would also benefit from them. Both of my children will continue after the review period has ceased. Expanding vocabulary and improving spelling is good for everyone.

My children liked that the lessons were short, quick, and easy; only taking a few minutes most days. This also works for me, as does the choice to print the vocab cards with the definitions already on them, which is what I am currently doing, as well as the option to print cards on which students will look up and write the definitions themselves, which is what I will switch to at the halfway point of the course.

My children tended to roll their eyes when I slipped in a vocabulary word into our conversations but were pleased with themselves when they did the same, and I love to hear them applying what they have learned. By focusing on one word a day it is not overwhelming, but those words multiply quickly and enable children to better express themselves.

My main pet-peeve is something that could be easily added, and that is to have a footer on the worksheets and vocabulary cards that states the grade. When you have more than one student working on this at the same time it’s easy for papers to be mixed up and having that little note on each page would make it much easier to keep things organized.

I would love to see the available grade levels expand up into high school so students can continue expanding their word usage both academically and in everyday life. A varied vocabulary will take one far.

Daily Skill Building: Vocabulary & Daily Skill Building: Spelling is a pain-free way for children to learn vocabulary and spelling independently, with parents needed only for corrections and weekly quizzes, which keeps everyone feeling connected.

-Product review by Crystal McClean, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, August 2020