Practical Spelling

by Miller School Books

This series of workbooks for grades 2 through 8 is designed to help students gain practice in both spelling and handwriting, with minimal teacher involvement. Each grade has 36 two-page units, with a recommended schedule of one unit per week, and every sixth unit is a review. Each unit is divided into 3 to 5 parts, to help with assigning an amount of lesson practice that will fit your schedule. Each part is lettered for easy reference, with directions following the circled letter. The student should read the directions and do what he can by himself, though, as with any workbook, a class discussion or teacher's explanation adds to the benefit of some parts.

After each unit, a spelling test is to be given. These are listed in the back of each teacher's book, and the words are in a different order than shown in the unit word list. A dictation sentence is also provided, using a word or words from the previous unit, which can be used to provide some ongoing review.

Compared to the Rod and Staff Spelling by Sound and Structure, this series does not draw many examples from the Bible, but uses contexts familiar to rural home and school life. And whereas Rod and Staff's lessons become more extensive in the upper grades, with hardback textbooks used in grades 6 - 8, this series provides a consistent amount of study in each grade, using workbooks throughout, which also makes it less expensive.

Phonetic symbols used for vowel marks in this series: See More Info

Note that phonetic symbols are not standardized, and vary between dictionaries and curriculum publishers. If you and your students are accustomed to other symbols, use them instead, although to do so may require some editing and/or additional instructions in using these books.

symbol	sound
ā	bake
ă	hat
är	darling
ăr	chair
ⱥ	teach
ē	meet
ĕ	set
ɇ	trade
ǝ	buses
ǝr	turn, over
ī	mile
ĭ	fit
ĭr	fear
ō	home
ŏ	doll
ȯ	dog, caught
ȯi	toy
ȯr	horse
ou̇	house
ŭ	supper
ü	true
u̇	pudding, foot

To see the table of contents and sample lessons, click on the curriculum sets below.