Spelling Curriculum for 2nd grade

We are currently using Abeka spelling and I’m not overly thrilled with it and do not see much progress happening. We have also tried AAS and all the cards and tiles is just too much for me and she doesn’t seem to enjoy it either.

Does anyone have a somewhat simple spelling program, curriculum or workbook that their child loves and is actually learning with?

I do my own thing re:spelling. I use the list and concepts or rules in the AAS program BUT I don’t use the tiles or their recommended way of teaching. I get FREE spelling worksheets, games, and ideas from teachers pay teachers or Pinterest that help keep my second grader excited and engaged in the spelling words and concepts. I need the book BC I honestly don’t know why we spell the way we do so this helps me learn the concept so I can teach it my own way. So basically I do a quick little blurb of a rule in my own words which literally take less than 5 mins and I give her the spelling cards- she then picks a different activity to do each day x 4 days- for example, rainbow writing, paint your words, typing them on the computer 3 times, use 5 words in a short story (2-3 sentences long), stamp your words, etc. you can also make a word search with her list. Then on day # 5 we play a game with her words like spelling battleship (her fav), scrabble, scrabble slam, etc. You could also give her a prize or special treat at the end of the week if she completes 3-4 activities by spelling test day. I do reiterate the concept re: the rule the lists is following by asking her each day a question of why we spell one of her list words this way and she can usually tell me with confidence by the end of the week. Try these kind of activities w/ the AAS lists and see if she enjoys them, it may save you $ in the long run or at least for the rest of this year. I’ve found that all I need is the AAS teacher book and the green spelling cards, which I can buy cheaply from eBay and Amazon and I don’t have to waste $ on the other things they have that I don’t like to use). And every 10 lessons I do a quick review by looking at the past lists and having her orally spell 1 or 2 words from them and why - this takes 5 mins or less to quickly do and I try to use the words in funny sentences I know will make her laugh. Hope this helps some, it took us a few months to figure this way of spelling worked for us.

1 Like

We use sequential spelling. We have tried several programs,but this is the one that has finally worked for us. I just use the teacher manual and my kids use a spiral notebook for writing their words in. They do offer a student workbook for the daily list and an activity like a word search or dictionary excersice etc… We started with the workbook last year and decided we didn’t need it this year.Christian Book Distributors is where I purchased it from.

My 2nd grade daughter likes spelling by Steck-Vaughn and has progressed a lot! We used a grade-level up for her with that and with abeka too. She also enjoys using spellingcity.com and playing games with her spelling words. That’s free online for basic games, and you can enter her spelling list to practice her specific words.

If you don’t like the Abeka or AAS, you might look in to Spelling You See. It’s not a word memorization program, but instead they do a lot of copy work and reading and dictation skills. The theory being that through repetition of seeing and writing the words they learn how to spell them. I’ve had pretty good success with it, though I do still teach the basic phonics rules from AAS along side of it, because I think it’s important to be able to try and figure out how words are spelled using phonics skills as well. We do a mix of AAS and SYS now.