Spell to Write and Read

Reviewed by Lorinda K. F. Newton

Title: Spell to Write and Read

Grades: K-12, also useful for ELL and remedial adult

Author: Wanda Sanseri

Publisher: Back Home Industries, but sold in 2023 to Becky’s Bouquet LLC, and can be found at swrforum.com.

Website: This new website has a membership program, free and premium, that gives parents access to discussion forums, SWR trainers, and extra resources.

Note: I originally reviewed this product in 2007, updated it for Academy Northwest in 2019, and again in January 2026. So, some statements may not reflect the current edition.

Spell to Write and Read Core Materials

·         Spell to Write and Read Teacher’s Guide

·         W.I.S.E. Guide: 2000 spelling words for K-12

·         The Basic Phonogram Cards and Spelling Rule Cards

·         The Phonogram CD: teaches proper sounds for phonograms

The only other required item for this program is a new Learning Log for each student each year. The teacher also needs to buy a Learning Log for herself as a master text (for K-2, the Red Learning Log, formerly called the Primary Learning Log, and for 3rd grade and up, the Black Learning Log).

This curriculum can also be purchased from the Rainbow Resource Center and ChristianBook.com.

Looking for a phonics and spelling program that will provide your child with a solid foundation in the English language? I examined several phonics programs before deciding on the Spell to Write and Read (SWR) curriculum. Because I struggled with spelling, I wanted to make sure my children could spell well.

Using Dr. Seuss books, I taught myself to read before kindergarten. I loved to read and write. Still, I could never spell well during my school days. At my first homeschool conference, I discovered that children who learn to read before age six see words as Chinese characters, not as a unit of separate phonograms. That was part of my spelling problem. The color-coded phonics charts used by my first- and second-grade teachers in the mid-1970s probably contributed to it as well.

I majored in English in college, but my spelling remained weak. Wanting to be a freelance writer and editor, I studied some adult books on spelling. However, it wasn't until I started teaching SWR that the spelling of English words made more sense to me. I wish I had SWR’s

28 spelling rules when I was in school!

Phonics

SWR is based on the Writing Road to Reading program developed by teacher Romalda Spalding and Dr. Samuel Orton, a neurologist who worked with dyslexic children in the 1920s. This complete language arts program was designed for classroom teachers and is unwieldy for a homeschooler. SWR author Wanda Sanseri, a student of Spalding, redesigned and simplified it for homeschoolers.

The core of the program is 70 basic phonograms and 28 spelling rules. Instead of teaching the letters’ names, you teach your children the sounds of each letter and multi-letter phonogram. For instance, for the letter A, you teach three sounds: short a, long a, and ah, as in was. For the multi-letter phonogram ough, you teach its six sounds. As you teach the phonograms, you also instruct your children in penmanship. They write the letters as you dictate how to write them.

Spelling

After your child becomes familiar with the alphabet phonograms, you introduce the W.I.S.E. Guide (Words, Instructions, and Spelling Enrichments). This book contains one hundred 20-word spelling lists and accompanying language arts exercises. The 2,000 spelling words are arranged by frequency of use.

Unlike other programs that give a child a list of words on Monday and expect him to memorize them by Friday, you dictate the words in SWR. The first time your child sees the word is when he writes it in his Learning Log. You, the teacher, dictate the word by sound, not by letter name. For example, you would say, “black. The cat is black.  /b/ /l/ /a/ two-letter /k/, black.” Once the child has recorded his first spelling list, the Log becomes his reading primer.

This curriculum works because of its multi-sensory approach. The child first hears the word, then writes it, then sees it, and finally reads it. This method accesses the four language centers in the brain.

Spelling Rules

As you work your way through the W.I.S.E. Guide, you will introduce more phonograms and the spelling rules, and create spelling-rule reference pages in the Red (Primary) Log. The Black Log also contains other reference pages to learn usage, grammar, and other language facts.

Many people complain that English words break too many spelling rules, making the rules not worth learning. With this program, amazingly, nearly all the words do fit within the rules, especially when you use the “think to spell” method. Most reading programs treat the word the as a sight word. Not SWR. By following the rule that A, E, O, U usually say a, e, o, u (their long sounds) at the end of a syllable, you pronounce the word with a long e for spelling purposes.

The program provides diagnostic tests you can use each month to monitor your child’s progress. These tests are also used to place your child at the correct spelling list level. If he completes the curriculum, he will be spelling at the college freshman level.

Both of my children used this curriculum through the seventh grade. We didn’t finish the W.I.S.E. Guide because after eight years, they were eager to move on.

Reading

As your child builds his log book of words and practices reading it, reading should come naturally, though perhaps later than with most programs. I started my son in SWR in kindergarten, but he didn’t read much until the end of first grade. When I had him assessed at that time, he had a firm grasp of phonics but could only read at primer level. By the end of second grade, however, he was reading at the fifth-grade level and always had his nose in a book. My daughter, who joined our family at age six and only knew a handful of English words, on the other hand, took several years to learn to read independently.

To develop reading comprehension, my edition of SWR introduced the McCall-Crabbs book at the second-grade level. Unfortunately, this 1961 reprint of a 1926 publication is out of print, and later versions have been dumbed down. Rainbow Resource Center does sell the collection of third editions, published in 1979.

Learning to Teach

SWR doesn’t offer scripted lesson plans, just guidelines. But this makes the program flexible to meet your child’s needs.

If you find this program appealing but daunting (After my first reading through the curriculum, I was overwhelmed), help is available. Back in 2004, I used their Yahoo group extensively. But now the author has provided a training DVD: Hidden Secrets to Language Success (excerpt available). Also, visit the above mentioned website for more assistance and support.

I also benefited from in-person training courses offered by official SWR trainers. I highly recommend the Advanced Seminar for teaching older children. (The videos and most of the other supplementary materials didn’t exist when I started.)

The grammar, usage, dictionary, and writing exercises included in the W.I.S.E. Guide are not systematic but more supplementary and designed to reinforce the spelling words. The author states that as the child progresses, you will need to add grammar and writing programs to complete your English instruction. I used various curricula to meet these needs.

The SWR requires hard work from both the teacher and the student. But the reward of a strong reader and speller is worth it. Of all curricula, this is the first one I recommend to new homeschoolers.

Lorinda K.F. Newton homeschooled her children from 2004 to 2022, and her family joined Academy Northwest in 2014. Her family lives on beautiful Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, Washington. She writes about faith, culture, and education from a biblical worldview at Lorinda’s Ponderings, where you will also find reprints of her other homeschool articles and reviews of her lending library collections.