At St. Gregory Classical Academy, we believe that phonics is essential to helping students master language.  Spell to Write and Read by Wanda Sanseri provides “sound-first” ideas that progress from sound to symbol.  We have chosen Spell to Write and Read for our core reading curriculum because it has stood the test of time, and it is based on solid research that supports the science of reading instruction. Teachers gently ignite children’s wonder with senses as noted by author, Mrs. Sanseri:  “By linking speaking, spelling, and writing with reading, we connect four different pathways in the brain.”   

Additional benefits of this program include:

• Evidence-based. This curriculum has been around for several decades. It has stood the test of time, it is rooted in solid research around the science of reading. Many schools have had great success with this curriculum. Teachers in upper grades notice the merits in spelling and vocabulary from students who have gone through this phonics program. 
• The grammar of writing English builds a solid foundation.  This takes a little longer than other reading approaches, but similar to the long process of building a house, beginning with best practices, progressing with utilities laid safely according to plan, culminating with frames, roof, and walls – it feels slow at first, but goes quickly afterward. 
• The dialectical approach incorporates question-and-answer learning. It is not limited to memory and copying.  A child at St. Gregory Classical discovers ideas as needed (not all at once) with rules that are highly dependable and logical.
• Logic Training. Listening to teachers and pondering answers before writing answers in a blank book (a self-recorded spelling reference book) promotes logical thinking and independence. Students are not filling out worksheets. They are thinking and writing.
• The building blocks are natural. Children progress through writing one letter, to phonograms, then words, three-word sentences, and longer sentences either dictated or created in his or her mind.  
• Rhetorical Creations. Children practice the rhetorical mode of learning when they create! They can create stories and little books of their own using the list of spelling words that are incorporated in reading instruction.  Reading aloud their original sentences for a small audience provides early rhetoric experiences.
• Foreign Language preparation.  Spell to Write and Read incorporates short etymology ideas which form a path for growth in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy (Latin, Greek), histories (Spanish, French), and music (German, Italian).  
• Unified Approach. In classical education, we strive for all learning to be integrated and not broken into segments. Spell to Write and Read integrates spelling, reading, writing, and composition with a foundation in phonics, spelling, and grammar rules.
• Explicit Phonics. Teachers teach relationships between graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds) from a holistic approach. Explicit phonics embraces the mimetic instruction approach with the “I do, we do, you do” approach. This program introduces all the phonograms up front. Students then learn how to sound out words with a complete knowledge base of all the phonemes from which to decode words.  
• Penmanship & Cursive Instruction. Student handwriting is emphasized with direct instruction for posture, hand position, etc. Students begin with cursive, and this method not only works for all students, but it is also best for students who struggle with dyslexia. 
• Reading Assessments. Spell to Write and Read trains teachers in assessing children. There are leveled spelling assessments, and reading level assessments are included as part of the instruction. 
• Robust training. Spell to Write and Read has robust teacher training. Our teachers will be well-equipped in the methods of this curriculum.