The You Can Spell series has been a popular resource in New Zealand schools since the early 1990s. It has now been revised but is still based on original research, a mastery learning programme and the 3700 most frequently used words in English (the words that make up more than 95% of all writing).
This Teacher's Guide for Books 1 to 4 of the You Can Spell series is an indispensable and practical aid to teachers in achieving the initial goal of the programme - providing children with a sound technique for learning to spell, and for mastering the spelling of the 1110 high-frequency words in the 90 lists that make up Books 1 to 4.
(For the new editions of the pupils' books, the lists have been updated to include technical, electronic, metric and commonly-used Maori words, and the activities have been thoroughly revised.)
In addition to supplying the answers to all the activities and word puzzles in the pupils' books, the Teacher's Guide provides the teacher with both a theoretical background to the spelling programme and valuable administrative resources, including:
- letter models to brief parents on the You Can Spell programme;
- a training kit with a HP masters;
- classroom aids, such as a word-building sheet and photocopiable masters of the puzzle grids in the pupils' books;
- a progress graph for each Mastery Set;
- spelling diplomas;
- teachers' workplans and pupil record sheets, and
- dictation exercises appropriate to each level of spelling attainment.
