New Spelfabet workbooks and EOFY discount
24 Replies
I’ve finally finished five new download-and-print Spelfabet workbooks. These version 3 books better align with the Sounds-Write program and the Phonic Books myself and my colleagues are now often using, and with the Drop In Series books for older learners.
For a 20% discount on these and anything else in the Spelfabet shop, type the coupon code “EOFY 2021” at the checkout.
Many of our clients have memory, attention, language or other difficulties as well as learning difficulties, and struggle to make the transition from Sounds-Write’s Initial Code to the Extended Code, which requires them to learn several spellings of a new vowel sound at once.
We only see our clients weekly or fortnightly, so need lots of activities that are easy for parents to supervise at home. I thus wanted new workbooks to teach vowel spellings more gradually, with earlier, explicit teaching about morphemes and work on polysyllabic words, and reviewing prior learning in lots of sentence-writing with punctuation (having read The Writing Revolution).
I’ll be talking about meeting the needs of clients like these at the free online Sounds-Write 1:1 Symposium on May 23-28. The lineup is amazing, it’s hard to know where to start, don’t miss it!
I’ve made videos about each new workbook, in which I hope you enjoy my fire-engine red fingernails (covering ugly nail bruise from dropping a chookhouse paving stone on my finger, yeow). There are also detailed descriptions of each book in the website shop, but essentially their contents are:
Level 1: Words with checked (‘short’) vowels from CVC to CCVCC and CCCVCC (C=consonant, V=Vowel)
Level 2: Consonant digraphs, basic suffixes, and up to three-syllable words with varied stress
Level 3: “Long/short” vowel contrasts, “soft” c and g, extra suffixes and some prefixes
Level 4: Seven extra vowel sounds, four extra vowel spellings, and more practice of patterns introduced in earlier books.
Level 5: 14 extra vowel spellings and more practice of previous patterns.
Like the previous workbooks, Version 3 has a parent/aide edition and a slightly more expensive teacher/clinician edition, the only difference being that you can print more copies of the teacher/clinician file. File pictures are in colour, but you don’t have to colour print them. Most of the pictures in the workbooks are PCS, a trademark of Tobii-Dynavox LLC, all rights reserved, used with permission.
The old Version 2 workbooks and kits are still in my website shop in the “old versions” folder, if you still want one, or haven’t finished downloading ones you’ve bought. Sorry that I’ve only been able to finish half the workbooks for Version 3, I’m working on more now, but life is busy!
Hope you and yours are all staying virus-free (I’ve had my first vaccine), and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new workbooks.
24 responses to “New Spelfabet workbooks and EOFY discount”
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The Spelfabet shop has affordable, downloadable spelling teaching resources.
Thank you Alison
You and your team are amazing!
I’ve already got my ticket for the symposium – am very much looking forward to it.
Have a great day.
Regards,
Jenni Lloga
Foundation teacher
Grahamvale Primary School
Do you sell hard copies of these books?
Kind regards
Carol Reberger
Hi Carol, we have a few copies for clients and drop-ins at our office in North Fitzroy, but we aren’t set up to print, store and mail out resources, sorry. In fact we are still sorting out what it costs to print them, so we know how much to charge for the hard copies. If you were wanting to drop in for a book or books, please let us know in advance because we might not have what you want printed. Alison
Just wondering why shipping is added to a digital download?
You’re absolutely right, there should not be shipping added to any of these, I’ll have to ask my webmaster about this because I thought it was set up NOT to charge shipping. Then I’ll have to go back through this morning’s orders and make sure I refund any shipping accidentally charged. Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention early!
Thank you Alison!! Your resources are amazing and you are generous, insightful and hilarious. I love your jokes on your you tube clips!
From a very grateful Speech Pathologist and parent of children who have difficulties with learning.
Will the Spelfabet Low Frequency Spelling test still be useful for roughly determining what Workbook a child should be on?
Aargh, that’s one of the things I need to rejig to match the new workbooks. Sorry I haven’t got it done yet, it and some moveable alphabet sequences that match the books are the next things on my list. Alison
Thanks Alison – I just saw the new moveable alphabet sequences. Is it likely that the Low frequency spelling test will follow?
Yes! Working on this as fast as I can! Alison
I am trying to purchase the new phonics book but it will. not allow me to as it will not accept my shipping address. I am in Canada.
Thank you
Kelly
My apologies, the books are all electronic downloads that you print yourself, but I hadn’t checked one of the boxes when setting the item up, so it thought I was going to post you a book, and we don’t post things overseas, the cost is prohibitive. My excellent office coordinator figured out what the problem was, and fixed it, so if you try again now, you should be able to buy the downloadable file, and then print the number of copies you need. Hope that works for you and sorry it didn’t work first time. Alison
I’m really looking forward to the Sounds- Write symposium Alison. I also hope we get to chat at the Best Practice Conference at St Paul’s next month.
Come and say hello in Gippsland, I look forward to seeing you there. Alison
Will do. 🙂
I am booked in for your session on robust word representation.
…….Alison Clarke ( and the Spelfabet team),
Thank you for these amazing new resources, your dedication, knowledge and TIME !!
I imagine that new concepts might be introduced with the support of a clinician, then families of clients who might be seen weekly or fortnightly, can use targeted activities between sessions / review. The videos linked to the workbooks will be really helpful to share with parents and carers.
…. again, thanks…. see you at the Sounds-Write Symposium.
Liz
hi Liz, thanks for the lovely feedback, you’re so nice. Yes, these books are meant to be PART of a program not a whole program. Looking forward to virtually seeing you soon. A
Hi Alison,
I have a few questions if you have the time please. I am slowly working through the workbooks with my children that I purchased last year. Both are home-schooled and have Autism with intellectual disability. They’re teens but working at about grade 1 level. I have only downloaded the first two books so far. Are these new versions accessible to me or will I need to buy them again? Also I love the colour – the ones I have printed are black and white but these colour ones look much more interesting. I am working with the Sound check and Sounds Good phonics books (which I think was on your recommendation) but I noticed that you highly recommend the sounds write program now – should I make the switch or continue as I am? Is it ok to supplement teaching with an online program like Nessy which does not necessarily line up with what I am teaching at any given moment – is this good for practicing previously learnt skills, or is it too confusing do you think? Thanks so much for the fantastic website and resources you have developed!
Dear Hannah, let’s have this conversation via email or phone since that’s probably better than discussing your children in blog comments. I am not able to offer you proper professional advice without seeing your children, so my main recommendation would be to see a professional for advice, your children sound quite complex. If you’ve bought a whole lot of things from my site that you now won’t use because the new versions are more suitable, I can probably just send you a refund for the things you’re yet to download, and then you can get the newer versions. My email is spelfabet@gmail.com. All the best, Alison
Amazing resources as usual and I love watching your video explanations as I there’s always something to learn – today I picked up a few things you mentioned about voiced and voiceless sounds / letters in regard ending morphemes.
Ta Tania
Thank you for this new version. So glad you decided to re-do this fantastic resource so it’s now in-line with Sounds-Write & Phonic books.
Really appreciate the work and thought that you have put into this… and can’t wait to start using them!!
Thanks for the lovely feedback, Annabel. Hope the books work well for you. Alison
Thank you Alison!
Such a great resource! I use this for my year 2 students who are struggling in reading. My students love it. It’s been such a help in an otherwise unfortunate situation with my hands tied for resources and time, as my school has barred me from using decodable readers and teaching synthetic phonics. I am teaching my 4 year old daughter, who starts school next year, to read, using lots of the advice and resources you’ve posted or referred to on your blog, particularly decodables. Her decoding skills are great! And because of that, she is independently comprehending the texts with barely any “orientation to text” business that goes on in planet MSV. I’m hoping this is one less life consumed by the guessing monster coming her way. So thank you once again! Your expertise is refreshing! Please keep it coming.
From a fed-up teacher, but delighted mother
🙂
Thanks so much for the lovely feedback, Lucy! I have had a bit of a swimming-through-mud year and haven’t been updating my website much, but I am hoping to get lots done these coming school holidays. Good on you, your students and daughter are very lucky to have you teaching them. Alison