What’s in your toolbox? A writer’s toolbox would be incomplete without a variety of rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devices were first examined by the rhetoricians of ancient Greece. Writers and speakers have been honing these devices ever since in their search for clarity and beauty in language. Discover these tools for yourself in thirty short, enjoyable lessons. The Writer’s Toolbox is a great addition to any writing, public speaking, or debating program, and can be used in a classroom setting or at home. Anyone interested in the ways words work will enjoy these lessons and examples from literature and oratory. Whether you are fifteen or fifty, The Writer’s Toolbox helps you improve your writing without a large time commitment. Each lesson takes no more than 30 minutes to complete, and you can easily finish the book in a school year by studying one lesson every week. Patricia and Meagan Samuelsen want students to understand that words matter, and that using words skillfully is one of the joys of life!

Letter written by dear daughter Ava, age 8

Why do you suppose this is our most popular blog post?

There are several books of essays in the Harvard Classics set. Also, McGuffey’s Sixth Eclectic Reader has several short and fairly easy-to-read essays. Probably any of the old readers will contain essays.

Perla S…
Saudi Arabia

I would suggest that instead of determining how much material to memorize, that you approach it as how much time per day to work on it. Since he is only 3 years old, I would think that two or three sessions of five minutes each would be enough, but it has been so long since I’ve had a baby around the house that I’m not sure. I’ll post this question on my blog and e-letter to see what others say.

Laurie

Webster drew on his own experiences as an elementary school teacher when he wrote his speller, and he made a special effort to arrange the textbook in as simple a way as possible so that it could be easily taught to students. You will notice as you use the speller that it is organized beginning with the alphabet, moving on to syllables, simple words, complex words, and finally to sentences.

Over all its editions, in over 200 years, it is believed that 70 million copies of the speller have been printed. Using this little book, students learned all of the English language arts: phonics, spelling, handwriting, grammar, and vocabulary. The preface reads, “This little book is so constructed as to condense into the smallest compass a complete system of elements for teaching the language; and however small such a book may appear, it may be considered as the most important class book, not of a religious character, which the youth of our country are destined to use.” Judging from the large number of great writers produced in the nineteenth century, this book must have been adequate to teach these subjects well. With a little improvisation, Webster’s speller can be just as useful to us. Of course, if your situation is such that you need your child to learn the English language arts on his own by using workbooks, then Webster’s speller is not for you. But if you do choose to use Webster’s speller, you won’t need to buy separate workbooks for each grade and for every subject. The little speller can be used for all grades and all ages. There are enough words and sentences in Webster to last a long time. If your student learns to spell all the words and diagram all the sentences in Webster, let me know. I would like to meet that student.

The beauty of Noah Webster’s speller is in his sentences. Here is a sampling:

“God will impart grace to the humble penitent.”
“Examine the Scriptures daily and carefully, and set an example of good works.”
“To revere a father is to regard him with fear mingled with respect and affection.”
“Before you rise in the morning or retire at night, give thanks to God for his mercies, and implore the continuance of his protection.”
“Strong drink leads to the debasement both of the mind and the body.”

There are many ways you can use the speller to teach all of the language arts to your child. I will describe for you how our family uses the speller. You may discover or invent other ways.

Webster’s speller begins with two sections entitled “Analysis of Sounds in the English Language” and “Key to the Pronunciation.” Even though Webster meant for his speller to be used to teach children how to read (phonics), we recommend that you use one of the more modern phonics curricula to teach reading. Webster’s analysis of the sounds of the consonants is fairly easy to understand and is similar to what you have learned from such phonics programs as Alphaphonics or Spaulding, and though his descriptions of the sounds of the vowels may not have been confusing to people in the 19th century, they will be confusing to those of us who are used to 20th century phonics programs. Webster differentiates seven sounds for the letter “A”, five sounds for “E”, four sounds for “I”, eight sounds for “O”, and four sounds for “U”. Twentieth century phonics programs simplify this to only two or three sounds for each vowel. Spaulding and others have three sounds for “A” (fat, fate, father), two sounds for “E” (wet, we), two sounds for “I” (fin, find), three sounds for “O” (tot, tote, too), and three sounds for “U” (putt, repute, put). Because of these differences, we recommend that you not use Webster’s speller to teach reading (phonics).

We begin using Webster’s speller in our family when the child is age ten. By this age the child is able to read, to understand the rules of spelling, and to grasp the grammatical concepts of subject, verb and direct object. We give each child a three-ring notebook filled with paper and subject dividers. This will be his lifelong English language arts notebook. The student can have separate sections for spelling rules, punctuation, capitalization, sentence diagramming, grammar, etc. You will need to purchase a book which explains spelling rules and sentence diagramming. A good English handbook such as Bob Jones English Handbook may be adequate. You can often find English handbooks at old book stores or on Ebay.

On pages 15-16 Webster shows the student how to form the letters of the alphabet: Roman, Italic, Old English and Script. A section of the child’s notebook can be labeled “Formation of Letters.”

I begin on page 20 (Lesson 12) by dictating to the child the first ten words.The words are in word families (cab, dab, nab, etc.). We are not teaching reading (decoding) using Webster, but spelling (encoding). As you dictate these words you will explain to the child why the words are spelled the way they are.The spelling rules in the back of Webster plus your English handbook will help you with this. I continue dictating ten words a day until I have used all of Webster’s one syllable, short vowel words. The child can add spelling rules to his notebook as he learns them.

As the child writes these ten words from dictation you will show him the proper way to form the letters in cursive. Some children will need more instruction in this area than others, and some children will be completely familiar with handwriting from their previous phonics instruction. Communicate to the child that whatever is entered in the notebook should be written neatly. After the ten words are dictated you can dictate a sentence to the child. At the beginning you will need to make up the sentences, as Webster does not have simple sentences with only a subject and a verb.You will be teaching English grammar using these dictated sentences, and that is where the English handbook comes in again. The first sentence you dictate will be on the order of, “Mary ran.” It is at this point that you will begin to teach what a noun is, what a verb is, and what the subject and predicate are. You can also introduce some capitalization and punctuation rules here (pages 168-169 Webster). The section of the notebook on grammar can be divided into a single page for each part of speech: noun, verb, etc. At the beginning, the only thing the child will have on his noun page will be the definition: A noun names a person, place, thing, quality or idea. The child will add more about nouns as you teach him. The same will be true with his verb page and the other parts of speech.

Now you show the child how to diagram the sentence, “Mary ran.”

I dictate three sentences per day, and the child will diagram all three sentences. After a few days of simple subject/verb only sentences of your own, you will begin to use Webster’s more difficult sentences. Move on only after the student has mastered each concept.

At some point the student will be ready for long vowel words. Long vowel words begin at Lesson 17-20 and again at Lesson 33. Introduce two syllable words only when the student is ready for them. On pages 159-164 of Webster you will find the spelling rules. At some point you will introduce these rules and dictate words from these pages (or choose your own words).

Also included in Webster on pages 139-146 are paragraphs to dictate; on pages 146-152 are words spelled alike and words pronounced alike (along with the definitions and lots of sentences); on page 165, Roman numerals; on pages 166-168, words and phrases from foreign languages and abbreviations.

Use Noah Webster’s speller as the basic text and supplement with an English handbook. Your child will compile his own notebook while he learns spelling, handwriting, grammar, and vocabulary. You will eliminate the need to buy a multitude of graded workbooks for each of these subjects and for each grade level. You will be there watching and guiding your child’s growth in knowledge and understanding, and perhaps learning a few things yourself along the way.

You can download a copy of Noah Webster’s speller at Don Potter’s web site.

Laurie Bluedorn

Pamela
Chicago

Have you tried buying the children special colored or regular pencils or markers and special books filled with blank pages for doing their copywork? When my children were small and even up till the teen years they loved it when we shopped at office supply stores. I would buy them little pads of fancy colored paper and writing utensils for them to use in copywork. I also hired them to make all the greeting cards (birthday, anniversary) I wanted to send out. A typical card at Hallmark costs about $2-$3, but I would pay them $1 or so for each card, which they were always happy to get. The cards they made would have some type of artwork on the cover and a poem or Bible verse or something like that inside. If we really wanted to impress the relatives I’d have them copy the Greek alphabet somewhere on the card. That’s guaranteed to keep disapproving relatives off your back for awhile. Today at the copy centers there are lots of interesting things you can do with paper. The child can make a greeting card and then have it duplicated on a color copier using regular paper or cardstock. Make several copies to sell (you might not make any profit on the project but it would motivate the child in his copywork). Have him copy Bible verses onto a narrow strip of nice paper, decorate, and then laminate. Here you have a bookmark to give away as a gift or to sell. Several pages of copywork along with a cover can be bound together using a plastic comb or spiral binder or can even be perfect bound.