SWR - for our family

I'm trying to figure out how to use SWR in a way that accomplishes my goals: good spelling, exposure to Christian virtues, comfortable reading, logical thought, without having it take over my life. It seems to take a good 45 min to 1 hour to do the whole thing everyday, which would be fine if I didn't have any other goals for our homeschool time.

Here's what I'll be trying for the coming four weeks, though we'll take off a few days around Christmas. We'll be following a four day per week schedule, doing ten words per week, and having no "tests."

• Everyday: review all phonograms visually, read thirty flash cards, and focus writing one letter perfectly
• Day 1 - copy and write the week's focus phonograms
• Day 2 - write the week's ten words
• Day 3 - write the week's words on flash cards and make sentences by arranging them
• Day 4 - write a sentence from dictation and correct it

This won't lead to the sort of mastery that SWR promises, but that level of mastery seems to be coming through reading for J. Anyways, we'll do all the words over next year as is suggested.

J's consulting teacher has suggested we start the practice of ten minutes of daily journaling. We might implement that concurrently and see how things go.