Before embarking on the Stareway To Spelling method, we would like you to have some faith in our techniques. The following six pages contain typical examples of students' writing both before and after the application of the techniques outlined in this book. These are genuine copies of students' work and we believe they clearly illustrate the effectiveness of the Stareway To Spelling method. You may note that very few mistakes have been made after our tutoring - even in 'sentence flow'. You will also see, however, that the odd mistake does still occur and that there are places where the student has crossed out and made corrections. As we have pointed out previously, many children can spell words correctly when the word is isolated, but lose the image of the correct spelling when writing passages of text.
Once these 300 Most Used Words have been mastered, we can reasonably claim that our students have become functionally literate. We are not expecting perfection - a small number of mistakes will usually still be evident. However, the strength of Stareway To Spelling is that it will highlight any remaining weaknesses and these can then be worked on if both tutor and student feel it is necessary. Please note also that our students are displaying a far greater maturity in their writing style. They have become less hesitant and much more accurate and fluent when spelling and writing.
In order to further illustrate the dramatic improvement in writing resulting from the application of our techniques, we have included opportunities for your students to write text - using controlled vocabulary - both before and after coaching. These Before examples precede the reading lists which introduce the vocabulary for each section and should be dictated to the students before any remedial work begins. The After is dictated following completion of the appropriate spelling exercises. By doing this tutors, parents - and the students themselves - will be able to see clearly the progress that has been made.