The Writing Road to Reading

• Paperback – 480 pages 
• by Romalda Bishop Spalding 
• Collins Reference – 2004 

The Writing Road to Reading is a very powerful text. It can be used for teaching reading, it can be used to teach phonics or language structure, it can be used to remediate adults. It is a powerful spelling tool as well. Though excellent, it can be intimidating for the first time user, and that is why we recommend Mari McAlister’s Starting A Spelling Notebook. Mari wrote this after working with families who were having trouble with The Writing Road to Reading. She saw the excellence of the text, and its difficulties, and she wanted to help families use it. (Note: While The Writing Road to Reading generally employs the methodology of the grammatical stage of formation, there is an analytic component to this text. This is good, as it prepares the student for the next stage of formation. We do not hold that no one analyzes before 6th grade. We hold that the method of formation that is characteristic of the pre-sixth grade student is memory, observation and sequencing; this is what students do naturally at this time of life. But some analysis on a very particular matter is helpful as a preparation for the next stage of formation.)  

Nearly a decade in the making, the long-awaited sixth edition of the classic Spalding primer helps children develop their reading skills through a multi-sensory approach so natural and stimulating that reading itself is never taught outright—it simply begins. Teachers, tutors, and parents will find the latest edition of Writing Road to Reading a powerful tool for its phonics-based, total language arts program. Writing Road to Reading lets children learn to put sounds together, form meaningful words, write meaningful sentences, and develop their creative minds, allowing them to progress quickly toward absorbing—and enjoying—the great works of children’s literature. Dr. Susan Moore, editor of Education Monitor, praises Spalding Educational International’s approach, saying "because the Method is multi-sensory . . . it works for everyone. . . . No other approach to early literacy has this record of success."