LurNiNG to SpeL is Hard

Since my oldest is in first grade this year (I'm trying to use grade levels with her to give her an ability to talk to people about what grade she's in instead of staring at them going, I don't know....but I'm six years old), I thought we probably ought to start on spelling. I'm finding that a lot of homeschool spelling curriculum doesn't really start until grade 3 but I found one that I really liked for first grade.

Horizons Spelling and Vocabulary is really like most spelling programs.
Monday - you go over the new rule(s) for the week and give the child a sort of pre-test to see what they already know and how they put the rule into practice. Then they rewrite the words they misspelled and have a short one-page worksheet.
Tuesday - review the rule(s) again and another one-page worksheet
Wednesday - review the rule(s) again and another one-page worksheet
Thursday - review the rule(s) again then they usually write a short story or letter to a friend using as many of the week's spelling words as they can. Frequently the writing is about a Bible story which is an aspect that I really like.
Friday - a spelling test

Pretty standard. This is the kind of program that you might do in regular school (minus the Bible part of course). This is the kind of program that I loved. Worksheets! I loved doing worksheets as a kid. I could do them as quickly as I wanted, could go back and double-check my work to make sure I was happy with it all, and then I usually had some free reading time because I finished before the other kids.

My child is NOT like that. Perhaps it's because she's not in a regular classroom with the peer pressure to get it done as quickly as possible or as correctly as possible (that was probably my imagined peer pressure as well since I can remember that lots of kids goofed off when they were supposed to be doing worksheets). Perhaps it's just her personality/learning style that she doesn't do well sitting and writing on worksheets. Perhaps first grade is too young to start formal spelling.

One of the homeschool programs I really like (though I don't use formally) is Sonlight. Their recommendation is to wait on spelling until third grade. Let the constant reading (and I do mean constant reading - both child-read and parent-read and audiobooks) teach the child how to spell. They will be familiar with the phonics rules and sight words from their constant reading and will be better prepared to be good spellers when they reach third grade.

I definitely remember doing spelling in third grade. It's when I started at a new (good) school and learned phonics. I already knew how to read before I started Kindergarten but learning phonics opened my whole world. I became an excellent reader and speller. I don't remember doing spelling before third grade but it could be my poor memory or the fact that I wasn't in the best school with the best teachers or  it could be that we really didn't do it.

So now I wonder if I should continue doing spelling with my daughter or not. I have already given up the Horizons Phonics and Reading program which I also loved. But my child would NOT do the blasted worksheets. It wasn't worth the headache so I dropped it in favor of more book reading. And I felt she wasn't losing out on the phonics because she was still getting the exact same rules in the spelling curriculum. (I do still use the reader from the Horizons read program since each story employs a certain phonics rule and there are reading comprehension questions at the end. But no more reading/phonics worksheets.) I just don't know. She is a very good reader. She tested at a fourth-grade reading level (based on a couple of quick reading assessment tests I found online) and she has excellent reading comprehension.

If I drop spelling too and wait another year and a half until she is third grade, am I letting my child make the decision (which doesn't really fly with me) or am I doing what's best for her current education and sanity (and my own sanity)?