also struggling

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Home : 2007 : June : 8

also struggling
By Sandy J

I too have been contemplating this topic, for four years. This year I used patterned lists of words from a book called Recipe for Spelling. I gave the kids a list of 20 words (I teach fourth grade) and told them that any
word from the list, as well as any word that COULD have been on the list because it fits the pattern, is fair game for the test. I felt this caused them to think a little more. I gave three sentences and about 12 words in a dictation test. This worked to a degree. However, the kids who are already good spellers got almost nothing out of this, since they never studied for the tests and already

knew the words. The average spellers studied for the test and then forgot the words after, and the poor spellers who forgot to study did poorly. I also recycled words from previous lists into this test as a maintenance program. I was somewhat pleased with the results, more so than anything else I've tried, but still not thrilled. Right now I am torn between two ideas for next year: 1) Doing what I did this year, but having the entire test be sentence dictation, because that is more like real life. 2) Skipping spelling altogether "as a class" and teaching it as a part of vocabulary, reading, English, writing, etc. To me, spelling is more a part of proofreading than anything else, so maybe that's where it should be taught. I'd have a lot more time for writing if I didn't teach spelling as a separate class. Any thoughts?