meaningful activities

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meaningful activities
By jl, fourth grade

I'm going to play devil's advocate and defend some of the "meaningless" spelling activities you and I are giving for homework. ABC order is a necessary skill at the intermediate school level--it reinforces study skills, help
students to practice alphabetizing skills that are necessary for effectively using the dictionary, encyclopedia, and filing items. Writing sentences that are meaningful and appropriate reinforces correct grammar, capitalization, and punctuation, BUT more importantly, it encourages students to develop and use context as an appropriate tool for determining word meaning. In essence, it

helps students to become more effective writers with their vocabulary. I also have them write the words 3x each--it creates familiarity with the words and gives them practice with tricky spelling patterns. There are also lots of great ideas mentioned above from acrostics to word puzzles to paragraph writing, etc. As long as the activities are meaningful, skill-related, and appropriate for the grade level, they are fine. Scholastic puts out a book called Spell Well! that has great activities. Check it out!