Spelling

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Home : 2002 : June : 15

Spelling
By Ruth

This past year our school went from spelling lists to individual spelling. Each student in my classroom had a different spelling list. The words at the beginning of the year came from the essential word list for spelling.
Those words written most often. What good is it if they have a big word on their list but can't spell "with" or "their" for example. It just doesn't make sense. Then as the year progresses I chose words from their daily writing, or asked the student which words they would like to learn, and I also started giving synonmyms and antonyms using a thesaurus so that words in their writing could

be more varied and colorful. Each week I would conference with each student, give a spelling test and give new words. If they did not spell words correctly the student was responsible for learning them for the next week plus a new list. I would give only 10 spelling words a week, except for my over-achievers and good spellers about 20. The students know that at any time I can call them for a spelling test not only asking for present week words but any past words. It is a lot of work but well worth it. My students went from hating spelling to asking for spelling tests. It made each student successful. Also remember that spelling is a visual process not an oral/sound process. I had to change my way of thinking about how to teach spelling but it has made a tremendous difference.