Spelling words should be compatible with the student's reading level. Many are able to succeed with minimal modifications. Choose one of the spelling activities in this chapter and use it with a student. Again, share your experience in a post of one or two paragraphs.
Respond to 2 people.
I teach Spell/Read classes at KMS. Anytime we have a few extra minutes of class, the students love to play hangman. This is a great drill-and-practice exercise for students. Although we don't have spelling words, we have a daily vowel/consonant sound that we review. When playing hangman I will use words/phrases that go along with the lesson we learned for that day. For example, when we learned about r-controlled vowels, my hangman phrases were "park the car" and "fork for the pork", etc. For our "tr" vs "tur" lesson, I used phrases such as "try to turn" and "trap the turtle". The students thought the phrases were funny and after guessing we would do a quick review of the vowels, or the spelling rules. They said that the funny phrases are a good way to remember the spelling rules we have been learning. I also feel that because Spell/Read uses so many pseudo-words and made-up syllables, it is important for the students to learn how to spell actual words. So this supplemental activity is good to add to the Spell/Read lessons when we have extra time.
ReplyDeleteFun ideas! I do Spell Read too and will definitely use your idea.
DeleteI agree with you about students needing to learn to how to spell real words. As they say, no one program can teach a child everything. It is always a good idea to supplement.
DeleteSince first grade typically does the word families each week. WE did family on magnet board letters and did the root word and then added. This week was the ear and ew week. so ear, dear, bear, few, new, chew, dew. Did the ear and picture and then adding the d and b, which was working on the reversals. then the ew sound with the consonants on Wed and Thursday. And Friday putting it together to try. we do silly sounds, which are non-sense words. Put stear, oh it is a real one, no it should be steer. zear, wear, rear, always a laugh. THen stew, chew, thew, wew, zew, no zoo. It just is fun after the test. Also still grade by letter combinations not whole words.
ReplyDeleteI like hangman. Like your use. I don't do spell/read, haven't been trained. Sounds like great growth through it.
Dot - LOL! Your class sounds fun. It is so important for kids to see the silly side of their teacher from time to time. Makes us "real" people:) Word families are a great scaffolding technique that really works for some kids. Kudos to you!
DeleteI only do actual spelling lists with one student, and she uses the class list. We use Words Your Way at our school, which has a lot of sorting by sound/spelling pattern activities. She can memorize spelling words but the sorting part is really hard. I used highlighting with her - she highlights the sound/spelling in different colors. This helps her see how to sort them in different ways.
ReplyDeleteI like this, but instead of that sorting method, I have my students put them on a Tree Map according to the rule.
DeleteI have not worked much with spelling lists this year. The most common modification is shorting the list and the classroom teachers do this. In the past I have used several strategies to help students with spelling. A common one is to give the student a visual spelling test. For example if the word is "couldn't" the student would have 3 choices of words, one correct and 2 wrong;
ReplyDeletecouldn't, kouldn't, coodln't. The student circles the correct spelling. I make the test and read the test to them. I have given oral spelling tests and wrote the letters the students say. I did have one student who was very low so we substituted her list for a list of words that were from the Dolch basic sight word list, 10 at a time, and I gave that test to her. We have also shortened the list and then gradually added words to it during the year. In the beginning of the year a student will take 10 words and gradually add to it until by the end of the year they are taking all 20 words. There are alot of creative ways to modify spelling tests to fit the needs of the students.
I HAVE used the three choices before and for that student was very useful. I agree lots of ways to substitute and still be a part of class. I do the blocks for some students to give them visual cues for shape of letters. I usually avoid the scramble letters because that is so hard on our kiddos. I might and tell them the word and give them physical scrabble letters to sort, but not on paper. Just too difficult.
DeleteI also teach Spell Read like April does. I think it does help!!!
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite spelling activities is #227 outlining spelling words and using configuration clues. I also like #275 tracing letters in spelling words with several different colors. One year I subbed for middle school special ed. and we had a student who had weekly spelling tests over 10 words on the 2nd grade level. On Mondays, he just wrote each word three times, Tuesdays he did the color tracing, Wednesdays he did the outlining and configuration clues and on Thursdays we used a tactile/kinesthetic activity by tossing a ball and spelling each word out loud. My point is to mix it up and use many different ways to learn and study spelling words.
ReplyDeleteI like your sequence of the presentation. I can certainly see the visual on that.
DeleteMy version of color spelling is to write the word and trace the vowels or digraphs, etc in different colors. I started using it after reading an article on brain research.
DeleteFor my Spell Read kids, I use words from the sounds they know. They could not be successful with the leveled spelling lists the regular classroom uses. I used form 46, activity 278 to help with the new spelling words with my student studying sight words from the Fry list. It has fit into the students program well. The spelling test grade went up 4% over the ood method of say, spell, cover and spell.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I do to give my kids a chance is to grade spelling tests on correct letter sequences in stead of counting the whole word wrong if two letters are transposed. It gives them some credit for what the did do right and applying what they know.
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