Which side of the spelling fence are you on?

Spelling can become a big debatable issue with educators as well as parents. There are some who sit on the side of the fence with the weekly spelling lists that are memorized for the Friday tests (only to not be applied in their writing-oops, now you know which side of the fence I’m sitting on!). Then there is the other side of the fence where words are actually studied-their patterns and their phonics attributes. Of course, some people are sitting ON the fence-they believe in both methods. Read this article to see both sides, and then form your own opinion.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/education/dp-nws-spelling-tests-banned-20111114,0,4523242,full.story

What side of the fence are YOU on? 

 

1st spelling word of the year

American

Need I say more?

Spelling roadmap

I just uploaded the spelling focus roadmap for each week of every unit in the Scott Foresman Reading Street reading program. You can find it on the Unit Roadmap page-along with the english concept roadmap and the reading comprehension strategy roadmap. Hope you find something you can use to make life easier! 🙂

I’m practicing with the jing capture screen thing so bear with me. This is what the spelling roadmap looks like! 🙂

Spelling Words are Completed!!!

I have finished and uploaded ALL of the spelling word cards for each week for each unit for the entire year!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whew! 🙂

If you see any mistakes please let me know and I will correct them. I consider myself to be a great speller, but the words started swimming in front of my eyes after awhile!! 🙂

Spelling Instruction

I ran across this document on the internet that is an excerpt of an article about spelling instruction in language arts classrooms. It has some good lists of words (commonly misspelled words for 1-8)-root words list, etc. It also has some good ideas for spelling instruction and how to make it more individualized. It mentioned the research on how weekly memorized lists do not make a child a better spelling.

I am going to have my 6th graders keep a word study/spelling notebook next year and will use some of the ideas from this article.

http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/0131117327/samplechapter/0131117327_ch07.pdf

 

 

Coming Soon-Spelling Word Cards

I will be uploading spelling word cards for each unit of Scott Foresman Reading Street(6th grade) over the next week so so. These could be used to put in a pocketchart each week or anything else you can think of! I have said that next year I am going to change my spelling instruction-still not sure how yet. I’ll let you know when I figure it out! 🙂 But for those of you that will continue to give the spelling list each week with a Thursday or Friday spelling test-I’ll put these cards out there for you soon! 🙂