Word Sorts for "ible" and "able"

From all the research I've been reading, word sorts seem to be one of the best practices for having students do critical thinking to determine how some spelling patterns work, especially when adding suffixes.   I have had conversations with both parents and staff, who are frustrated that our Houghton Mifflin curriculum does not really teach any spelling skills.  There may be a list with CVVC as the pattern, but they don't give us any activities to teach the pattern.  One parent asked me how her 4th grader could learn how to spell better.  She wanted her son to be able to spell all of the words on his own, rather than have to go to the Franklin Speller when he identifies a word he isn't sure about.  Even though the Franklin Speller is wonderful because it is the second step for checking spelling right after learning patterns to spell words correctly, I told her this was one of the issues I was concerned about too.  Since she is also a teacher, I asked her if she had any other ideas.  She said she didn't except for the fact that in grades 1 and 2 students had word sorts every week. 

I will check with the teachers in those grades to find out where they got their resources, but I have also decided to change the middle category on our spelling tic-tac-toe activities to a Word Sort so that students need to do this every week and categorize the words in ways that make sense to the students (they will always have to do a tic-tac-toe down the middle).  This is what "Words Their Way" does, and I'm expecting to need parent help to teach students how to identify patterns in the words so they can successfully complete the word sort each week for their own list of spelling words (since the 3rd graders have 2 possible lists, as do the 4th graders).

One of our grammar activities this week was to explore the suffix "ible".  Once we figured out that "ible" means "able to, can do", we looked at a list of words that have "ible" at the end.  As students defined the words,  using their knowledge of part of the root word and the newly learned suffix, we discussed prefixes that  turned some of the words into an antonyms.  For example, legible means to be able to be read, and adding "il" to create illegible transforms the definition into not being able to be read.  Students identified a couple other prefixes that did the same thing:  "ir" and "im".  Click here to see the website that helped us create our lesson on the suffix "ible".

Since we were already doing a mini-lesson on the suffix "ible" during our grammar time, I created a spelling word sort so that students can take it a step farther and look at what the relationship is between base words, prefixes and suffixes.  The lesson is below, and students will get into groups of 5 this week to do the activity.

Spelling Word Sort Directions

1.  Sit with your team and Miss Shaw will give you a group of words to sort.

2.Discuss the possible patterns or rules with your group, and put these  

    words into categories based on the patterns.

3.  Make sure everyone is participating in your group.

4.  Each group will write the patterns or rules that you discover neatly

      on the paper.

5.  Write the words from your word sort underneath the appropriate rule or pattern.

6.  Each group will share the patterns they discovered with the class.

Suffixes “ible” and “able”:  What do they mean?  How do we know when to use “ible” and “able”?  Find the pattern.

intelligible

legible

audible

debatable

observable

notable

Suffixes “ible” and “able”:  What do they mean?  How do we know when to use “ible” and “able”?  Find the pattern.

visible

possible

edible

believable

achievable

excitable

Suffixes “ible” and “able”:  What do they mean?  How do we know when to use “ible” and “able”?  Find the pattern.

terrible

compatible

illegible

returnable

comfortable

breakable

Suffixes “ible” and “able”:  What do they mean?  How do we know when to use “ible” and “able”?  Find the pattern.

tangible

credible

responsible

manageable

acceptable

dependable

Suffixes “ible” and “able”:  What do they mean?  How do we know when to use “ible” and “able”?  Find the pattern.

feasible

permissible

horrible

valuable

desirable

imaginable

Our Classroom Blog

I created a classroom blog at the beginning of the year because I wasn't able to post digital photo albums or videos on my classroom website.  I also wanted a place where students could comment on what we were learning together and our celebrations.

At first, I didn't require students to write anything.  In fact, I had hoped to encourage them to participate by offering them extra credit for sharing thoughts that asked questions, made thoughtful comments or going into the topic even deeper.  When I evaluated this recently and saw that only a handful of students were participating, I began to require it for homework once a week. 

There are many great reasons to use this:  I can have easy access to the thoughts of my students on topics we're currently studying.  I can assess if they are actually answering the question and giving details to support their answers.  Spelling, grammar, and punctuation can also be assessed, in addition to me being able to hold them accountable for doing their homework. 

I've made 3 observations so far.  Students don't think about spelling, grammar and punctuation when writing on the blog for some reason.  We will have a discussion about this tomorrow as we look at our most recent blog entry.  Also, not all students are actually reading and answering the questions, which is something I also see on reading tests.  Finally, some students continuously are not doing their homework so I can contact parents right away about this, and you even have access to proof that it was done late because the time and date is stamped on each entry. 

Feel free to check out our classroom blog.  It has been a lot of fun, and tomorrow I'll be posting a Photo Story we made about our ABC book on Minnesota.

Miss Shaw's Blog

Education Minnesota Foundation Grant: Franklin Talking Children's Dictionary

Last month, I received a congratulatory letter telling me that my Continuous Progress team had been awarded a grant to purchase 28 Franklin Spellers for our CP students.  I chose to write this grant on behalf of my team back in December based on all the observations I had been making in my classroom:  students staring at a blank page, students asking their friends how to spell a word, and students asking me how to spell a word.  Also, the survey that I conducted at the beginning of the year indicated that some students would have more desire to write if they had a tool to help them with their spelling.  I wanted to have a tool where students could independently find out if they had spelled a word correctly, and if they didn't, it would help them find the correct spelling.  It is also a unique tool because of the sound function, which has made it very appealing to use in special education classrooms, but rarely has it been used on a large scale in the regular classroom.

28 Franklin Spellers means we could have one entire class use them at a time when working on a project, or they could be split among 5 classrooms (meaning most rooms would have 5 or 6 for their students to use when editing a rough draft).  I am so excited about the prospect of using these in the classroom, especially because it also has a thesaurus function to help students revise their writing.

Yesterday, the 39 grant recipients were recognized at the annual Education Minnesota Representative Convention, and then we received 2 hours of training.  The training was focused on identifying outcomes, indicators that showed if a method worked and methods used to evaluate those indicators.  I really felt like I got a great understanding of what my action research will look like as I continue it next year, and this is all a result of the action research I am doing as a result of our class.  Only next year, it will have an impact on 130 students rather than the 24 in my own classroom. 

I have a working plan, which I will attach at a later time.  For now, I will identify the 4 desired outcomes I came up with:

Outcome 1:  Students will change their attitudes about writing because they are confident spellers.
Outcome 2:  Students will independently spell words correctly with the use of a Franklin Speller.
Outcome 3:  Students will improve spelling skills.
Outcome 4:  Students will be excited about using the electronic spell checker to improve word choice in their writing.

The project will take place over the 2011-2012 school year, and the resources will be purchased this summer.  I am so excited to be continuing the work I've started this year in my classroom, and it will be great to have the entire team on board.

Prefixes Un, Re and Sounds for "J" and "S"

As always, there were two spelling lists:  one for the 3rd graders and one for the 4th graders.  The 3rd graders had a list that focused on the prefixes "un" and "re".  The 4th graders' list focused on using "dge" and "ge" to make the "j" sound and words that had "ce" to make the "s" sound. 

To try and meet the needs of all the students, I divided the students up into 4 groups:  2 3rd grade groups (one for "un" and one for "re") and 2 4th grade groups (one for the "j" sound and one for the "s" sound).  I told them to start by looking for words in their spelling lists, but they were also going to have 10 minutes to find as many words that followed the rule or pattern that their group was responsible for.  They could use anything in the classroom to help them find the words.  It was interesting to watch many students using the dictionary while other students walked around the room to see if any of the words posted on our walls matched the rule or pattern.

In addition to using the dictionary, it was interesting to observe the other strategies students used.  Some of them tried rhyming words to make more words like mice, ice, nice, rice and so on.  Some 3rd graders just started adding the prefixes to words they thought the definition made sense with.  For example, the "re" group had "relook", thinking it made sense when they put "look again" together. 

After 10 minutes, we had each group present their list.  The words had to be spelled correctly, they had to be words, and they had to be capitalized correctly.  If a student wanted to challenge a word they could.  That student would have to win the challenge by proving the other team wrong by using the dictionary.  If the challenge was successful, then the group would not get credit for that word.  They would have to spell it correctly or cross it off if it wasn't a word.  Then each group counted up the number of words they got correctly and wrote the number on the back of the poster.  These posters will be posted around the room, and students will be encouraged to add words when they find others that fit these rules, just as they do with the other spelling posters we have posted around the room. 

Today, one of my 3rd graders asked if she could add a word that fit one of the rules we did a couple months ago.  I was thrilled because she was finally understanding the value of having as many words at our fingertips as possible.

Here is an awesome website I found on prefixes, suffixes, root words, silent letters and spelling.

Word Hunt and Bananagrams

Although I certainly haven't been consistent, I have been trying to do as many spelling activities with my students each week that support their spelling lists for the week.  Since we have two lists because of the two different grade levels in my classroom, the lesson has to include both.  The lesson below is a review of a mini-lesson we had last week about changing verbs that end in "e" to the "ing" suffix version of the word.  It also incorporates Timothy Rasinski's Word Hunt into it, which I would like to use regularly with all of the patterns/rules we have posted around our room.  Here is the lesson we are doing today that utilizes the Double Bananagrams I recently bought for our classroom.  At some point, I'd just like to leave some of these letter tiles out on my back table so students can show me how they think a word is spelled when they ask me how to spell a word.  They can create 2 different versions, and decide which one looks correct.  Here it is:

Directions for Today’s Version of Bananagrams

·       Teammates will take turns being in charge of spelling a word. 

·       Turn all the letters upright so you can see them.

·       Choose one person to be the first one to spell the word.  Once that person has spelled the word the way he/she thinks it is spelled, the rest of the team will check it. 

·       If they agree, go on to the next step.  If they don’t agree that it’s spelled correctly, they will help the person spell it correctly.

·       When done spelling the word correctly, and the group agrees, the person doing the spelling shouts Wordo!

·       I will check the spelling of the word.  If it isn’t spelled correctly you will have until one team gets it spelled correctly to revise it so it’s correct. 

·       The first team to spell the word correctly gets a point.  The person in charge of that word must also spell it correctly aloud so the other team can hear the word.

·       You can also earn a point by going on a word hunt.  If a team discovers that any of the words fit the rule for verbs where you take away the “e” from the base word to create the verb with “ing” at the end, they should send someone over to the poster to spell it correctly. 

·       The first person to spell it correctly on the paper in the middle of the room, he/she will earn an extra point for their team.

Will spelling still be taught in 10 years?

I have heard someone say that spelling will not be taught in 10 years because we will all be relying on computers to spell our words correctly.  This assertion concerned me, so I posed it to one of our district technology specialists.  He said we would always need to teach spelling in the classroom, and he gave me an example from his own son's life.  He said that his sone was writing a paragraph where he was trying to write, "he divorced her".  Instead of that phrase, he actually wrote "he devoured her."  It was a funny example, but the point is rather serious.  Computers don't know what each of us is trying to say.  They just identify words and whether they are spelled correctly.  Computers do not have the capability of making sure our words make sense.  I was happy to hear that spelling will still need to be taught, and one of my goals for this project is to provide a toolbox of ideas for other teachers that they can use in their classrooms to ultimately teach spelling. 

Words, Words, Words...

From all the research I've been doing, I've discovered that the best way to teach students spelling is to have a multitude of words posted all around the room.  So every time we do a spelling activity, the words that we brainstorm together are posted on the walls for students to see.  If there is a rule or a pattern on the poster, students are encouraged to add more words that fit each rule when they come across them in their readings. 

Last week we did a mini-lesson on changing verbs that end in "e" to the form of the word that ends in "ing".  The rule was that we take away the "e" and add the "ing".  Some of the students' spelling words for the week fit the pattern so we looked at those first:  dancing, staring, and pleasing.  We identified the base word, and then the students changed that word into the form using "ing".  Then we brainstormed other verbs that end in "e" and added those to our list.  This was the 4th grade list, but the whole class was involved in the discussion.  The same held true when we examined the homophones the 3rd graders were being tested on.  We looked for clues in the words that would help us know the difference in some of the words.  For example, "hear" has the word "ear" so we can associate that with listening or hearing.  The word "there" has "here" in it, which is a place.  And the word "their" has the word "heir" in it, which is a person so we can associate people with this word.  At the end, we broke up into two groups.  The 3rd graders played Sparkle with their list, and the 4th graders played Sparkle with theirs.  I also typed up the word lists students created and posted them on the walls of the classroom so they had another resource to help them spell words correctly.

Sparkle has also been a regular game in our classroom lately since we've been studying the states and capitals of the different regions of the United States.  Here's how we play it.  I will say the state.  Then the first student gives the first letter of the capital (and they must say "capital" before the letter in order to get it right since capitalization counts).  We go around the circle until the capital has been spelled.  Instead of saying Sparkle, the final student says the name of the capital city, and then the next person sits down.  This has become a fun and quick way for all the students in the class to practice spelling the capital cities together for each region. 

Even with this emphasis on spelling the capitals correctly, I know there are a few 3rd graders who are not ready to spell these words correctly AND learn the names of the capitals, especially when there are typically 12 capitals to learn for each region.  They are already challenged by studying for the weekly spelling tests so, for these few students, I have them take a matching quiz.  Next week there are only 4 states in the Southwest region so I have told these students that they must memorize the spelling of these 4 capitals.

Every week I post a website where students can practice learning the capitals and the spelling of the capitals.  One game that relates directly to spelling is called Unscramble.  You can play it here:  Unscramble.

Students are also frequently reminded to use their books (reading, social studies, science, etc.) to help them spell words correctly. They are told that there is no reason for them to spell words incorrectly that are already spelled  in the book.  This is especially true of vocabulary words when students are asked to use them in a piece of writing.  If they don't practice using the resources they have before them now to make sure they are spelling words correctly, then they will constantly be guessing at the spelling of words they could have written correctly to begin with.  It seems so simple, but I constantly need to remind them so that this becomes a part of their routine when taking notes.