Prevoke: Vocabulary, Prediction and Word Study Game

If you want a fun strategy that incorporates all of the above, this is the one for you.  Timothy Rasinski describes how to use it in his book Essential Strategies for Word Study (Rasinski, Zutell, 93).  I will introduce it to the class by planning lessons for our 6 differentiated reading groups.  Here's how it will look.

First, I have chosen 10 words from each story that all have at least one thing in common.  I'll tell you why towards the end.  The reading group leader will show the students the ten vocabulary words on a poster (in the order in which they appear in the story), in addition to the title of the story and the picture on the front of the book.  If there are any words students don't know the meaning of (or I think they will have problems with) this will be the time to discuss the meanings, as well. 

Then 2 groups of students will be given cards with the ten words on them.  They will sort them into any category they want as long as they have a good reason for sorting them that way.  The two groups will come back together and explain why they sorted the words in the way they did.  (Hopefully, they have started to put them together to form the beginning of the story.) 

We will then discuss how we can use these words to help them make their predictions for what the story is about.  If necessary, you can also tell them that this time the words on the poster are posted in the order in which they will see them in the book.   Students will discuss or record their predictions in the reading response section of the reading notebook for what the story will be about based on these clues.  We will remind them that we have tried to help them sequence the order of events by putting the words in the order in which they appear in the story (review what sequence events is--the order in which things happen).  Stop halfway through the story, and tell them they may update or amend their predictions if they need to.

After the story, have students compare and contrast their own predictions to the actual story.  Have them record if they were right or wrong about certain things and what they were.

If time, look at the ten words together.  Ask if anyone can identify what all ten words have in common (they are all verbs, and they all end in "ed").  Review what a verb is and ask if they know what the addition of the "ed" does to the verb (it means the action already happened in the past).  Tell them authors often write stories using past tense verbs. 

Then take a look at one particular word (even if one of the stories doesn't have this verb, have them discuss it anyway), and tell them the rule for adding "ed" to that word (for example, cried--when there is a "y" at the end of a verb, and you want to turn it into past tense, you replace the "y" with "ied").  Ask them for other examples of verbs that end in "y" (fry, try, pry, study, reply or whinny), and have them spell the words in past tense, using this new rule.

Recent Classroom Observations

Recently, I have noticed that my students have been looking at their own writing and circling mistakes on their own before they come back to ask me if they can use the Franklin Speller.  I am excited the majority of the class is doing this on a regular basis.  There are still a few students who ask me how to spell a word, and again I ask them how they think it's spelled.  99% of the time they are correct. 

Up until now, I have been discouraging students from telling their classmates how to spell words because I want each learner to grow to be independent in this area.  However, due to the social nature of human beings, I'm beginning to think that I should teach all of my students a couple tips to help those who ask them how to spell a word.  For example, they could simply ask, "How do you think you spell it?"  If that doesn't work, I could tell students about a strategy I use.  If a student has to go to the next step to get help, I think of a word that rhymes with the sound they are struggling with.  For example, if the word is "boat", I ask them if they know how to spell "coat" or "goat".  If they do, I ask them to spell one of the words.  Then I tell them the last three letters are spelled the same.  It seems like teaching my students strategies for teaching others would be a more effective solution than telling students not to talk about how to spell words at all.  It would also help the students who take on the teaching role by giving them confidence and encouraging them to develop their own thinking skills by coming up with new strategies for teaching spelling to someone else.  Who knows?  They may think of ideas that have never even crossed my mind, but help the student speller learn how to spell the word.

Homophones: How do you write them so you're using the right word in your writing?

Do you have a fun and effective that you use to teach homophones in your classroom?  The theme for our last spelling test was homophones.  This was certainly the test where students scored the lowest.  Next week, we will do an activity on homophones so that students can create visual/linguistic clues to remember what each word means.  Each team of four will be given 8 examples of commonly misspelled homophones (for example:  their and there).  For each word, students will need to draw a picture or write a word that gives us clues about the definition of each word.  For example, if a team gets their and there, they might draw a picture of 3 people for "their" and a picture of a place for "there".  For two and too, they might write two tally marks for "two" and write the word "also" next to "too." 

The Homophone Game will be used at the beginning of the lesson to introduce examples of how you can use illustrations to give clues about what each word means.

Teams will also be given words that they have to alphabetize.  One team may get words for the letters "a, b and c".  Then they will have to alphabetize them before writing their clues.  In this way, we can post these around the room alphabetically so that students can easily find the correct word they want to use in their writing.  Each team will then present their list of words and the clues to the class before the posters are hung around the room. 

(This activity was adapted from Rebecca Sipe in her book They Still Can't Spell?, but it was also amended to meet the needs of my students.)
A Complete List of Homophones

Another List of Homophones

Homophones and Homonyms

Homophone and Homonym Games

More Homophone Games

Video on Homophones

Teaching Spelling in Context

Constance Weaver, Rebecca Sipe and Kylene Beers all agree on one thing.  It is best to teach students spelling in context.  Over the years, I have heard many people suggest using student writing as exaamples for teaching spelling.  However, I would never want to embarrass one of my students in front of the class by doing this. 

So what are some other strategies for teaching students spelling in context?  After taking the specialized literacy class at a week long Responsive Classroom workshop a couple years ago, I learned that using the Morning Message is a great way to engage students in dialogue by looking for spelling errors I may have made in the message.  I also know that other experts say that teachers should always model proper spelling and grammar so students know what this looks like. 

As I was pondering this question, I found some spelling links on the Responsive Classroom website.  The one that would benefit students most is one called Interactive Spelling Bee.  Students can choose their grade level, and if they discover that their grade level is too easy or difficult, they can go to another grade level to meet their needs.  The computer reads the paragraph aloud to the student, and the student has to type in the missing words correctly.  If they get all of the words spelled correctly, then they move on to level 2.  The fact that this website allows differentiation by grade level and reads the paragraph aloud for students who aren't reading at grade level makes this a wonderful website to visit so students can practice their spelling skills.

Do you have other ideas?  Please share if you do.  I'm just beginning my exploration of this topic and would appreciate hearing how others have done this successfully in their classrooms.

Teaching Rules--Silent Consonants

I have often been told that English is the most difficult language to learn.  Being a native English speaker, this is difficult for me to understand.  However, when you look at it through the eyes of a 9 or 10 year-old, I can see what people mean.  There are so many rules, and even if a student knows a rule, there are exceptions to every rule.  There are homophones, homographs, prefixes, suffixes and root words.  And there are a lot of words that you just have to memorize because they don't have any rules to help you. 

Even so, it is important to teach students as many rules as possible to help them learn patterns so they can be successful spellers.  This week I will be teaching about silent consonants.  To do this, I will create six different groups of cards with six different silent consonant patterns. 

kn (silent k)        st (silent t)       mb (silent b)    lk (silent l)     wr (silent w)
knight                      listen                        thumb                        talk                    wrong             
knit                         soften                       lamb                          calf                    wrinkle             knock                     whistle                     climb                          walk                  wrestle                      knoll                       often                        comb                          half                   wrist                

ght (silent gh)
thought
drought
right
night

Each person at a table will get one of the words in the pattern.  Students will be told to identify the pattern or rule in their group.  Each group will then compose a sentence that explains the common pattern of the words.  The group will write this complete sentence on a poster, and write their sample words I gave them on the poster underneath the sentence.  Each group will also add other words to the poster that fit the rule. 

Students will then go around to the different posters to examine the rules.  They will have about 2  minutes at each poster/table, and while they are there, they need to add as many words they can think of that fit the rule too (each team will have a different color marker so we can tell which team added what words).  Everyone will be encouraged to participate. 

*This "Card Sorts" activity was adapted from Rebecca Bowers Sipe's book, They Still Can't Spell?

Here is a fun electronic game students can play to practice this skill:  Silent Invaders

Franklin Children's Dictionary & Spell Corrector

A few years ago, I was frustrated with figuring out how to get students to spell words correctly in their writing on their own.  Telling students to look words up in their Quick Word books or the dictionary just wasn't feasible for students who didn't know how to spell the first 2 or 3 letters of the word. Plus, the person that usually ended up correcting their spelling was a parent.  I spoke about my concern with the special educaiton teacher at our school, and she introduced me to the Franklin Children's Dictionary and Spell Checker.  She said she used it with great success with the students with whom she was working and gave me a catalog so I could order a couple of them for my own classes.  They immediately became a big hit with my four classes of 5th grade English, and sometimes it would take a week or two before all the students had access to this incredible tool.  As a result, a couple students purchased their own and would bring them to school to share them with all of the classes.  Only having students for an hour a day at my previous school, just having a few of these did make it difficult to finish writing projects in a timely manner.

Although there are many great aspects about this electronic device, what appealed to me most was that it had a sound function.  So any student can press the speak button, and it will speak not only each word it thinks you may have intended to spell, but it will also speak the definition of the word.  This is especially helpful for my struggling students who may not be able to read the definition on their own and need the auditory piece to support the visuals.  It also helps students know if they are spelling the word they intended to spell.  For example, often times a student will write "were" when they actually meant "where".  The Speller will say "were", and I can ask the student if that is the word he/she really wanted to use in a piece of writing.

The video below will give you more information about the Franklin Children's Dictionary and Spell Corrector, but for some reason it doesn't highlight the sound function.  Also, Franklin has recently updated this device to include something to help students with their handwriting.    The most important parts about this technological tool is that students are excited to use it to correct their spelling in their writing, and it gives them the confidence to be able to spell the words correctly on their own without having someone correct their words for them. 

It's important to note that I don't allow students to use the Franklin Speller until they have written a first draft of something.  Otherwise, they would become more focused on the Franklin Speller than they are on recording their thoughts.  I want them to focus on the content, and I tell them they can always go back and fix the spelling later.  Once a first draft has been completed, students are asked to circle words that look wrong so that they can double check the spelling of those words.  Then I ask parents to circle words that are spelled wrong, but I also ask them not to correct the spelling for them.  That way students can correct these words on their own by using the Franklin Speller.  As a last resort, I will circle words that appear to be spelled wrong.  Because I only have 4 of these devices in my classroom, students usually have to wait in line to use it.  It's my dream to have one Franklin Speller for every 4 students in my new classroom (and those of my colleagues).  See the video below, or pick one up for yourself, and you will understand why.

What causes students to stare at a blank page?

As I have engaged in the Edina Public Schools Writing Cohort for the past two years, I know there are various reasons why students don't like to write.  Some students don't know what to write about while others have a difficult time with the physical act of writing.  In the past, I have offered suggestions to students and parents to write about topics that they love.  We have created heart maps and writing history brochures so students have an array of topics to choose from.  I have also encouraged struggling writers to record their thoughts with a tape recorder before writing them down so that they are able to have a starting point for retrieving the content that they have going through their minds. 

But up until this year, I never considered the idea that the inability to spell could be a major stumbling block for many of our students.  How do I know this to be the case?  I asked them.  After watching a small handful of students stare at a blank page for the first couple weeks in my new classroom, I wondered if it was developmental.  Could it just be that a 3rd grader wasn't prepared for higher expectations?  It was possible.  However, I wasn't just seeing this with my 3rd graders.  I was observing it with a couple of my 4th graders too.  So I spoke to each of these students individuallly to try to understand why it was so challenging to get their thoughts down on paper.  Each one said they didn't know how to spell the words that they wanted to write, and they worried that they would get in trouble for not spelling the words correctly.  I assured them that my main concern was that they were able to get their thoughts down on paper.  The thinking behind it was most important to me, rather than correct grammar and spelling.  Those things can always be fixed, I told them, but the content was the one thing that mattered most. 

I have noticed that the blank pages exist less often now.  However, there are times when I will ask a student to read me what he/she has written, that child has a difficult time reading it because they don't know what words they were trying to spell in their writing.  I've also noticed that some students don't take the time to think about how to spell a word correctly, and they want a quick answer from me.  My reply is always, "How do you think you spell it?"  95% of the time, the student will spell the word correctly for me.  This tells me that not only do students need to be encouraged to take their time to think about how to spell a word, but they also need to be told they are capable of doing it themselves.  Building confidence in a student is essential to his/her success as a learner, and it's my job to explore the best ways to do this.

This is just the beginning of my investigations, and if anyone has ideas or thoughts they'd like to share, please do.  My main goal in creating this blog is to become a better teacher of spelling for all of my students, and I strongly believe that collaboration is one of the best ways to learn.  So please...if you have a thought to share, no matter how brief or lengthy, join me as a fellow spelling sleuth as I try to determine strategies that will best meet the needs of my varied learners.