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.

Lesson on Suffixes: "ness" and "less"

One of the activities that went with our story this week called Across the Wide Dark Sea had to do with teaching two suffixes:  "ness" and "less".  Not only was it a good opportunity to discuss what the suffixes meant, but it also allowed us to talk about the parts of speech of these words that were directly related to each suffix.

First, we discussed what the suffix "less" meant by looking at a couple sentences from the story. 

“And some began to ask why we had left our safe homes to go on this endless journey to an         unknown land.”

“After so many days at sea, we began to feel hopeless.”

“Yet the storms and sickness went on.”

“One big problem on the ship was dampness.”

The Native Americans showed kindness toward the settlers.

We looked at the base word, and students were asked what the base word of each word was.  They were also asked what part of speech the base word was, and we noticed that they were all adjectives.  We discovered that adding "ness" to the adjective changed the word into a noun.  The word became "a state of being sick, a state of being damp...".

Since we are learning how to take notes, I asked students what they noticed about punctuation that was used or not used with the sentences.  They noticed that the sentences that came right out of the book had qoutation marks around them so that they knew the sentences were not written in my own words.  They also said they knew I had written the last sentence in my own words since the parentheses were not there (they know that I don't like it when stories use the word "Indian" instead of "Native American").

3 tables of students were then asked to come up with 3 lists of words that had the suffix "less" at the end, and the other 3 tables were asked to identify 3 lists of words that had the suffix "ness" at the end.  I roamed around the room to remind students to make sure they were using a dictionary to see if the words they were writing were real words.  I typed up the word lists in alphabetical order so they could be hung at the front of the room and only included the words that were actually words.  Today I used those lists to play "Sparkle" with the students.

Playing "Sparkle" was not only fun but informative.  I could listen for patterns that students didn't know yet so that I can plan mini-lessons on those spelling patterns.  For example, for the words "craziness" and "happiness", all students spelled it with a "y" instead of an "i".  Now I know I need to do a mini-lesson on how we change the "y" to an "i" in words like this.  Then we can brainstorm more words that fit that spelling rule:  laziness, dizziness...

Play one of the Suffix Games to see how much you have learned about these suffixes.
When you feel good about being able to identify these base words and their suffixes, take a Suffix Quiz to see how well you identify words that have the suffixes we learned about in our lesson.

After reading each sentence, a student was asked to go to the Smart Board to underline the word with that suffix.  Then we discussed what that word meant (endless=without end and hopeless=without hope).  A few student volunteers were called on to give a couple different examples.  We also discussed what part of speech these words were, and we discovered that all of them were adjectives because they describe something. 

Then we went on to the next suffix of "ness" and did the same thing.  These were the sentences from the story we looked at:

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