Teaching students to take the risks necessary to be inventive spellers means I have to respect the stage of development of the student. I can’t expect the students to know (or use) something I haven’t taught. It also means communicating to parents about what it means to use inventive spelling and its role in developing writers and readers.
Read this post for the story of one classroom’s creative celebration of word wall words.
I recently had the good fortune of watching the wonderful Natalie Louis deliver a word study lesson at a school in Harlem. It was so cool. For a mostly upper grade person like… Continue reading
A well-planned word wall allows students to quickly access familiar high frequency words from word study instruction. As they are writing, they can simply glance up, find the word, and continue to write. With… Continue reading
A short and sweet reminder, from a student point-of-view.
Elizabeth Siracusa, a fourth- and fifth-grade looping teacher, reflects on the ways she infused vocabulary instruction into her classroom this year.
Sometimes colleagues tell me that the feel intimidated or uneasy about setting out to teach phonemic awareness, because it all feels so technical. Even the terminology is tricky: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, phonics… I like to think of teaching phonemic awareness as being just like kindergarteners themselves–complicated indeed, but also a lot of fun.
Have you ever been in the midst of your writing and you have to stop in order to find the perfect word?
I recall hearing about differentiated spelling words, for students in Word Study, the first time I visited the school I taught at in Rhode Island. I was unsure of how it would be… Continue reading
Need to assist a student who has trouble spelling while writing? Watch this video for a practical tool/tip entitled “My Fast Word Fixer.”
I tend not to focus much on spelling when I write about the teaching of writing. However, I’m well-aware that using conventions properly is extremely important. Each week, my students have eight personal… Continue reading
Click on the picture below to play a vocabulary game. For each word you get correct, United Nations will donate 10 grains of rice to help end world hunger.
I’ve been grading my students’ personal narratives this morning using the rubric I created last month. That being said, I decided not to just grade their personal narratives, but also to use them… Continue reading
Inspired by Donovan’s Word Jar and motivated by my school’s vocabulary initiative, my students created word boxes yesterday with foam letters yesterday afternoon. These boxes are meant to be kept at home (though… Continue reading
