Word Work

All too often, students get spelling words on Monday and merely memorize their words, take the test on Friday, and quickly forget the words the following week. Rather than being assigned the traditional spelling words on Mondays with tests on Fridays, students in room 32 practice 'word work.' This means the students will be provided with frequent, focused skill-practice that helps them better master and retain basic skills. This method focuses on words that were selected from:

• a list of the 400 most commonly used words in English.

• words frequently misspelled by 3rd graders.

• words with common phonetic elements.

• words changed by adding prefixes/suffixes and by forming compound words and contractions.

How will students practice their words? They will accomplish their word work tasks through;

• writing words.

• visual memory.

• word meaning.

• dictation.

• word study.

• phonetic exercises.

Students will still have weekly words, yet they will forego the end-of-the-week tests. It is important to teach kids to spell in a way that makes sense. It is well known that spelling supports reading and that accurate spelling of words supports fluent writing. By allowing students to see the patterns in words, recognize correct/incorrect spellings, and applying various methods to spell words correctly, they are better able to understand how vital spelling words correctly can be.