Spelling! What do I do about it?

I have had several people over the last few weeks ask me about teaching spelling. Questions range from: Should I teach spelling? How do I choose words? Should I buy curriculum materials i.e. spelling workbooks? Let’s take a quick look at this subject.

I think being able to spell is part of being literate. I am sure many of us have experienced spelling instruction based on a list of words that we memorized through rote activities, Friday spelling tests, and little or no transference in every day writing. To this day I have to stop to think of how calendar is spelled. In light of this we should think about a few things: Instructional strategies, instructional settings, and data (to inform our decisions to choose words).

Data

Like all good instruction, data should inform our spelling instruction. (Because, curriculum materials are a one-size-fits-all model, I would definitely steer clear of that choice.) I think most research suggests that the words we choose should be based on orthographic patterns (e.g., double consonants when adding endings to short vowel words) and high frequency words. (High frequency words can be derived from Fry's or Dolch's list. These are words that students have in their reading and oral vocabularies, but they might not spell them correctly.)

Here's an example of 3 ways I would choose words based on data:

1. First, I would give my class a developmental spelling assessment. After analyzing the assessment, I would have some pretty strong data as to which spelling patterns give my students trouble. For instance I might discover that:

• Many students are making mistakes in single syllable words at the Within Word stage i.e. with common long-vowel patterns, diphthong patterns, and r-control vowels.
• Others are having trouble across syllables (two- or three-syllable words) - they are at the next stage called Syllable Juncture stage.

From this information I could begin to design my curriculum. I would decide if I am going to teach whole class spelling or if I am going to teach spelling in small groups.

· If I differentiate spelling instruction, I would have one list of words for one group of students and another group of words for another group of students.

· If I decided to teach whole class, I would choose words that address multi-levels i.e. they include words that address a few problems. For example, they might choose words with the long /e/ sound in –ie and –ea for the Within Word stage AND words in the Syllable Juncture stage such as adding endings to short vowel words as opposed to adding ending to silent-e words. Or they might choose one word that represents to obstacles. For instance, the word announcement can address the diphthong problem and the syllable juncture obstacle.

2. In addition to collecting data from a developmental spelling assessment, I would cull students writing for high frequency words that are misspelled and patterns that they should have been taught. Let’s say that I notice most of my 5^th graders misspell because - a typical second grade word. Because would become a spelling word.

3. I might also notice that many of my students misspell school (scool) and Christmas (Cristmas). My general curriculum has passed the developmental stage of blends and diagraphs. However, I have evidence that with this difficult blend/diagraph my 5^th graders need additional work. This would also become a part of my spelling curriculum.

Instructional Setting

We need to teach spelling couched in explicit word level instruction such as decoding (phonics), word analysis, and high frequency word work. However, it is imperative that the patterns we have taught or are teaching are also part of the conversations when proofreading in writing. This is where it is most applicable and where we want to see transference. Therefore, the patterns we have taught becomes an explicit list of words that students must spell correctly or be able to correct independently.

Instructional Strategies

I think of the Word Wall as my best tool when teaching spelling. Let’s say that I have discovered (see above examples) that many of my students are at the diphthong vowel stage (Within Words), some at the Syllable Juncture stage with adding endings (short vowel double consonant and silent-e words), and many are missing the word because. With this in mind, I might choose these words for my Word Wall: shouting, crowded, hoping, hopped, and because.

Now that I have chosen those words for my Word Wall, I would:

• Use Word Wall activities to teach the words
• Put these words on the “No Excuse” list (to be used when proofreading)
• Write a list of 10 – 15 words that would be this week's spelling words
• Use other words with the same patterns when assessing

Spelling Word List

My “Spelling Words” list might be: shouting, cloudy, crowded, frowning, hoping, skating, hopped, fasting, bragging, and because. You will notice that next to each Word Wall word, I wrote a word that has the same pattern i.e. /ou/ sound in shouting and cloudy, /ow/ sound in crowded and frowning, long vowel silent-e with an ending in hoping and skating, short vowel double consonant with an ending in hopped, fasting, and bragging. Also note that I used endings on some of my vowel pattern words and I used a word to show both kinds of double consonants with the short vowel words with endings.

Spelling Test Words

The words I use to assess might be: because, loud, clowning, shaping, stabbed, and stacking. (plus the spelling words not on the Word Wall). Again, I have added words to check transference and I am assessing because since it is a high frequency word and not a pattern. However, the real assessment for all of these word patterns is in the students’ writing – especially for because.

Let me know if this helps or if you have any more thoughts about this subject.

Planning Around Essential Questions

After working with teachers last week on a curricular plan developed around genres and units around essential questions, one of the teachers emailed me some concerns. Because they are connected to my previous posting, I thought I should respond to these concerns in a public manner.

In his email, the teacher said he was reading Strategies that Work (Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A., 2^nd ed. 2007) where he came across something that made him wonder about a few things. He quoted Harvey and Goudvis work

“…when students practice comprehension strategies in short text of varying genres, they are far better prepared to construct meaning from longer chapter books later."

It seems that this statement seemed to conflict with the planning we did based on genres. These conflicts led my friend to three questions. I am going to address the three questions posed as I go along.

Question #1

Because of what he views as conflicting information he asked:

"Are these authors suggesting that a unit of study should be around a strategy and several genres will be explored in that unit? If so, doesn’t that lead to a skill-based classroom where the knowledge of various subjects is neglected?"

I think the authors are saying that students learn to use strategies with more dexterity when they are given opportunity to apply and practice them across genres. That is different than they are “suggesting that a unit of study should be around a strategy.” I do not believe that Harvey and Goudvis are saying that all units must be focused on skills. Let’s look closer.

While working with the curricular team, I suggested to several teachers to include several genres in their lessons. (Obviously I did not make my “instruction” explicit enough! Sorry.) Although we centered our curriculum plans on specific genres, it is necessary to bring in different genres around the same “essential question”. It IS important for students to compare and contrast the genres and to compare and contrast the use of strategies with different genres. For example, let’s say we are studying “What makes a hero, a hero?” in the context of biographies and autobiographies. In this unit, we might instruct students to question and make inferences while reading about the main “character” of biographies and autobiographies. However, while looking at the narrative nonfiction texts wouldn’t it be enlightening for students to compare the real life characteristics of real life heroes as presented in biographies/autobiographies to Henry Fleming in Red Badge of Courage (Crane, S.) or Paul Revere in Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” Students could still ask questions and make inferences about these characters. The class could compare if asking questions about a character in a poem was different than in a piece of nonfiction. They could discuss if heroes are presented differently in biographies, autobiographies, fiction texts, and poetry.

You might ask: “If we are reading all these different genres of texts, then why do we say the unit is focused on biographies and autobiographies?” That is a great question! It really depends on what we are going to assess. If we are going to focus our assessment on determining if students can identify if a text is a biography or autobiography then the unit IS focused on biographies or autobiographies. Also, the main texts of this unit are biographies and/or autobiographies.

Question #2

My deep thinking teacher also asked:

"Should I remove "longer chapter books" from my library early in the year? How much should I restrict independent reading across genres since early units only deal with a limited number of genres?"

I do not think that longer chapter books should be removed from classroom libraries or that we should limit what students read because of our instructional focus on genres. Because it is our goal for students to use strategies across genres, their varying choices of independent reading books will only reinforce this concept. Let’s go back to our hero unit as an example.

Let’s say that in this classroom the teacher is reading The Lost Garden (Yep, L.) aloud to the class as part of the essential question. In small group instruction students are reading: The Rescuers: Kids who risked everything to save others (Zullo, A.); Snowbound: The tragic story of the Donner party (Lavender, D. S.); The Secret Soldier: The story of Deborah Sampson (McGovern, A.); and Vision of Beauty: The story of Sarah Breedlove Walker (Lasky, K). Remember discussions and guided activities are focused on questioning, making inferences, and characters. Now let’s say that a student is reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (Blume, J.) during independent reading. This student could still be asked to write questions and make inferences about the character. Another student in the class might be reading Amazing but True Sport Stories (Hollander, P.). Although this student might not be able to look at specific characters, he could still raise questions and identify when he had to make inferences. What shouldn't happen is to ask these students to identify the genre (with text evidence) of their independent reading book.

Question #3

Lastly, the teacher asked a question that insinuated that he had already come to the same conclusions that I have suggested. He queried:

"Would it be reasonable to reconcile our current curriculum plans with Harvey and Goudvis' "across genres" refrain by saying, stick with the genre, but pull in material outside the genre when it is beneficial to compare/contrast, to point out the use of a strategy or skill in different genres, or to enhance kids' knowledge related to our essential questions or common themes?"

As you see, embedded in this question are suggestions of what I have said previously. He has already answered his own question. Oh, I love that I work with such smart teachers!

From Benchmarks to Pacing Guide

Recently I worked with several schools on a long term curricular plan. Among other things, we unpacked the state’s performance benchmarks (…grade-level expectations…or whatever your state calls them), organized the benchmarks around instructional strands, aligned reading and writing, and created a pacing guide. While unpacking the benchmarks, we discovered the state had given direction around genres for reading and writing.

Organizing

We realized as we studied the state’s benchmarks they were not organized neatly. When the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) wrote Language Arts standards they divided them into the usual writing, reading, and listening/speaking. But within each of those categories there were other useful divisions. For example in reading, McREL has a standard that includes benchmarks around general skills and strategies of the reading process. These benchmarks include previewing text, setting a purpose, making predictions, decoding, vocabulary, etc. There is also a standard that focuses on benchmarks for literary text and one for informational text.

Besides those divisions we thought about typical areas of instruction that should be taught in a reading or writing class. For example, we listed word study (which included phonemic awareness, phonics, word analysis, vocabulary, and spelling), fluency, and comprehension as important elements to be taught in reading. We broke comprehension down into comprehension skills (e.g., cause and effect) and literary analysis (e.g., character development). We talked about how comprehension skills could be used in literary or informational text but the literary analysis benchmarks would only be used when studying narrative text.

In writing, we divided the benchmarks into the writing process (and strategies). Besides teaching students that writing is a process, we wanted to include benchmarks that referred to strategies that might be taught to help writers use the process more efficiently. For example, a teacher might teach students to brainstorm as a pre-writing strategy. To teach students to organize their thoughts for a narrative story, the teacher might teach students to use a story map. In addition to the writing process, we made a category for writer’s craft (e.g., voice, organization, sentence fluency, etc.) and conventions (e.g., capitalization, punctuation, grammar usage, etc.)

As the old adage says, there was method to the madness. I have visited hundreds of classrooms across the country and in many of them I see important parts of the reading and writing process being left out. I can’t tell you how many teachers have shared that their students’ fluency skills are holding them back, yet in these same teachers’ classes I have seen no evidence of fluency instruction. Therefore, while studying the benchmarks I wanted teachers to see that it is imperative to teach word study, fluency, reading strategies, comprehension skills, and literary analysis. As we all know, kids don’t learn what we don’t teach them. In the same vein, I also believe that teachers don’t teach what they haven’t planned and haven't created a way of assessing. (If you are a reading teacher, do you intentionally collect data/grades for word study, fluency, and comprehension? If you teach writing, do you collect data/grades for writing process, conventions, and writer's craft?)

Discoveries

We discovered while analyzing the benchmarks that the state had said a lot about which genres students should be able to read and write in different grade levels. We thought this was a good jumping off point to align the reading and writing curriculum. For example, if students were studying informational text, it would be a good idea for them to learn to write a “how-to” or an expository piece. We discussed how text from the reading curriculum could also be used in the writing class. In addition, we talked about how teachers could be intentional about other aspects of instruction. For example, when teaching students about the structures of informational texts in a reading class, teachers need to intentionally connect this instruction in the writing class - writing instruction that is focused on organizing information.

Pacing Guides

The work we did with genres turned out to be a good starting point to put together our pacing guide (We determined that a pacing guide is a list of the benchmarks that would be covered before and between the schools' benchmark assessments.) We had a conversation that certain benchmarks went better with specific genres. Therefore, we could start with a genre and align naturally fitting benchmarks. For example, if a class is studying historical fiction, the study of setting is really important. When teaching narrative writing, dialogue and the mechanics around dialogue should be included. In the end teacher put together a list of benchmarks aligned to genres for each portion of time before and between benchmark assessments. However because of our analysis, teachers were sure to include benchmarks from each strand for reading (word study, fluency, reading strategies, comprehension skills, and literary analysis) and writing (word study, writing process, writer’s craft, and conventions). Let me hear your comments.