Comments on: Spelling – What is the best way?!

By: » Learn to spell… with Flickr Thinking Past The Square…

» Learn to spell… with Flickr Thinking Past The Square… — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 20:52:48 +0000

[...] With Flickr I was reading on jlietze’s blog about the teaching of spelling and Spell With Flickr is one site that would be really cool to [...]

By: jlietze

jlietze — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:26:29 +0000

@Marnie Your right! Hmmm would definately be interesting to check out. I have just enrolled for the 2 week trial. Will keep you posted ;+)

By: Marnie

Marnie — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 19:16:27 +0000

There is a programme called spellodrome and it is advertised on the Mathletics website. Some classes at my school have it but I don’t – maybe next year.

By: jlietze

jlietze — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 03:54:40 +0000

@Jane and @Allanah I think it is cool that you have set up audio recordings for your kids – an inventive approach. Thanks for feeding that info forward to me. It has opened my eyes to some new ideas…..I wonder if there is a digital spelling program like Mathletics (http://www.mathletics.com.au) in which I could hook up individual accounts for my kids??
@Marnie – having your parents help has worked well for me too. I have a Mum that comes in every Friday and she writes the new words into my students H.W/Diary books. Saves me 30min on administration.
@Allanah yup sell the audio lists – next thing you know you will be living up above Rocks Road with a view! ;+)

I still am wondering however about the most effective way to teach spelling?……

By: Marnie

Marnie — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 01:09:42 +0000

Well I have been planning all year to do the audio thing with the lists but haven’t got round to it – outsourced all the testing to parents instead so I do nothing except organise them to be there every monday morning. They test each child individually (on the school lists that I have to use) and record it in their book – they even fill in a list for me of each child’s score so I can see how they are doing if I want. I think the secret is to outsource as much as possible to the parent helpers! They love being involved and it frees me up to teach much more important things.

By: Allanahk

Allanahk — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:43:28 +0000

I have done the same thing as Jane. Great minds think alike! So much easier to have the lists on iPod or iTunes. No hassle to test individually then. I reckon I could sell the audio- make a mint!

By: Jane Nicholls

Jane Nicholls — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 09:45:14 +0000

Tricky question. I detest teaching spelling. I have to follow the procedures at school but I find teaching kids words on a list means they can spell them during tests but not in everyday situations. However I must test the list for school. To overcome the tedium of this spelling testing I have now produced audio recordings of all of the spell write lists and when kids need to be tested they put on their headphones at the computer and do their tests by themselves and bring me their lists. This way I don’t have to take time out of my programme to do the dreaded testing. I fulfill the school requirements and can go back to authentic just in time teaching of spelling according to individual student needs during reading and writing activities.

I have no answer. But I have found a way to make my life easier.

By: Marnie

Marnie — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 09:41:52 +0000

Well that is the million dollar question isn’t it – I have no answer, we have a school wide spelling programme that is part of hwork and I have to follow it. I have children in my class who don’t do their homework and their spelling has developed just as well as those who do their homework. It would be interesting to know if it does actually make any difference to the children’s spelling in the long run or whether their reading and writing progress is directly linked to their spelling improvements.
There would be some that would say spelling is not an important skill for the future too… lots of ways to check spelling, maybe we will be into voice activated software in the future and spelling and writing will be obsolete. If only I was sure how to spell obselete!!

By: Allanahk

Allanahk — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 08:53:28 +0000

I have a bit of a mixture of all of these. We have just started Lexia Reading at school which is VERY focussed on phonemic awareness- I am not convinced. Being able to pronounce words read correctly is not all that reading is about. I think it might be great for those for whom reading is a struggle but generally I think it can be limiting.

We learn the essential spelling lists, but I group them into word families (round, around, ground) – and then do word study type learning.