In his post Wesley says “The fact that my own children are regularly taking spelling tests at school continues to both trouble and irritate me as well. There is virtually NO academic research I read or was exposed to in my masters and doctoral graduate coursework in education which suggests giving students spelling tests of decontextualized words on a weekly basis improves their abilities to spell, read or write. The real skill related to spelling is WRITING, and the best way to improve writing skills (according to the body of literacy research reviewed by Dr. Stephen Krashen of USC in his excellent book, ““The Power of Reading, Second Edition: Insights from the Research” is to encourage students to READ prolifically.”

Options I have used in the past include:

1. Giving Parents a list to go through with their child.
2. Using Essential Spelling Lists and then placing these new words into children’s homework books.
3. Progressing through spelling activity books where children complete fun games that teach them to learn how to spell and use grammar correctly.
4. Taking misspelt words out of their writing and placing it into their homework books.
5. Teaching spelling as part of my “Word of the Week” feature where I hit an English rule once a week eg: “When two vowels go walking, the first does the talking.”

In all of the situations above there is a test on Friday with the teacher/buddy to monitor progress. Sometimes we graph the results so the students can see a trend.

I don’t feel I have hit the nail on the head yet – does anyone else have any other ideas??

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