Spelling is an eternal battle in the classroom. The amount of articles that vouch for a certain spelling program are often only matched by the amount of articles that are vouching for a different program. That’s one of the beauties of the education field, even things that have been around forever are still highly debated and researched. It’s kind of like trying to find the end of a rainbow. You can keep trying but you‘ll never be finished.
Last week, one of my colleagues came to me with an idea of what she has been doing in her class in an attempt to inch closer to the end of that rainbow. As I often do, I stole her idea and wanted to try it in my own class. I’ll be sure to get into what the activity is during a later blog post.
The thing that you need to know for this story is that the students pick eight words on Monday that they would like to practice spelling throughout the week. These words are up to them to pick. However, they need to come and see me when they pick their eight words so that I can make sure they’re spelt correctly.
We began the activity this week and as I was explaining how it would work, I noticed one students eyes light up. The pulled out their pencil and began furiously writing their words down. A few moments later, the student arrives at my desk with their paper and a giant grin on their face. I look down at their list and see that they have written down antidisestablishmentarianism as their first word. I look up at the student and see that they‘re just beaming. I guess we’re skipping the easy levels of this spelling game and going straight to expert. I can confidently file under one I never thought a grade four would come up to spell check.
