6th August, 2008
Spelling and Poetry
I use spelling lists each year for my kids. Yes, I have tried copy work and dictation and making lists from words misspelled in their writing, I like spelling lists better. The books we use are from Abeka and they are by grade and include poetry for the children to memorize.
Each Spelling and Poetry Book contains 34 lists of words for the kids to learn to spell and monthly poems for the children to memorize. The spelling lists have things to do with the words so that on each two page spread are not only the words but activities.
I divide the spelling lists into five words a day and do the same for the activities. So that by the time my child has learned to spell all 30 to 40 words on the list he/she has also completed all the activities. This sometimes takes more than a week, but we school 40 weeks so 34 weeks of lists is just fine. I go ahead and use dictation for the other weeks if we run out of word lists before our year is over.
All this translates into my children studying and spelling only five words a day and doing one to five activities with the word list each day. The whole process takes about 20 minutes or less. On Friday I have a spelling bee for our school where I use words from each child’s list and just play can you spell this word. It’s fun. We do it after they do spelling for Friday and no one yet finds it tiresome, they all love spelling bee day.
For the daily spelling test I use a form I made. I put a bunch of these forms printed front and back in a section in their notebooks called spelling and poetry. The spelling and poetry section has the spelling forms first and lined paper second. For poetry each day the children read through the poem they are to memorize first silently, then to me and write one sentence from the poem on the lined paper in their notebook. By the end of the month or sooner they can recite the poem. Amazing. And the poems are good choices for kids. I really like this approach to spelling and poetry, it works for us.
Here is the form I use for testing in Spelling. There are two columns, one for spelling the word in writing and the other for making a correction, if needed. I just hand the kids the spelling book after I test them, they check with the list in the book to see if they spelled the word correctly and they write out the correct spelling on the form if they need to.
Spelling form in pdf.
Look for coming posts about teaching reading, reading comprehension and highlights and lowlights of the first week of school.
Posted at 9:22 pm |
4 Comments
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On August 7, 2008 at 5:20 am
tribeofautodidacts said:
August 7, 2008 at 5:20 am
I’ve also moved away from copywork and dictation (at the request of the kids) My 9-year-old son, who is challenged by writing and spelling, asked for more traditional workbookish things (including spelling lists).
I really like the way you’re creating and marketing your novel guides! I’ll have to remember to check back from time to time to see how that develops.
On August 7, 2008 at 8:16 am
mrsdawneshelton said:
August 7, 2008 at 8:16 am
>>> I will write you private about the switching testimony thing
On August 7, 2008 at 8:16 am
mrsdawneshelton said:
August 7, 2008 at 8:16 am
Ok, I need help uploading an avatar pic…I upload, and it just keeps showing a blank box…any ideas?
On August 7, 2008 at 8:17 am
mrsdawneshelton said:
August 7, 2008 at 8:17 am
Great, my whole first long comment got cut off. ugh