Kelly Kingsley

Spelling Curriculum Plan and Assessments

August 11, 2009

I will be assessing my students for baseline data using the Words Their Way Qualitative

Spelling Inventories (primary, elementary, and upper). “Spelling inventories not only offer

information about students‟ spelling stages and their knowledge of orthographic features, but

also offer information about their reading. Studies show that scores on these inventories are

consistently related and predict reading achievement at all age levels from kindergartners

through adult learners” (Bear, 2008).

The traditional portion of my curriculum plan will be lessons from the Harcourt Trophies

Spelling Practice Book. Lesson 1 will cover words with short a and short e. Students will work

with word meanings, opposites, proofreading and riddles. Lesson 2 will cover the short vowels i,

o and u. Lessons will involve synonyms, picking the correct spellings, proofreading, and

rhyming. Lesson 3 will work with long vowels a and e. The students will be required to find

opposites, sentence completion, picking the correct spellings, proofreading, and filling in the

correct vowel spellings. Lesson 4 will cover words with long vowels i and o. Students will work

with word meanings, sentence completion, rhyming, poetry, and proofreading. Lessons will

continue after the four week session of integrated instruction. Lesson 10 covers words with /ou/.

Lessons will involve sentence completion, proofreading, word puzzles, and finding smaller

words in the list words. Lesson 11 will work with possessives and plurals. Students will work

with sentence completion, alphabetical order, adding s,„s, or „ to words, picture clues, and phrase

completion. Lesson 12 will cover words with /o/. Students will complete a story, work with

word clues, proofreading, and sentence completion. Lesson 13 will work with long and short
/oo/ sounds. Lessons will cover matching pictures to words, rhyming, choosing the correct

spelling, and categorizing list words.

Lessons will be instructed as whole class lessons and seatwork will be assigned at the end

of each lesson. The students will take a pretest every Monday and then take the dictation post test

on Friday.

The integrated portions of my curriculum will begin with using the Words Their Way

Qualitative Spelling Inventories. I will use the information from the inventories to create

spelling guided learning groups. “Word study instruction must match the need of the

child” (Bear, 2008). I will meet daily with each group focusing on orthographic areas they need

to learn/improve upon. The students will work on their spelling skills in reading and writing

activities. “Students discover the basic principles of spelling-alphabetic, pattern, and meaning-

when they read and write purposefully and are also provided with explicit, systematic word study

instruction by knowledgeable teachers” (Bear, 2008). I will focus on the six spelling principles

to guide my instruction.

1. Spelling is learned as we use it. I will provide multiple opportunities to have students

write for a range of purposes and audiences.

2. Learning to spell is part of the developmental process of learning to write.

3. Errors can be viewed as diagnostic and developmental. Students will be encouraged to

attempt to spell words: I will let them approximate, especially when they are trying to

use new words, point out parts they have spelled correctly. I will also use the parts they

have misspelled as a focus for teaching opportunities.

 4. Exploring words and vocabulary are part of learning to spell. Students will be learning in

a print rich environment (word wall).

5. Independence and self-evaluation are essential in spelling development. Students will

proofread their writing to identify possible spelling errors.

6. Effective spellers use a number of different strategies interactively in order to spell

correctly.

“The best way to develop fast and accurate perception of word features is to engage in

meaningful reading and writing, and to have multiple opportunities to examine those same words

out of context” (Bear, 2008).

Some of the activities students will engage in either with the small group or

independently are:

 Same Letters/Different Sounds

Students identify words that are pronounced differently, but have the same letter pattern. For

example, words with “ei” spelling pattern.

 Homophones

Make a class chart of common homophones with illustrations to explain their meanings.

 Concept of Print

Direct students’ attention to root words, prefixes, or suffixes by creating word maps for

known words. Students can keep individual alphabetical lists of words they have

misspelled. Students may start categorizing their spelling errors by patterns or rules in

their spelling notebooks.

 Shared Writing

Daily Edit: Put a selection on the blackboard or overhead. Point out errors to teach:

suffixes, prefixes, root words, inflections, acronyms, contractions, homophones,

compound words, etc.

Spelling Conferences: Schedule spelling conferences with each student. Review writing

folders and spelling notebooks, noting patterns of misspellings. Select one type of

misspelling to address with the student and decide upon a strategy to help the student

gain control of the language. Keep conferences short, about five minutes.

 Word Wall Activities

Write Tap Spell-students number a sheet of paper with numbers one to five, the teacher

calls out five words putting each in a sentence, as the teacher calls out each word a

student finds and points to the word on the Word Wall, students clap and chant the

spelling of each word, then students write the word.

Read My Mind-Teacher give students clues (five in all), by the fifth clue each student

should know which word the teacher is describing. Students write which word they

think the teacher has in mind after each clue. Points are awarded for when the word

was guessed.

 Sorts

Sort words according to syllables, letters, prefixes, or suffixes

Group words according to sound

Word families

 Prefix of the Week

 Select a prefix each week. Have students look up the prefix in different dictionaries and

compare the etymology (word history). Brainstorm and list as many words as can be

thought of that begin with the prefix. Have them try to explain what the prefix means in

each word. These words, written on posters, may become part of the Word Wall.

 Word Webs

Words that are related by meaning will often have similar spelling patterns. Students

can build webs of words to illustrate the relationships.

As I did in the traditional curriculum study, I will also pretest and posttest during the

integrated portion. Students will not have the same spelling list, but each student will be

working with words that are individualized to their spelling needs.

At the end of the semester, I will once again give the Words Their Way Spelling

Inventory to gather data to compare to the baseline data given at the beginning of the year. I

will also compare the weekly spelling test scores of the traditional instruction periods to the

integrated instruction periods. Using the information gathered, I will then decide whether to

continue with the integrated instruction for the second semester.

Bibliography

About English-Spelling. (n.d.). Retrieved April 8, 2009, from About English:

http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/English/implementing.htm

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2008). Words Their Way; Word Study for
Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

Farr, R., Beck, I., Strickland, D., Mckeown, M., Roser, N., & Yopp, H. (2004). Trophies Third Grade Spelling
Practice Book. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, Inc.

How Do You Spell? (n.d.). Texas Education Agency.

Lutz, E. (1986). Spelling Instructional Guidelines. Retrieved April 8, 2009, from Reading Rockets:
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/3476?theme=print