Spelling Article

Spelling Article

I can see what this article is trying to convey, that spelling cannot be learned by simply memorizing one word at a time like most spelling programs ask. Students have to continuously experience words and see them in writing to slowly learn spelling. I was definitely not aware that there were so many different strategies that children use to sound out words. While I agree with not grading spelling too harshly in children’s writing, especially when that is not something you are testing for, I do see the benefits of spelling tests. Spelling tests go against what this article is saying because they are the memorization of a set of words. However, in my mentor teacher’s classroom, the spelling words the children get are helping to build their vocabulary. Some of them are not reading grade level books and are therefore seeing the same 100 sight words over and over. With these lists they are getting more experience with different words that they might not be seeing in books until middle school.

I thought next I would reflect on this whole process of blogging this semester. This is my first ever blog and it has been a highly beneficial experience. I need a place to get my thoughts out and I’m way too lazy to write them all out in a journal. This provides such an easy tool for my thoughts to flow right out of my mind and into print. After this semester is over I will continue this blogging experience and get more involved in reading the blogs of others. I might encounter one day a blog that changes my life, or at least my philosophy on teaching. This class has taught me so much on how to conduct a writing workshop (which before this class I knew basically nothing about) and also how to use technology to encourage my students to write and be creative. I will definitely take things from this class to incorporate into my future teaching.