I found this chapter interesting and challenging, in some ways. In my experience, most of my students are past this stage in 5th grade but for those of them who are not, they are content with asking a neighbor how to spell a word or just misspelling it rather than trying to actually grasp the pattern or rules for why it is spelled a certain way.

My frustration comes with my students not particularly caring about being a competent speller. They spell like they talk and like they see their parents text and seem to think that I am a five-headed monster for expecting them to actually take pride in their written work and spell words correctly.

I think I will have to find more time (yeah right!) to focus on the word sorts to teach these critical skills. I just wish someone could simplify my classroom and group them accordingly to just allow me to get a grasp on what I should be doing and when I should be doing it. It is quite overwhelming for a 1st year teacher with 7 SPED students, 2 EIP students and 2 behavior disorders in a regular end classroom teaching all of the content areas. I just can't seem to keep ahead.

LM 4

I enjoyed the spelling activity because I was able to use it with my own personal child. I decided to conduct the word game using magnetic tiles that spelled out his name. I, at first, called the letters out that belonged in his name and asked Carter to locate the letter tiles and “build” his name. He did so with no problem. Next, I instructed him to not use any uppercase letters and to rebuild his name as I called the letters out orally. This caused some confusion for him. I was surprised by the delay when I asked him to focus just on lowercase letters; it almost seemed as though they could be used interchangeably with uppercase and, therefore, would be no reason to know the difference.

            I explained to my son that uppercase and lowercase did mean the same things but that it was important to be able to recognize which letters were in front of him regardless of the case. Next, I spelled out his name, this time using his middle and last names to avoid the familiarity aspect. I spelled all of these out using the capitol letters and had him go behind me and try to build his name using lowercase tiles. This took him 4 and a half minutes and he was able to do it correctly when selecting tiles from piles of upper and lowercase letters.

Overall, I was intrigued by the fact that, even though Carter has known his uppercase alphabet for quite some time, he struggled to relate the uppercase letter with the lowercase letter and that confusion led to his inability to make the letter sounds necessary to “reading” even the words he was familiar with. I think it is very important not to rely so much on the way letters look after the child initially learns them by sight and I can now see the value in showing children different fonts of letters so that he or she can truly gain understanding in their foundation to reading.

Words Sorting

Word sorts were something I didn't think I would be doing much of as a 5th grade teacher. However, after completing the spelling inventory with my class it became obvious that most, if not all, of my students would benefit from words sorts of varying skills. I decided to ask a kindergarten teacher friend of mine for her advice when it came to sorting and how to best introduce this to my students. Of course, small group sorts work the best. It allows the students to concentrate more and receive more guided redirection and specific instruction. I did introduce word sorts to the class as a whole and we did complete some basic sorts with magnetic word cards on my white board. however, when it came time for explicit instruction on certain skills I found it easier and more beneficial to work with fewer students.

Thanks to the Common Core mentality, I immediately began to think about how I could introduce vocabulary into the word sorts based on patterns and that is an idea that I plan to continue to explore. 5th graders use a lot of higher vocab with complex word structure so I'm determined to make it happen. :)

All in all, I found words sorts to be a surprisingly beneficial tool.

Spelling Inventory

As a 5^th grade teacher at Matt Arthur Elementary School, I was already required to perform this assessment on my entire class. I did not expect, however, to have to administer the Elementary Portion of this assessment. I came to this realization after attempting to administer the Upper Level and realizing that only a few of my children were able to even complete the assessment without reaching their frustration levels and even fewer were able to score moderately well. After seeing this, I decided to administer the Elementary to the whole class (even to the few who did well on Upper Level) just to have two class composites to learn from.

                I did not expect the Inventory to be so enlightening. After completing the assessment, which I did not find difficult or time consuming, I was able to see that the majority of my class needed further remediation in the area of Harder Suffixes, Bases or Roots, and Unaccented Final Syllables. I also see that many of my students can be grouped and remediated in small groups in the areas of syllable junction, inflected endings, and other vowels. I was surprised to see that a couple of my children need remediation in areas as far back in the spelling stages as digraphs and long vowels.

                This will help to mold my teaching by allowing me to focus my instruction in very specific areas rather than taking a shot in the dark with my children need work with. I can pinpoint the skills that need further instruction and very adequately assign tasks that will improve that said skill.

Dyslexia and Dysgraphia

I chose to read Top Ten Resources on Spelling and Word Study.  This article looked at why children have difficulty spelling and what effects a child’s difficulty with spelling can have on a child’s inability to focus and get ideas on paper with his or her writing.This article also discussed the effect that parents and the home environment can have on a student’s success in the classroom.

This article also discussed Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. The article showed that the disabilities can cripple an emerging speller, reader and writer.

The issue of concern for me, as a 5th grade teacher, is the lack of root word and extended spelling patterns. Some of my children spell the words exactly the way that they hear them, which is understandable for someone who has never been taught spelling rules and patterns, but can result in devastating test scores when more difficult words are introduced. The child typically resorts to mere memorization techniques than genuinely attempting to understand the spelling rules behind the spelling method. I must figure out how to teach the foundational skills that were either never taught or have been abandoned by the students through the years.

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