Stacey Fisher's Response Post

 In my classroom I collected four different country reports in which the students picked a country and spent over a week researching this country. The students then had to write a two-page paper discussing the population, the people, the land, the culture, etc. However, even though I tried to select a range of papers the spelling within was almost 100% accurate.  While one of the students I asked to copy work from is considered a low learner in language arts most of her spelling was good and this was probably because they were able to use books, the Internet, and dictionaries.  Thankfully, I also collected two worksheets that asked short answer questions on the reading, Shiloh. These samples gave a more accurate picture of their spelling abilities as they were not copying information from a book or the Internet.  

The one sample I collected did not have complete sentences, correct capitalization (first letters or names), or punctuation.  The word “because” is spelt “becouse” two different times and spelled like “cause” once. Also,  the word “hurt” is actually spelt “heart” two different times.  Some confusion between the letter “b” and “d” are evident as the word “both” is written “doth” and the word “bird” is written” dird”. Although this student is 12 years old, I think she may be between Stage 2: Letter Name-Alphabetic Spelling  or Stage 3: Within-Word Pattern Spelling. She is confusing the difference between “b” and “d” but is able to spell short vowel sounds (pet, get, bad, him, vet, dog). This student does show evidence of the more complex consonant sounds and less frequent vowel patterns.  However, this student does demonstrate some inflectional endings (abus-ing and gett-ing) but she is unable to differentiate between homophones (your- you’re, there-they’re). It is hard to distinguish her spelling when the sentence structure is very incomplete. This includes, “cut grass for people”, “she scared for Shiloh”,” there taking good care for him”, “one was female one was male”.

The other sample I collected spelled the word “take” as “tack”, the word “my”  as “me” and the word “she” was written as “se”. Also, the word “probably” was spelt “probley”, the word “been” is spelt, “bin”, the word “through” is actually spelt “threw” and “hospital” is spelt, “hospatil”. The student is not understanding CVCe words, and is spelling words how he thinks they are pronounced such as “probley” and “hospatil” and is also not understanding homophones which is indicated by “threw” when he meant, “through”. This student does speak only Spanish at home so I can see the disconnect that is happening with his spelling. With this I would say he is between a Stage 3: Within-Word Pattern Spelling and Stage 4: Syllables and Affixes Spelling.

Literacy Centers would need to include a variety of activities. When viewing this link that was provided on ANGEL under helpful literacy center ideas I found an awesome PDF that included some great ideas. One activity has students match synonyms by playing a bingo-type game. Each student will have a different bingo card and there will be a deck of synonym cards that will be face down. Students will take turns drawing the top card and reading the word (ex: under) and will look for a matching synonym on their card (ex: below) and if there is a match a counter will be placed on the synonym. Students must continue until one card is full.

Another idea is matching antonyms by playing a domino game. Students will scatter the domino cards face up and taking turns a student will place the start domino on the table and read the word at the other edn (ex: awake) and they will look for the domino with an antonym (ex: asleep) and connect it to the domino. Students will then read word on other side (ex: brave) and find a domino with a corresponding antonym (ex: fearful), connects the previous domino and the process continues until they are all connected. There are two more activities that build off these two skills that I also like.

Another center that could be meaningful to these students is a matching homograph game in which a homograph is matched with their corresponding meanings by playing a sorting game. Homograph word cards are placed face up in a column and the homograph meaning cards are placed face down in a stack. A sheet is used to help the students sort and make sense of this. Taking turns, students select the top meaning card from the stack and read it (ex: inside of a hand) and will read the words in the column and determine which word best matches the meaning (ex: palm). The meaning card will be placed to one side of the homograph card. Students will continue until each homograph has a meaning card on both sides (ex: inside of a hand and a type of a tree). Student sheets wil be completed by writing sentences to match identified meanings.

Another activity that could be beneficial is different homophones such as having flash cards with the different homophones and their meaning/how they are used on the flip side.  The students would then need to use these words in a sentence.

When viewing Valentines Day stuff on Pintrest there was a lesson that had Valentines Day cards with messages and the students had to edit them. While this lesson was for second grade students I could definitely make the messages more challenging. I would include mistakes I have seen in their writing such as “cause” for “because” or “probley” for the word “probably”, etc. Having practice with editing other’s writing may make them aware of mistakes they have made.