Rachel Owens
Rationale: To help the students focus on the
pronunciation of a word before seeing its spelling which helps the
student to
understand that a spelling is a meaningful map of the pronunciation. I
want the
student’s to learn how to spell words and not just memorize the
spelling.
Materials: a list of 10-12 spelling words mono and polysyllabic, paper, pencil
Procedure:
Introduce the 10-12 spelling words. “Class
we will be learning how
to spell words today starting with your spelling words for this week. I
am
going to give you a simple procedure to help you remember how to spell
words.”
Have each student say each word with the
teacher.
“We know that each letter represents a
sound, some more than one
sound. Watch my mouth as a say some letters. (Say the letter ‘r’, ‘f’,
‘m’) Do
you see how my mouth is different for each letter? Well we are going to
learn
that with each letter and mouth move, we can remember how to spell
words.”
Give the step-by-step procedure.
1. First, examine the mouth
moves.
Example
2. Say the
word.
night
Say the syllables if there are more than one.
3. Stretch the
word.
/nnnIIIt/
Work syllable by syllable with polysyllabic words.
If a phoneme can't be stretched, exaggerate it.
4. Segment (split up) the phonemes.
Work by syllables if necessary.
First
phoneme?
/n/
Next phoneme?
etc.
/I/
Last
phoneme?
/t/
5. Count the
phonemes.
3
6. Draw blanks.
__ ___ __
The blanks stand for the phonemes.
Put slashes between syllables.
Next, learn the spelling.
7. Record the spelling phoneme
by phoneme.
On the first blank, write
[letters]
n ___ __
On next blank, write
[letters]
n igh __
On last blank, write
[letters]
n igh t
If there are silent letters, caret them in.
8. Write the word in your best
cursive
handwriting.
night
9. Study the spelling.
Ask what a pattern] says OR
What does igh say?
Ask about how a phoneme is spelled OR
How do we spell /I/ in night?
Ask what we need to remember about the word.
What's
tricky about night?
Only ask about tricky parts.
10. Give the meaning.
What does ___
mean?
When it's dark out.
(When you see the students getting the
hang of this
procedure, ask if there are any steps they can skip to spell the word
faster).
(I would make a sign to put on the wall
giving the
steps in a simpler form)
1. Say
2. Stretch
3. Split up
4. Count
5. Draw blanks
6. Record
7. Write
8. Study
9. Give meaning
5. After going
through
the steps, saying them to the children, “show” the steps to the
students. Say a
word out loud to the class. Start with the first step and continue
through the
last. Have the students help you in this process. “The word is calm.
Say the
word with me. /calm/. Lets stretch the word /cccaaalllmm/. Now we can
split up
the word /c/a/l/m/. We are going to count the sounds we hear. /c/ /a/
/l/ /m/.
How many? 4. Next we are going to write the sounds we hear in blanks. _
_ _ _.
(Write blanks and sounds onto the board to model for students). I am
going to
write this word in my best handwriting (cursive if older grades). Look
at the
spelling of our word. What do we notice about the sounds and the
letters that
represent the sounds? What letter(s) make the ‘m’ sound?
What does this word mean? (a state of
tranquility, to be stable, still). (Make sure students understand
meaning of
the words they spell).
6. Make sure
students
understand this process by asking comprehension questions like “What is
the
first step? What comes after splitting up?
7. Have the students
work
on the rest of their spelling words using this procedure. Have them
write out
each step like the class did on the board.
The teacher will
assess
by taking up their papers and looking for each step of the spelling
process.
She will make sure each student has done every part of each step in the
process.
Reference:
Murray,
Bruce. “How to teach Spelling”. 15 October 2005.