As our Professional Development Norming Meetings on writing have wrapped up, another recurring question that kept arising was spelling — why does spelling not transfer into the students’ writing? Many blog posts and books from teachers and professionals have attempted to tackle this issue. A sampling of their beliefs and strategies to this issue are summarized below.
1. Multitasking is Hard! – As we know during writing workshop, students are multitasking continuously. They are generating ideas, planning, writing, be it by hand or by computer, and trying to spell.
How Can we Help:
• break spelling down into smaller portions
• remind students of specific spelling patterns they recently studied
• focus on just one pattern
2. Opportunity – Students should have time for writing workshop each day so they can practice what good writing is.
How Can we Help:
• If students are writing each day, they will have more opportunities encountering words where they can apply their new spelling patterns to.
3. Do Students Really Understand Why Spelling Matters? – Students don’t understand why spelling matters. They are taught rules, and we all know they just can’t follow every rule – – Yes, there are 31 of them. Saying to students “You should fix the spelling on this because that just a thing that writers do,” will not work with them.
How Can we Help:
• Make sure students know who they are writing for — they need to have a purpose and they need to have an audience.
• Ask them can they read their writing easily?
4. Word Walls –
• A large word wall allow students to quickly access the high frequency words that are familiar with your word study instruction. Have the students aim for automaticity with high frequency words. Have it prominently displayed in the classroom.
• If you notice that a majority of your students are spelling specific words incorrectly in their writing make a writing word wall list. Select just three words and place in the room were all students can visually access. Explicitly teach the students how to use this resource. Once students have mastered these words, change them up, and select the next three that are frequently misspelled. Remember, this is exclusive to your students writing.
How Can we Help: – a writing word wall or a personal word wall.
Writing Word Wall
• believe
• friend
• beginning
• A personal word wall can work with students too and is differentiated and particular to each student. Here is a link of an example of what a personal word wall could look like. http://bit.ly/2yRBWrk
5. Place a spelling strategies anchor chart in your classroom with strategies that have been explicitly taught. Always refer to this so students become accustomed to using this. An example of one is below.
Spellers Use Strategies!
🌟 Hear and spell sounds
🔴 Use a word you know
🔷 Think about the meaning
🔳 Use a mnemonic
⭐ See the word inside your head
🌠 Get close, circle, correct
6. Part by Part Spelling – teach the students to spell words by breaking them down into smaller parts. Here are some prompts to use:
• Say the word, part by part.
• Clap the syllables?
• What letters will spell the first part?
• Write that part down.
• What’s the next syllable you hear?
7. Spell as Best You Can – Remind your students when writing in their notebook or drafting on paper, to spell their words as best they can; when editing time comes around they will not have as many corrections to make.
8. Question and Phrases – Listed below is a list of some questions and phrases you might want to put into your back pocket to use when conferring with your students on spelling during Writing Workshop:
• Is your writing as easy to read as it could be? What could make it easier to read?
• Checking for ________ spelling pattern will make your writing easier for ______ (name an actual person) to read.”
• “Your story will really make people laugh! (Or think, learn, cry, etc.) But when it’s hard to read, it’s harder for people to see how funny/interesting/beautiful it is.”
• “When people read, sometimes they can get distracted by a spelling mistake – then they aren’t thinking about what you wrote anymore.”
Strategy # 6 and 7 above, are from Jennifer Serravallo’s,“The Writing Strategies Book,” but know that she has an entire chapter (8) dedicated to spelling.
Finally, let us not forget that there is a need for us to look at the flip side to this issue. Yes, spelling does matter, but so does our approach with our students. In a recent tweet from Pernille Ripp she states “When students share their truths with us and we take it as a chance to question their grammar and spelling skills instead of listening to their words, we are once more complicit in the killing of student voice and engagement with school – that’s on us, that’s a choice.”
If you have any questions or would like to work with an Instructional Coach on this, please fill out the Coaching Request Form.
Works Cited
Moore, Beth “How to Use the Word Wall” TWO WRITING TEACHERS,
Oct. 8, 2016, twowritingteachers.org/
Moore, Beth “Three Reasons Spelling Lessons Aren’t’ Transferring into Writing Workshop”, TWO WRITING TEACHERS, Oct. 11, 2018
Ripp, Pernille, October 26, 2018, Tweet
Serravallo, Jennifer. The Writing Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Writers with 300 Strategies. Heinemann, 2017.
Weakland, Mark. Super Spellers: Seven Steps to Transforming Your Spelling Instruction. Stenhouse Publishers, 2017.