March 4, 2009

I just finished 3rd quarter assessments using the Words Their Way spelling assessments. I started with the primary assessment with the whole class. I had 15 pass this assessment by missing 5 or fewer words. I then administered the Elementary assessment to the 15 students. I had 6 pass this assessment by missing 5 or fewer words. So I administered the Upper assessment to them. I have now determined each students spelling level and I will be working with 5 different groups of spellers for 4th quarter.

I spent quite a bit of time mapping out the words and patterns I would work on for each group. I have groups ranging from vowel sounds to Greek and Latin roots. That is quite a range.

I started reading Unlocking Literacy by Marcia Henry this week. She discusses decoding and spelling. Her philosophy and theory support the instruction of morphology. I will be using some of her lists when I work on my project of word knowledge this semester with my students. I need to touch base with Guy regarding exactly what the project will look like. I know it will involve some interviewing of students and a word pre-test/post-test format.