Articles - Spelling - Write the Write Way 3

The next question was, “Do you teach your students all these strategies?” Consistently, the reply, “Well, no, not all of them.” Maybe we should.

Modeled Writings
Many teachers have had ED00121A.gif (913 bytes) the misconception that phonics is a no-no in a whole language approach. Quite the contrary, phonics must be taught but it needs to be taught in context, not in isolation.

Modeled writings such as the Daily News and language experience charts are a perfect vehicle for this in that children collaborate with the teacher to bring sounds and symbols together and to make decisions regarding the use of print conventions. The teacher writes as the children orally compose. The Daily News is a way for children to share their own news with the rest of the class. While in the writing of a language experience chart, the children are talking and dictating a shared experience.

After completing a modeled writing, the teacher revisits the text, selecting one or two phonics elements to teach or review, asking, for example, “Who can come up to the chart and highlight all the words that start with the ‘sl’ sound?......words that end with the “..tion” sound? ......words that have

two syllables?” For further extension, the teacher would make a longer list on chart paper of the words highlighted and add additional ones that the children can think of. Rhyming word lists are fun to make, and encouraging the use of dictionaries to extend learning makes the activity even more challenging for a class. These charts must be displayed for reference.

Teaching skills through a collaborative context is a strategy for all ages. What better way to introduce a new strategy or to practice and reinforce one previously taught. Here is one place to continue teaching our spelling strategies, such as:

syllabication
word chunking - finding smaller familiar words within a larger word root words, prefixes, and/or suffixes
word association: connecting an unfamiliar word with a familiar one
(KERA or Caribbean for carageen)

Word Charts and Word Walls
A teacher and students could generate word charts and display them for each theme of class work studied. At the end of one theme, the charts remain on display or

can be hung with clothes pins on a coat hanger in a designated place. These charts are invaluable reference materials for writing.Several years ago, while working in a school in Melbourne, Australia, I observed a true whole language classroom. There was print everywhere. In lieu of teacher-made bulletin boards, the boards were covered with word cards, pinned and grouped in categories for the theme being studied: animals. Some of the categories were:

animals’ names
habitats
foods
characteristics
enemies

Students had generated words for each category adding to them through individual and group research. Whenever a student needed a specific word for writing, he simply unpinned it from the wall to use. Great strategy and simple to implement!

Another type of word wall, especially for emergent learners, is an ABC wall. As new words arise, each is written by the teacher on a word card, student illustrated, and hung on the alphabet wall under the corresponding letter.