Word Study (aka Spelling)
In our class, spelling is referred to as "word study", and it is based on the research and materials in Words Their Way by Donald Bear and Shane Templeton (4th ed.). I have a good professional article on spelling by Shane Templeton if you are interested in more information. Just let me know, and I'll send it home with your child. At the outset, word study may be most confusing to parents. For those of you who had a traditional spelling program in school with a list of random words to memorize and a test on Fridays, this will be something a little different! Word Study teaches students to look critically at words so they can build a deeper understanding of how spelling works to represent sound and meaning. This is accomplished by sorting words into like categories based on the features they share.
This passage, taken from the Words Their Way introduction, helps to explain the rationale for this shift in spelling instruction. Humans have a natural desire to find order, to compare and contrast, and to pay attention to what is the same despite minor variations. For example, young children call any animal with four legs a “dog” until they attend to the specific features that distinguish cats from dogs or cows…. and later they learn the vocabulary to categorize types of dogs such as Poodles, Labradors, etc.
In a nutshell, you will see… Students who are grouped into appropriate level spelling "sorts" depending on their results on an initial spelling assessment. • Students introduced to a new group of words each week with a specific feature as its focus. • Students working on hands-on activities to sort words with common characteristics into categories. • Students thinking hard about whether these features require them to HEAR what the words have in common or SEE what they have in common (or both). For example, cat, big, rug would be sorted into one category because they all have one medial vowel that makes a short vowel sound. They follow a C-V-C (consonant, vowel, consonant) pattern. But road, speak, and rain would fit into the C-V-V-C category (two vowels between two consonants making a long vowel sound). By repeated sorting of words with similar features, students learn to examine and make judgments about new words they encounter based on what they have learned.
This is our goal. If your child does not know their short and long vowel sounds, they have likely been placed in a more basic word study group to learn this. The best part of Words Their Way spelling is that students can be provided with instruction that fits their particular stage of spelling development and be moved along sequentially in their instruction. It allows students to build on what they already know, to learn what they need to do next, and to move forward.