The Literacy Map : Guiding Children to Where They Need to Be (K-3) |
Spel Is A 4 Letter Word |
My Kid Can't Spell : Understanding and Assisting Your Child's Literacy Development |
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Kathleen - Teachers.Net is pleased to present a workshop on Developmental Spelling with Dr. J. Richard Gentry, the nationally recognized expert on topics related to balanced literacy and spelling. A former elementary school teacher and university professor, Dr. Gentry has consulted for major publishing companies and presents on several continents. He is the author of several books, including Spel...Is a Four-Letter Word. Richard sometimes presents with Educational Resources Group http://ergsc.com.
Kathleen - Dr. Gentry, thank you for presenting tonight for Teachers.Net. The handouts you designed for us are available to the participants at http://www.counsel.net/chat/shop/images/gentry1.html. Which would you like to refer to first?
JRGentry - Hello everybody. Thank you for joining our chat.
JRGentry - Kathleen, let's begin by looking at benchmarks for developmental stages of spelling.
JRGentry - Let's look at stage One, precommunicative spelling. Of course, many children begin kindergarden scribbling, but in reading/writing Ks, the expectation is stage one by mid-year. Here is a sample written by Leslie in November of her K year. Can any of you guess what it says? Someone give it a try.
sue - something are mine?
amy/oh - butterflies?
Melissa - The birds are flying?
JRGentry - Great Amy.
JRGentry - Great, Sue.
JRGentry - Leslie told me it says, " a flock of butterflies."
Kathleen - flock, nice vocab
JRGentry - Of course, you can't read stage one spelling. But it tells us alot about what leslie knows about the alphabet. The critical aspect of Stage one spelling is that children use letters but almost randomly.
JRGentry - the letters don't represent sounds. Let's take a question.amy/ohio - at about what age should a child be growing out of this stage?
JRGentry - Amy, Stage one is a middle kindergarden benchmark. If kids are developmentally on track, it is reasonable to expect that they will be at stage two by the end of kindergarden year.sue - We do a lot of writing with my fours. I see a mix of stage 1 and 2 , is this unusual? some of the stage one is readable.
JRGentry - Sue, that's not unusual. the stages I'm presenting are minimally expected standards. Of course, you will see alot of variability with individual children. I've seen four year olds write in stage 3 spelling.annette - at stage one, would you document the letters they are showing they know? I am wondering how to implement that information
JRGentry - Annette, yes documenting the letters helps you know how the child is coming along with recognizing the letters of the alphabet. Leslie has alot of letter knowledge for November of K year.pearl - How do we move students to the next stage
JRGentry - Pearl, students move in reading/writing classrooms. K teachers model writing, use alot of language experience approaches. some teachers use a technique called underwriting. Kids are allow to approximate writing.Doug - Dr. Gentry- How do you feel about displaying invented writing in a classroom? some teachers feel that when they read the room, they are practicing bad habbits, some feel that it is good to celebrate and to help their self-esteem? Should all writing samples show conventional spelling if kids will be reading the room with pointers?
JRGentry - Doug, certainly teachers should display children invetive spelling in K and 1st grade. they also display standard spelling. Ks and beginning ones need to know that they aren't expected to spell all words correctly.Grace/IL - Dr. Gentry, how do your stages fit in with kindergarten spelling standards in the New Standards as listed in "Reading and Writing Grade By Grade" from NCEE?
Kathleen - Grace/IL is Dr. Grace Vyduna-Haskins a Reading Consultant and author of the Spel-Lang Tree- A Developmental Word Study , Part 1 and Part II has joined us. Visit her site at http://user.mc.net/~gsh
JRGentry - Grace/IL, let's look at stage two. Can you read it? it says, my motor boat. Michael wrote this at the end of his K year.Sareena - How do i accelarate a student who is stuck at stage 2 in first grade at this time?
JRGentry - Sareena, a child at stage two has phoenimic awareness. You could help chldren at stage two by doing phoenimic awareness activities and by modeling stage two spelling. For example, Michael knows how to segment some sounds in the word boat and he can take this knowledge one step further by matching appropriate letters to those sounds. Any work done to promote knowledge of sounds and letters would help move kids along.susie-Q - Is your stages of spelling in your handouts this evening. I am interested in this topic but I am unaware of what your theories are. My students in second grade are still using inventive spelling. Is this good?
JRGentry - Susie Q, second graders invent about 1/3 of the spellings in their writing, but many of those spellings are expected to look like stage four in your handouts.JRGentry - Kathleen, let's look at Stage 3. It is the three little pig story.
JRGentry - It is phonetic spelling. The dominant strategy is to invent a spelling by spelling the word by ear. This is a middle 1st grade benchmark.
Kathleen - Big step from stage 2 :-)
JRGentry - If kids continue in reading/writing classrooms, the expectation is that they advance to stage four. For example, a Good Thing to Eat in the handouts. the dominant strategy changes because kids are reading and recognizing many works as sight words, their invetive spelling begins to look more like English spelling. The dominant strategy for Stage four spelling, an end of 1st grade benchmark, is that children spell "by eye."
Kathleen - by eye?
JRGentry - Yes, I mean that they spell words like they look, as oppose to simply spelling them like the sound.JRGentry - Kathleen, let's take some questions or comments
Melissa - what kinds of activities will help a child who knows the initial sound but nothing else? I'd like to help her look at more of the sounds, but word patterns don't seem to be helping. What would you suggest? Also, how would you help her with sight words?
Kathleen - Melissa, what age?
Melissa - first grade classroom
JRGentry - Melissa, I would help her with some sight words. Maybe begin with word families. Of course, all of this is in the context of shared story-book reading and modelled writing.Addie k/mo - how do you move along a child into the next stage that is hampered by lack of confidence rather than lack of skills. one little guy i have only wants to write in "scribble" because he "knows" that he doesnt know how to spell most words correctly. i know he has the letter rec skills. he recognized 11 cap and 11 lowercase letters over a month ago and uses them when he "has to" on classwork when we are working specifically on letters.
JRGentry - Addie, i would encourage the scribbling, but in addition, label his drawings modelling inventive spelling. Start with what he can do. if he knows some letters, choose those and work from there.Sylvia/CA - My second language learners, who are fluent in English (reading in Eng. also) and Spanish literate, have GREAT difficulty with spelling. (They are older: 8, 9 & 10) Any advice?
JRGentry - Sylvia/CA, you have got to be patient. English is much harder tospell than Spanish. they may be learning new English vocabulary that complicates matters. In general, they need more time and more experiences with all aspects of literacy, listening to story read outload, opportunities to write, etc.pearl - How often should a second grader have to edit their writing and spell most words accurately?
JRGentry - Pearl, second graders invent about 1/3 of theirspellings. In general, kids should be expected to correct all their spellings if they are spelling it at fourth grade level. I don't think second graders should be expected to correct all the spellings by themselves.Sareena - What do you think of word walls? Does it force phonemic awareness?
JRGentry - Sareena, I love word walls. They are great in 1st grade. In K, they can be used for focus on letters and sounds and a few sight words. I don't believe in forcing phoenimic awareness! ;)Syrena - Dr. Gentry, what are the grade level and ages to go along with the stages in your notes. I am a first grade teacher who is critisized for displaying work, that the spelling is not "perfect". The thinking by those critisizing is that if a child misspells the word more than 7 times they will never spell it right.
JRGentry - Syrena, never heard of "seven times" theory. Certaintly, don't agree with it. Stages three and four are typical for 1st grade stages.deb - I have a child who writes I play I play balls I play fun -- He won't expand and write about anything he can't spell... what now? He is a special education student. He is EMI with a IQ of 60. I have tried modeling everyday until I am BLUE in the face! I am looking for something else to try. I hope you can help. I teach 2nd grade.
JRGentry - Deb, find out what he is passionate about. Begin by gettng him to dictate a short story on that topic. Gradually give him some responsibility for writing a line of the story. Stretch out the sounds and get him to give you the letters as you model inventing stage three spelling.Mary K&1 - Dr. Gentry, this might be a little out of place, but I'm very curious about this ... in "The Literacy Map" you describe the Daily Writing Workshop, which has Independent Writing coming before Shared and Guided Writing. What is the thinking behind this? How does this help to move the children along? The Daily BEL (Balanced Early Literacy) Writing Workshop makes more sense to me, starting with Whole-Class Focus, then Small-Group Teaching Focus and followed by Whole-Class Sharing. Are we to do both models each day?
JRGentry - Mary K&1, I don't think the order is important. The point I was trying to make is that all three are important parts of the writing workshop.
susie-Q - I have a second grader that does not use any phonetic spelling. His words in his writing don't even begin with the correct sound like river may be olen. Yet he knows and recognizes the word. What can I do to help him?
Kathleen - Susie, what age?
susie-Q - second grade age 7
JRGentry - Susie Q, does he know all the letters of the alphabet? he sounds like a stage one speller.
susie-Q - yes he knows all his letters but does have a speech problem
JRGentry - If he is stage one, he needs the kind of activity that one would expect at the beginning of K year -- the total package: reading out-load, modelled writing language experience appraoch, etc.
JRGentry - susie Q, an interesting thing about inventive spelling is that it often helps identify specific sounds that children have difficulty with.Syrena - What do you say to the child who will not even try to get words on the paper because they don't know how to spell it.
JRGentry - Syrena, you have to find out what they are passionate about. then you have to make them feel important as a writer. All of that is more important than the spelling.Kathleen - Dr. Gentry, will you wrap up with whatever words of summary you wish to add?
JRGentry - This has been alot of fun. Thanks so much for joining our chat. Thank you teachers.net.
