#7 Prompt

 For my deeper dive next week, I focused on learning to spell. One area in this topic of controversy is spelling instruction. In Tompkins (2022), it states that: "Many teachers question the usefulness of spelling tests because research on invented spelling suggests that spelling is best learned through reading and writing. In addition, teachers complain that lists of spelling words are unrelated to the words students are reading and writing and that the 30 minutes of valuable instructional time spent each day in completing spelling activities is excessive." I found this statement interesting because the students in my class complete spelling activities throughout the week and I have noticed that in their writing, they have had less errors since the beginning of the year. For my ELA block, I have three centers. One is for guided reading, one is a technology center, and the third one is a word work center, where the students are given a word list from Words Their Way each week and a word work packet with various activities to complete using their word list. Before they start their word work packet, they are given a mini lesson on the word sorts that they are working on. At the end of the week the students take a spelling test, and based on their score, they are given a different list of words for the next week. I believe these activities are helpful in getting the students engaged in the work to begin with, as well as recognizing the words and being able to spell them correctly. With the student population that I have, it isn't always easy to get the students motivated to do spelling work. Therefore, engaging activities with their word lists are very helpful. Some of the activities that the students do are roll and write, rainbow words, stamp words, silly sentences, and tic tac toe words, just to name a few, and I have seen some more "buy in" since I updated the activities. The book also states that the number of misspellings increases in grades 1 through 4. It doesn't mention 5th grade which is what I teach. I would be interested to see the research with fifth graders on this. I also have students participating in daily reading and writing activities, which Tompkins says will make them conventional spellers. I just found it interesting that the text wants the students to use only the study strategy. I wonder if the researchers considered this strategy as the only option regarding students with disabilities or severe emotional disturbances like the ones I work with. It would be difficult to only use this strategy for my students.