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Teaching Spelling Through Word Study
in the Elementary Classroom
Alexandra Bomphray (Canada)
As an elementary teacher in a U.S. school with a high population of second language learners, I often struggled to ensure that all of my students were provided with meaningful learning opportunities. English spelling instruction was one area that presented me with unique challenges in meeting this goal. Being a new teacher, I quickly fell back on providing my students with teacher-generated weekly spelling lists that generally followed basic rhyme patterns. These were then followed by a standard group spelling test on Fridays. As one might anticipate, my success with this form of spelling instruction was extremely limited, if not nonexistent. I witnessed what so many teachers have observed—that each week it was the same students who were successful on my Friday tests while others, including the majority of my English language learners, failed week after week.
The biggest change I witnessed was in my second language learners. Much of this change came from the satisfaction of experiencing success. In particular, I remember the difference word study made in a seven-year-old boy who had joined us from Mexico. During my traditional spelling instruction, he generally would not even attempt to spell words on the tests. Instead, he would write strings of letters filling up the space provided to him to write his words. Of course, the reason he did this was that the words were far beyond his ability level. He also rarely completed any spelling homework, and the word list that was to be kept in his homework folder was generally lost by mid-week. Clearly, he saw little value in learning the words given to him and he had, in a sense, given up, because success was simply too far out of reach for him. Then, on the first word study test, he spelled over half of the words correctly, with the other half coming close to the correct spelling. I will never forget the beaming smile on his face as he ran up to share his success with me. It was a boost in confidence for him that was simply immeasurable.
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Teaching Spelling Through Word Study in the Elementary Classroom