Teaching Kids to Spell

Teaching Kids to Spell fills the need for a book to help teachers working in an integrated language arts program provide systematic, personalised spelling instruction. It provides a much-needed bridge between traditional spelling instruction and whole language approaches, showing teachers (and parents, too) how spelling ability begins to emerge in young children's invented spellings, how it grows as children pass through predictable stages of spelling strategies, and how eventually every student can reach a standard of correct "expert" spelling.

The text includes wordlists, tips for teaching predictable patterns, and a variety of individual activities that prepare children to meet the phonetic, semantic, historical, and visual demands of spelling, plus strategies for implementing a spelling workshop in the elementary classroom.

CONTENTS

• Reconceptualising Spelling Instruction
• How Spelling Begins
• Five Stages of Invented Spelling
• Assessing Invented Spelling: Snapshots of the Mind
• What Makes an Expert Speller: The Phonetic, Semantic, Historical, and Visual Demands
• A Workshop Approach to Teaching Spelling
• Choosing Spelling Words
• The Effective School-wide Spelling Curriculum
• Appendixes: A. Origins of English Words B. Word Lists Organized by Sound or Letter C. Five Hundreds Words Most Frequently Used in Children's Writing D. Words Most Commonly Misspelled in Children's Writing.