I absolutely love all of your fabulous ideas and I have already implemented a lot of your ideas into my classroom this year along with many other researched ideas(after testing some things last year and spending most of my summer figuring out how to do it all effectively). This is my second year teaching third grade, so I am still constantly trying to figure out what I feel works best and so far, I have had a lot of success with many of your ideas.
Anyway, I implemented the Words Their Way program this year and am having some of the same problems you were having. I was excited to see how you have developed a spelling curriculum and I really love all of your ideas. Now I just need the summer to come so I can make everything!
When I was reading some of your posts last year, I had tried your suggestion with the individual high frequency list for each student and having spelling partners assess each other at the end of the week after the formal, spelling test. I was excited to see that component into the curriculum you designed, because that is one of the things that I feel like my spelling program is lacking. I also feel like I can easily integrate this portion into my spelling program now-until I have time to completely revamp it again in the summer. I have a couple of questions about this though from when I tried to test it out last year. 1: Do you group your partners by ability and/or Are they the same partners as your reading/writing partners? 2: Last year I did group by ability, and some of my lower groups were sometimes not capable of administering the test for their partner (I guess because they had different words, and they would have trouble reading them since they hadn't been introduced to them yet themselves)-although this was rare. Do you ever notice this, and what do you do about it? 3: I know a lot of the high-frequency words are homophones; how do you find the time to make sure that each student understands the meaning of their homophone words when they all have an individual list? 4: I understand how you use your stations throughout the week by reading the other posts, but I am curious how many of the stations in the week are devoted to the pattern that week versus high-frequency words? Also, how does a high-frequency word station work when each student has an individual list?
Sorry for some of my rambling; I hope all of this makes sense. Thank you again for everything you share-it has been very valuable to me as an educator!
I absolutely love all of your fabulous ideas and I have already implemented a lot of your ideas into my classroom this year along with many other researched ideas(after testing some things last year and spending most of my summer figuring out how to do it all effectively). This is my second year teaching third grade, so I am still constantly trying to figure out what I feel works best and so far, I have had a lot of success with many of your ideas.
Anyway, I implemented the Words Their Way program this year and am having some of the same problems you were having. I was excited to see how you have developed a spelling curriculum and I really love all of your ideas. Now I just need the summer to come so I can make everything!
When I was reading some of your posts last year, I had tried your suggestion with the individual high frequency list for each student and having spelling partners assess each other at the end of the week after the formal, spelling test. I was excited to see that component into the curriculum you designed, because that is one of the things that I feel like my spelling program is lacking. I also feel like I can easily integrate this portion into my spelling program now-until I have time to completely revamp it again in the summer. I have a couple of questions about this though from when I tried to test it out last year. 1: Do you group your partners by ability and/or Are they the same partners as your reading/writing partners? 2: Last year I did group by ability, and some of my lower groups were sometimes not capable of administering the test for their partner (I guess because they had different words, and they would have trouble reading them since they hadn't been introduced to them yet themselves)-although this was rare. Do you ever notice this, and what do you do about it? 3: I know a lot of the high-frequency words are homophones; how do you find the time to make sure that each student understands the meaning of their homophone words when they all have an individual list? 4: I understand how you use your stations throughout the week by reading the other posts, but I am curious how many of the stations in the week are devoted to the pattern that week versus high-frequency words? Also, how does a high-frequency word station work when each student has an individual list?
Sorry for some of my rambling; I hope all of this makes sense. Thank you again for everything you share-it has been very valuable to me as an educator!