Changes to Spelling

I have decided to make some changes to spelling based on updated materials and curriculum we are now using in 4th grade.  Your son or daughter may have come home in the past weeks talking about cutting apart words and sorting them by different characteristics, sounds, or patterns.  They may also have mentioned that they are able to pick different activities based on these words to work with in the word work section of their literacy notebook.  We will now be melding this with spelling to make it more seamless and relevant.  Each week or so (dependent on specials schedule, days off, etc.) we will get a new word sort.  Your child will sort these words into predetermined characteristics, sounds or patterns to identify why these words sound and are spelled the way they are.  The next day we will again sort these words and enter them in to the word work section in our literacy notebooks.  On this day students will be given 5 of these words from the sorts as spelling words.  The other words will come from a variety of places.  Each child has been separated into spelling groups based on their current spelling needs.  These groups will get words from different locations based on these needs.  For example one group might concentrate on getting the rest of their words from their writing, some may need more experience with 4th grade high frequency words, or academic vocabulary words, and some students may need a challenge with higher level words or spelling bee words.  These groups will be flexible and will change based on the needs of each individual student.  These lists will then go home as normal spelling lists as in the past.  We will test on a determined dated based upon when we made our list.  The rest of the week we will work on different activities to strengthen our knowledge of the word sort words we are working with.  I will also meet with groups of students to work on words that may have similar characteristics but are not already a part of our sorts.  We will conclude our study each week (or set of days) with a test on the words that were sent home.  As always if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call or email!