Seems obvious to me but have been surprised recently how inaccurate lots of my students are when copying words and phrases from help sheets. Self-checking and peer-checking still produced writing with missing words and misspelt words so plan to try to do something about it. (Class teacher was in on my feedback to class, and she commented that the same is true for many of them when writing English too so it was reassuring to know that it wasn't just for me.)
Class suggested we start doing spelling tests - good for them, I say – but since this is a Y6 class I definitely won’t be going down that road with them. Instead, I've decided to build in some targeted spelling practice in the lessons leading up to writing.
Spelling Triangles
Explanations and suggestions from Facebook colleagues here (closed group, ask to join if interested), and thanks to Linda Owen for kindly sharing a couple of her examples.
Standing Dictation
Class suggested we start doing spelling tests - good for them, I say – but since this is a Y6 class I definitely won’t be going down that road with them. Instead, I've decided to build in some targeted spelling practice in the lessons leading up to writing.
Spelling Triangles
I've used Spelling Triangles before and it's a novelty, as well as a practical way of building up words letter by letter. Target words/phrases are displayed on classroom board or IWB and children are asked to work on those which they find tricky. They build the word up one letter at a time with each row one letter longer than the previous one, forming a triangular shape. I remind them also to say each letter in their head as they write it. It looks like this:
Running Dictations
Running Dictations can also be used to practise words or longer chunks of text whilst being part of a team. For an explanation see this post.
My suggestion would be for a list of numbered sentences (numbered so they can remember which ones their group has already done,) which get progressively longer/more difficult to remember to give students an appropriate amount of challenge. Students do not do the sentences in order but rather pick one that they think they'll remember or one which carries the number of points they want to aim for. Shorter sentences could earn 5 points, rising to 10 for middle-range sentences and 20 for the few long ones. The teacher circulates, indicating any errors, and one of the students needs to go back to the list and try to mentally compare what is written on their group board with what's on the wall.
My suggestion would be for a list of numbered sentences (numbered so they can remember which ones their group has already done,) which get progressively longer/more difficult to remember to give students an appropriate amount of challenge. Students do not do the sentences in order but rather pick one that they think they'll remember or one which carries the number of points they want to aim for. Shorter sentences could earn 5 points, rising to 10 for middle-range sentences and 20 for the few long ones. The teacher circulates, indicating any errors, and one of the students needs to go back to the list and try to mentally compare what is written on their group board with what's on the wall.
Explanations and suggestions from Facebook colleagues here (closed group, ask to join if interested), and thanks to Linda Owen for kindly sharing a couple of her examples.
I've come up with an individual competitive dictation game which I call Standing Dictation. I've used it in the classroom and students seemed to like it. We worked on the words as a whole class, reading them, breaking them down into syllables, and reflecting on phonemes and silent letters. Next came the game. Each child, armed with a whiteboard and pen, stood up at their desks. I called out words, first the whole word, then syllable by syllable, then the whole word again, with the children writing the word in big letters on their boards. They had to keep it secret until I asked them to show it to me. I then called out the word again and showed them the word card. They had to check their own word against the correct version as well as check their partner's. Those who got it right could stay standing and anyone who got it wrong had to sit down again. The game continues in this way for as long as you want or until you've got a small group of spelling champions. Those who are out, continue spelling while seated and you could add a twist by letting them join the ‘standers’ again if they manage to get a couple of words in succession right.
I hope that by incorporating some of these activities into our lessons, the students will become better at noticing the sequence of letters which make up words.