Wait, I Need an Assessment?

Don't worry, I've got one for you. As a matter of fact, I have two spelling tests, which are both included in this resource.

The first covers initial consonants, final consonants, short vowels, digraphs, and blends. The second covers silent e, vowel teams, diphthongs, r-controlled vowels, and endings. The purpose is to give the second assessment to students who are clearly beyond blends without intimidating those that are not ready.

Read Still Looking for the Right Spelling Assessment to learn more.

Now What?

OK, so now you've given this test and you're wondering, “Now what?” I'll tell you what. And it will be life altering. Not you've won-the-lottery-jackpot life altering, but “oh, this is helpful” life altering.

Score the Assessment

First of all, look over each student's assessment and begin scoring. Chances are your assessment will have a scoring sheet and it might have labels for the levels your students fall into, which is fine. But I have an alternative way to label the levels.

Spelling Levels

Now that you've looked over the spelling tests, you've probably noticed that there are varying levels of spelling within you class. You're likely to have students who write the initial and/or final consonant, students who are able to write CVC words, students that know digraph sounds, and so on.

Let me tell you, I love color coding so it will come as no surprise that I use colors to label spelling levels. The levels that make most sense to me and many teachers are the following:

• beginning and final consonant
• short vowels (CVC)
• digraphs
• blends
• silent e (CVCe)
• vowel teams
• diphthongs
• r-controlled vowels

Once the assessments are scored, make decisions about each student. Think about the spelling errors you noticed and place students in the group that would be most beneficial.

For example, if Sam spelled all of the CVC words correctly, spelled all but one word with digraphs correctly, but missed all of the blends, Sam would fall into the blends category. You might make a note of which digraph needed reviewing, but your focus would be to work on blends with Sam. The beauty is that Sam won't be the only student in this group, so you can instruct more than one student at a time.

Here is a tool to help organize your data. Get it here.

Spelling and Writing

Now that you have this information in a spot that can be referenced easily, here's how you can use it to hold students and yourself accountable.

Let's say you're walking around the room as your students are writing and you notice Sam has misspelled ten and had, remind Sam that he knows the sounds in those words and to try again. But let's say Sam has spelled tower incorrectly, well that's OK. Not only is tower a two syllable word, but it also has a diphthong and an r-controlled vowel in it. Sam isn't there yet, but he can be held accountable for what he does know.

Phonics Instruction to Improve Spelling Assessment Data

Simply correcting students while writing isn't enough. We know that. Phonics is the key ingredient to tying reading and writing together.

If you're anything like me, differentiating your phonics instruction is just another thing on your already full teaching plate. However, it's also something your students need. So it occurred to me that having something that was ready to go would make my life easier, and yours too!

These small group phonics lessons include sound fluency warm ups, decoding practice, sentence fluency, and spelling/encoding practice. Everything you need. Right here. In one spot. Read Ready-Made Phonics Lessons for Small Groups that Save You Time to learn more.

Spelling assessments/inventories/tests are a valuable tool in the classroom. They provide insights into your students' understanding of language and their progress in literacy. However, simply assessing students is only the first step. The real benefits come from analyzing and utilizing the information gained to inform instruction and support each student. So what are you waiting for? Get to analyzing!

The post Spelling Assessment K-2: What Do I Do Now? first appeared on Literacy Please.

Alphabetic Principle

The alphabetic principle is the understanding that written letter and letter combinations represent spoken sounds. An understanding of this principle is indicative of good phonics instruction.

The best way to build upon the principle is by introducing skills and building on those skills that were previously taught. For example, once you've instructed on short vowels, you would probably begin teaching digraphs. So the words you would have your students decode would include short vowels, but not long vowels since that had not been covered.

Phonics Instruction and the Alphabetic Principle

Decoding is an important piece of phonics instruction. For our students to truly understand why letters and letter combinations make specific sounds, they must understand the alphabetic principle.

Looking back at the word rainbow, students can see that the word has 7 letters. But with the alphabetic principle, they understand that it only has 5 sounds because the ai and ow make one sound each.

A great way to practice this skill is to use sound, or Elkonin, boxes. While a box may include more than one letter, those letters represent one sound.

Labeling Words

As students become familiar with the types of sounds they'll hear in words,—short vowels, long vowels, digraphs, blends, r-controlled vowels, vowel teams. . . — they can begin labeling the letter and letter combinations they find in words. The purpose is to keep your students aware of the various spelling patterns they'll come across in reading and writing.

Get your word labels in The Nook and keep building your students' understanding of the alphabetic principle.

The post Improve Your Students’ Understanding of the Alphabetic Principle first appeared on Literacy Please.