![]() ![]() When the kids finish or hopefully ace a list, we start right in on the next one. The pronunciation of the words often occurs on Thursday or Friday of the week preceding the test. We follow a normal Monday through Friday spelling cycle, but we can buy our kids an extra correct word or two just by getting an early start. One of the things we often do to help our kids is to try to encourage them and their parents to begin studying the list over the weekend. I must quickly add that I’ve seen some amazing exceptions where kids do accurately spell from memory a list memorized in order that they don’t have a clue as to how to read! If they can’t read them, it’s difficult for them to spell them. Often, the problem with spelling and disabled learners isn’t spelling, but a reading problem. We begin with making sure the student can pronounce all of their spelling words for the week. Gee, it’s sorta thrilling to know your computer handiwork adorns refrigerator doors all over a two county area! We also generate six-week and semester lists to go home to mom and dad. We also staple them to less-than-perfect practice tests and assignment notebooks. We cut many, many copies of the basic list and refer to them as “strip lists.” The kids are always free to come into the room and get one or more of their list. The file server also runs Retrospect backups three times a week.Īm I paranoid about data loss? You betcha! Been there, done that! I also frequently back up to the 7500/G3’s hard drive, the 8550 Mac file server, and my Beige G3 minitower at home. I keep all the current spelling stuff on a Zip disk that I would protect with my life. Using items generated in previous years is an absolute lifesaver. The list at right only includes the lists where we give the actual test, but we also currently generate lists for Saxon Phonics lists at second grade and Silver-Burdett & Ginn on the fifth and sixth grade level. It’s needed to cut and paste into other documents, for text-to-speech pronunciation practice, and is an easy way to arrange words your way for later modification (I think the current legal word is “accommodations”) to a shorter list. The roll-your-own program starts with a basic list in AppleWorks. Frequent reader Joe Taylor once wrote, “You have also reinforced my suspicion that Steck Vaughn can be found in special ed classrooms all across America.” I also found the Dolch lists to be a great review for my regular ed third grade summer schoolers a few years ago. Two years ago, the elementary special ed teachers all gravitated to the Steck-Vaughn 1996 spelling release, which has considerably eased reading (and materials construction) demands. At one point, we almost totally replaced basil texts with non-graded lists from the Project Read program, the old SRA Basic Read Series (SRA:BRS), and Dolch lists. About the time we had our materials pretty well complete, our school shifted its adopted text to the spelling component of the 1996 Silver-Burdett & Ginn World of Language program. We started the project with the nineteen-eighty-something (very old) Scott Foresman program. Our choice for spelling lists has varied over the last six years. The goal was to get every child at or close to an “A” in spelling! Whether through superior intuition or just plain dumb luck (I’d personally vote for the latter – every time), we hit upon creating a spelling program that in the beginning followed the regular classroom spelling lists, but used special, limited reading activities. ![]() When I taught regular ed, I often found many of the students had difficulty with copying as well. The textbook exercises were too difficult for the kids to read or required copying the exercises from the book, which, by definition, my kids aren’t very good at. We also faced a problem with commercial spelling programs (adopted texts). Over the years I’ve found this to frequently be the case, whether dealing with special learners or the general education population. Most of our students had extremely limited reading skills but seemed capable – if we could just get them going. 1999 – In the dark days when we had practically no budget and seemingly unlimited kids in our special education classroom, we saw the need for a “sure thing” self-image builder to get the kids to believe in themselves again and give us a good effort. ![]()
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