Learning how to spell every word correctly can be a daunting task. Many times, students feel overwhelmed when it comes time to go back and correct spelling mistakes in their written work. This is why we, as future teachers, need to be sure that we approach spelling in a way that is not intimidating, We need to be sure that they know WHY they need to be able to spell correctly. The main reason that Wilde gives, is that students need to make sure that the person who is reading their work is easily able to understand the meaning, instead of going through and being confused because there are a lot of spelling mistakes. Wilde gives five strategies to help students learn spelling.

1. Placeholder spelling:  Writing down how YOU think the word sounds, even if you don't know how to spell it. For example, if the word was "breakfast:, a student might write "brekfest".

2.Human resources:  Asking another person how to spell a word.

3.Using textual resources: Go to a written text for the correct spelling, such as a dictionary.

4: Creating a print-rich environment: Classrooms need to have a lot of different texts and references. Such as "wall charts with words commonly used in writing",, charts of vocabulary words, thesaurus, different dictionaries, ect.

5.Generation, Monitoring, and Revision:  Students write down words, even if they don't know how to spell them, then they look back and see if the word looks like it is spelled correctly, and then they are able to go back and revise the words if they are misspelled.


I think that all of these strategies are helpful ideas, and ones that I will be sure to use in my classroom.

Crafting Writers Ch. 1-3, & 6

I think that an important thing to remember, as mentioned in the book, is that not every student is going to be able to take the instructions given to them, and just do an assignment, or a reading. Different students might need the instructions explained to them, because they understand something better when it is said to them than when it is written down.  Once the students know what they are supposed to do, ask them questions to get more details out of them,  and into their writing.

I remember being in elementary school, and using drawings to tell a story, and then we would use words to better explain what we drew. Everybody enjoyed doing this, and I think that it was a good way to introduce writing. The book suggests that the students should do exactly this. Draw and then write a story based on the drawing. I think that this is an excellent opportunity for the students to practice writing, and also have fun while they do it.

Coffee Shop Literacy Dig

Today, my group went to Borders Bookstore, where there is a Seattle's Best Coffee shop. There were a few things that I thought were interesting. Most of the people that were there were older, probably 30-50 or so. The majority of them were by themselves, and either on their laptops, or just sitting and reading.  The shop was set up in a corner of the store, kind of away from the books. It was pretty quiet, with just some light music playing in the background. My guess is that the people who were in the coffee shop part of the bookstore just wanted a place to go and have some coffee or a pastry while they relaxed in a quiet place, taking a little break from their day. It is possible that some of the people were annoyed by our group, since we had to talk to get out project done, and there was not much talking going on, besides from us.

I have ordered coffee from Starbucks before, so I knew most of the "lingo", but there was something that I found interesting about the sizes that you could get at Borders. Instead of ""short", "grande", or "venti" there is just "small", "medium", and "large". A few of the drinks had fancy names, such as "fruitkula", and "cremekula", but for the most part, it was easy to guess what each drink would be like.

All in all, I thought that this literacy dig was very interesting, because it shows how much literature can be found in the most random of places.

Blogging and Writing Experiences

Throughout my life, I have been required to both write in journals, and type on computers, expressing my thoughts and feelings about various things. When I was younger, I loved making up stories about monsters and puppies, but as I got older, writing in journals was just a hassle, and something that I would rather not do. I used to write in a diary on a weekly basis, up until I was about 14, but I got bored of it.

I do prefer typing on the computer to writing by hand, because I can get my thoughts down more quickly by typing them. But, in all honesty, I don't really like blogging any more than I like writing journals. But, I have had to do both off and on since I have been in school.