Teaching Tips
Spelling Lessons
The Question is:I am student teacher, teaching 3rd grade. I need help with my Spelling lessons. I have to be creative.
Yonaira R.
The Answer is: Have the students use their creativity and develop ways to enrich their spelling mastery of words. I had my 3rd graders several years ago, create their own spelling games to present and show their classmates how their games were played. These games were used for an entire month and each week the students would change the spelling game cards to accommodate our new list of words for the week. I had 4 to 5 students per month create spelling games, this allowed ample time for students to learn the game and spend time playing it as well. You would be surprised how much the creativity increased by the time I reached the last 4 to 5 students in my classroom.
I enjoyed using sport activities for increasing spelling word mastery. I would utilize the sport which dominated a particular season, like football. I created a football grid with both lines going the same direction. The left was the starting point and the right was the touchdown zone. The number of rows was determined by the number of students in the classroom and the number of groups I wanted. Therefore, I used 4 rows to indicate 4 teams with 5 players per team.
Now, I have 4 rows of lines that go left to right with a start line at the beginning and touchdown zone at the end. I used helmets for team markings and divided teams on a countoff method. I placed small line markings to represent yardage on each row line and all yardage markings were the same for each row.
start __/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/ touchdown!
Using a die, the students would determine which team goes first. Team rolls the die, a word is given and a student must spell the word to move. One yardage is taken if answered correctly or no movement if word is misspelled. The winner is determined based on which team makes the first touchdown.
If you want to elm inate the competition aspect, I've played the game where the class moves only one helmet and we determine how many minutes it will take us to reach the goal line. Also, students loved challenging me on several occasions. Therefore, the students were one team and I was the other. I would misspell a word occasionally to add drama or comic relief since some students would take the game seriously, too seriously at times. Plus, there were times when I would win, this would teach humility and how to accept defeat graciously.
This type of activity can be utilized with any sport, just think about which sport you'd like to use and allow the students to help you create the rest.
Finally, utilize the current games created for spelling word mastery. I've used games like Operation and the only additional element was that a student couldn't perform the task required until they spelled a word correctly. The regular game rules were used, just adding the spelling dimension changed the way the game was played.
Robert Winters
rwinters@dps61.org
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