how we do spelling in room 10

Spelling words correctly on a spelling test is nice but often not meaningful in real life because these skills are not carried through in daily writing. For example, does your dad have to take a spelling test at work every week? Of course not! LOL!

Learning to spell words correctly during daily writing at school and in life is an extremely valuable and important skill!! 

With this in mind, spelling grades (part of the language grade on the report card) will be based in large part on whether students are spelling high frequency words correctly on their daily written work.

To help encourage this skill, the spelling list each week will be chosen based on high-usage words. Students will benefit more from learning to spell these high frequency words (e.g. different, unusual) than from learning random, not often used words (e.g. ballerina, excavate) that may on the surface seem more difficult. 

PLEASE NOTE:

Weekly spelling words are referred to as “No Excuse” words. Once these words are assigned as spelling words, all students will be accountable to spell them correctly at all times for the remainder of the year. We will start out slow, and, as the year progresses, the list will grow. Spelling tests will be the week’s new words.

The complete list of “No Excuse” words  will be kept in the students’ binders. This is provided as a reference to use at home when doing homework. Emphasizing the importance of using this list and spelling these words correctly even when working at home, will help your child see this as something important.

As No Excuse words are assigned each week, students will highlight the words in the complete list. That way you will be able to easily tell which words s/he are going to be held accountable for the rest of the year.

Students are also expected to spell below 4th grade level words correctly (called “easy” words).

All students are also expected to spell difficult words correctly IF all they need to do is COPY it correctly from a provided resource.

Research has shown that the most important words to know how to spell are high frequency words. For example, even though there may be times that we will need to know how to spell difficult words such as “admonishment” or “systematic,” most of the time we will be writing common words such as “because,” “work,” and “school.” Below I have posted the top 1000 words people write based on high frequency that was carefully researched. The words are actually listed in frequency order.

Percentage of the 1000 high frequency words used in adult writing:

First 8 words: 18% of all words used in writing

First 25 words: 33% of all words used in writing

First 100 words: 50% of all words used in writing

First 1000 words: 89% of all words used in writing