As one of the literacy specialists for my K-6 school, I coordinate the Words Their Way program, making sure teachers have the materials they need and answering questions for teachers and parents. Teachers usually have about 3 groups of students in WTW, usually divided between 3 stages. Typically, a classroom has 1 or 2 children significantly below most others, and they are often children served by EC. Teachers manage the three groups in a variety of ways, the most popular is having students 'begin' a new sort on different days. The blue group might be working in the Within Word Patterns level and be introduced to a new sort on Monday, the yellow group gets introduced their new list on Tuesday, etc. Thus works fine if a schedule is developed and stuck to AND you train parents that not all spelling happens on Monday and Friday. One teacher has a 20 minute word block that she is faithful to (to which she is faithful!). She works with 2 groups each day: the lowest group and one of the other 2 groups. Some teachers have paired students for quizzes with a consistent word study buddy. One week student A has a quiz given by student B, the next week student a gives Student B a quiz. That still gives these teachers several 'grades' for spelling: c. 4 weekly qizzes a 9-week grading period, plus other 'grades' for word hunts, homework, spelling editing in Writer's Workshop, etc. Some teachers have asked the EC teacher serving their child to manage spelling for that child and that has worked for some. We are flexible, as long as the child is having words appropriate to their spelling level; lists are reduced for some students. Our AIG teacher does spelling/vocabulary with her students and that helps the homeroom teacher limit number of groups to some extent also. THe AIG teacher was happy to see the addition of a WTW Vocabulary Book for Derivational Stage middle school age students. Occasionally a few teachers stray from WTW-e.g. when reviewing for state testing I have noticed some 'spelling' lists that look just like a geometry vocabulary list or a list of literary terms! Some teachers use Spelling City as a homeowrk/practice site and you can find many of the WTW sorts already saved and available for sharing. Tammy Hutchinson, NBCT Literacy Specialist, Westwood ES, NC _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org.
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