Differentiated Spelling

Aloha friends! I hope this post finds you healthy and happy. I know these winter months you catch those bugs and it can bring you down!  There are a lot of teachers at my school that are out sick and I am doing my best to stay healthy.

Today I wanted to share how I run my spelling program in my classroom.

I don't have  a set curriculum, except the reading series that our school has had for over 10 years.  We use the Harcourt Trophies series, but it is not at all aligned to Common Core.

In this series there is a spelling program that is supposed to go along with the stories that your class reads weekly.  For years I used this spelling program because that is what all the other teachers did.  It was not kid friendly and didn't follow any particular order.  This is the list for one of the first stories in our series...

The skill is ed, but the kids can't even spell the root word!!  My great spellers had no problem and loved the challenging words, but I found that many of my students were just bombing the weekly tests and I felt so bad for them.  With many of my ELL students this was so hard.

How can you boost a child's self confidence if they fail their tests each week?

So I looked around to see what I could find and supplement on my own, but found nothing that I was happy with.  Many of my students needed some basic phonics skills, but what about the other students that already had those skills?

So I decided to create my own program.  I took the basic skills that kids need to know to succeed in spelling and created two sets of lists.

One a simple list that teaches a basic rule or skill, and a second list using this same rule, but using more challenging words. I also made each list only 10 words which I think is all they need at this age.

At the beginning of each week I give a pre-test.  I give the simple list of words.  If the students get a 90% or better on the Pre-Test then they get the challenge words.  If not they study the basic word list.

This first student needs some work with this skill

This student seems to have this skill down...

So I give each of them a different list to study for the week.  I tell them the first list is our regular second grade list that we all have to know.  If we don't know it, that's okay we are here to learn it.  If they already know it then I will give them the challenge list.

This really helps those kiddos that are struggling to feel better about having a different set of words, and my smarties feel so proud that they get the challenging words.

For homework each week I have the same assignments:

Monday- Write your words 3 times each
Tuesday-Write your words in ABC Order
Wednesday- Write 10 sentences using all of your spelling words
Thursday- Study for your Spelling Test

I simply have them glue the list into their Spelling Composition Book and they do all of the assignments in there each week.

Somebody needs to check their spelling on number 6...

On Fridays  I give the two different tests.  It takes a few minutes more, but...
the results are much more positive!!  No matter what list they have, if they get a passing score that's pretty great in my book!

So I wanted to share my program with you which is in my TpT store.

There are 34 lists for the year, and ideas and worksheets to go along with it.  I even have holiday word lists to add some fun.

Recently I had a request for just the worksheets and not the whole set of lists.  I know some of you have your own program that you love, but this packet could be used for any spelling program.  It has all of my homework sheets along with printables that could be used for enrichment or during center time.

 Some of the enrichment activities include, writing their words in another language, write synonyms for their words, and creating a word search.  There are lots of choices to keep your students challenged.

If this looks like it would be helpful to you hop on over to my TpT store and grab yourself a copy.

If you have a great spelling program that you use, I would love to hear all about it!!