Education Articles

Five Steps to Differentiating Spelling Instruction

Good teachers differentiate spelling instruction. They get outside of their spelling workbooks and challenge their students with un-mastered spelling patterns and words. But, how to differentiate spelling in a diverse classroom is the trick. Here is a classroom-tested plan that works with all grade levels.

1. Prepare

Select twenty grade-level spelling pattern words from either a spelling workbook, an encoding assessment that targets specific sound-spelling patterns, a spelling rules-based assessment, a list of commonly confused words, a list of non-phonetic outlaw words, or a list of high-frequency words. A visit to your educational bookstore or a quick web search should provide you with these resources for differentiating spelling.

2. Pre-test

Dictate the 15—20 words (depending upon grade level) in the traditional word-sentence-word format to all of your students. Have students self-correct from teacher dictation of letters in syllable chunks, marking dots below the correct letters, and marking an “X” through the numbers of any spelling errors. Even second graders can do this instructional activity!

3. Personalize

Students complete their own Personal Spelling List of 15—20 words (depending upon grade level) in this priority order:

Pretest Errors: Have the students copy up to ten of their pretest spelling errors onto their Personal Spelling List.

Posttest Errors: Have students add on up to five spelling errors from last week’s spelling posttest.

Writing Errors: Have students add on up to five teacher-corrected spelling errors found in student writing. Oops…this commits you to mark strategic spelling errors in your students’ writing—an essential component of improving student spelling.

Supplemental Spelling Lists for Differentiating Spelling:
Outlaw Words
High Frequency Spelling Words
Most Often Misspelled Words
Commonly Confused Words (Homonyms)

But, how do the students select the right words from the supplemental lists?

Parents can be integral partners in helping their children select appropriate words for the Personal Spelling List. After completing the weekly Personal Spelling List, the student must secure a parent signature on the list to verify that each of the selected words is an unknown spelling for the student. This is to prevent students from writing down words already part of the student’s conventional spelling word bank.

Early in the school year it is a good idea to send home a parent letter explaining the role of the parent in differentiating spelling instruction. Parents can pretest their son or daughter on the words from the appendices a little at a time to determine which words are un-mastered and need to be included as part of the weekly Personal Spelling List. For those parents who will not complete the pre-assessments, the teacher can have a parent, instructional aide, or another student complete the pretests.

4. Practice

Students practice their weekly spelling words on the Personal Spelling List by writing context clue sentences or short stories, using each of the spelling words. Spelling sorts by identifiable patterns provide wonderful practice. Suggest vowel sound, number of syllables, alphabetical order, parts of speech, words with prefixes, words with suffixes, words with base words as sorting criteria.

5. Post-test

Students take out a piece of binder paper and find a partner to exchange dictation of the Personal Spelling List words. Have one student complete the entire dictation of the list prior to having the other student dictate. But, you may be thinking…what if they cheat? For the few who cheat…It would be a shame to stop differentiating spelling instruction for the many to cater to a few. Truly, they are only cheating themselves. After completing the spelling posttest, students turn in their post-tests for the teacher to grade.

Advice for Teachers: How to Discipline Without Stress, Punishment or Rewards

Young people today come to school with a different orientation than past generations. Traditional student disciplining approaches are no longer successful for far too many young people. For example, a parent related the following to me after a discussion of how society and youth have changed in recent generations:

The other day, my teenage daughter was eating in a rather slovenly manner, and I lightly tapped her on the wrist saying, "Don't eat that way."

My daughter replied, "Don't abuse me."

The mother had grown up in the 1960s and volunteered the point that her generation tested authority but most were really afraid to step out of bounds. She related that her daughter was a good child and added, "But the kids today not only disrespect authority, they have no fear of it."

And, because of rights for young children—which we should have—it's hard to instill that fear without others claiming abuse.

So, how can we discipline students, so we as teachers can do our jobs and teach these young children who refuse to learn?

In many cases we resort to punishment as a strategy for motivation. For example, students who are assigned detention and who fail to show are punished with more detention. But in my questioning about the use of detention in hundreds of workshops around the country, teachers rarely suggest detention is actually effective in changing behavior.

Why detention is an ineffective form of punishment

When students are not afraid, punishment loses its effectiveness. Go ahead give the student more detention that he simply won't show up to.

This negative, coercive discipline and punishment approach is based on the belief that it is necessary to cause suffering to teach. It's like you need to hurt in order to instruct. The fact of the matter, however, is that people learn better when they feel better, not when they feel worse.

Remember, if punishment were effective in reducing inappropriate behavior, then there would be NO discipline problems in schools.

The irony of punishment is that the more you use it to control your students' behaviors, the less real influence you have over them. This is because coercion breeds resentment. In addition, if students behave because they are forced to behave, the teacher has not really succeeded. Students should behave because they want to—not because they have to in order to avoid punishment.

People are not changed by other people. People can be coerced into temporary compliance. But internal motivation—where people want to change—is more lasting and effective. Coercion, as in punishment, is not a lasting change agent. Once the punishment is over, the student feels free and clear. The way to influence people toward internal rather than external motivation is through positive, non-coercive interaction.

Here's how...

7 Things GREAT Teachers Know, Understand, and Do to Motivate Students to Learn Without Using Punishments or Rewards.

1. Great teachers understand that they are in the relationship business. Many students—especially those in low socio-economic areas—put forth little effort if they have negative feelings about their teachers. Superior teachers establish good relationships AND have high expectations.

2. Great teachers communicate and discipline in positive ways. They let their students know what they want them to do, rather than by telling students what NOT to do.

3. Great teachers inspire rather than coerce. They aim at promoting responsibility rather than obedience. They know that OBEDIENCE DOES NOT CREATE DESIRE.

4. Great teachers identify the reason that a lesson is being taught and then share it with their students. These teachers inspire their students through curiosity, challenge, and relevancy.

5. Great teachers improve skills that prompt students to WANT to behave responsibly and WANT to put effort into their learning.

6. Great teachers have an open mindset. They REFLECT so that if a lesson needs improvement they look to themselves to change BEFORE they expect their students to change.

7. Great teachers know education is about motivation.

Unfortunately, today's educational establishment still has a 20th century mindset that focuses on EXTERNAL APPROACHES to increase motivation. An example of the fallacy of this approach is the defunct self-esteem movement that used external approaches such as stickers and praise in attempts to make people happy and feel good. What was overlooked was the simple universal truth that people develop positive self-talk and self-esteem through the successes of THEIR OWN EFFORTS.

If you follow the advice above and in my book "Discipline without Stress, Punishments or Rewards" and you will promote education and social responsibility in a positive learning environment.