It's finally Friday! It felt like it was never going to get here this week! And we had crazy weather all day to top it off! As you head off into your weekend here's you Friend or Foe topic to ponder over...
Depending on what grade you teach, your students are expected to learn sight words, spelling words, vocabulary words, etc. Is this done in class, at home, or a mixture for you? I guess part of that could depend on your take on homework, but that's another topic for discussion on a different day! (Hint, hint come back Tuesday for that!)
When it comes to your spelling or vocabulary practice, do your students use them in classwork and practice them during class? Or are they expected to take the list home and practice them. Do you test at the end of the week? How do the parents respond to your methods?
I remember when I was in school, we were given 10-20 words that we were to memorize for the week. Then we came in on Friday and took the test. This year our son started spelling words, but the grade level team decided not to do lists and spelling tests this year. I'm still not sure how I feel about it though. For the majority of the year we didn't even know what words they were working on for the week and he never practiced them at home. I mean I can't say that I mind not having to get him ready for a test every Friday. Now they send home the list of words with the homework for the week and the students have to complete two given activities with the words. There's still no weekly tests that we know of.
So tell us, how do you do it? In class practice and/or at home? Weekly tests or not? If you don't test weekly, how do you monitor whether a student has mastered the given words for the week? We'd love to hear your experiences!
I hope everyone enjoys their weekend! We're headed to Atlanta tomorrow for a dance convention. Our little man keeps us busy!
~Steph
Hello! Newest follower here! :) I embed my weekly vocabulary words into my reading instruction...we use personal connections and activities to remember the definitions. It works out very well! :) As far as spelling, my class is split up into three spelling groups (based on Words Their Way inventories), and each child has 16 spelling words. Ten words are universal (the whole class has them), and six are group-specific. We have a certain pattern in the universal words each week (for example, the prefixes -tory and -some), and I review it every day with the students during phonics instruction. We go through those ten universal words frequently during the week, but I still have my students complete their spelling homework at home. They test on Friday! I also give out spelling lists for the upcoming week on Friday with my newsletter, and we pre-test on Monday - if a child gets a 100 on the pre-test, they're exempted for spelling homework/quiz for the rest of the week. I just rambled on and on to you, but that's how I do things in my classroom! :) Have a great week, and please check out my blog if you get a chance! :)
ReplyDeleteKelsey
http://growinggracefullyinthirdgrade.blogspot.com/
Thanks for following us! As we read this, we discussed how much we love these ideas! We love the idea of having universal words and group-specific words. We're curious what the connection is in the group-specific words and how you choose those. We also loved the idea of having a pre-test and allowing them to be exempt for the week if they make a 100. Headed over to check out your blog now! :)
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