What Good Spellers Do
Good spellers have a variety of strategies that they use automatically when they are writing a word they don’t know how to spell. We can teach the strategies used by proficient spellers to all of our students. Consider posting a chart labeled “What Good Spellers Do” in the classroom. Add one or two strategies at a time. Model the use of these strategies during shared, interactive, and modeled writing lessons. (Fountas and Pinnell, 1998)
Good spellers:
- Look for patterns
- Look for word parts
- Try several ways to write a word
- Write sounds in words
- Write a vowel in each word and in each syllable
- Think about words that sound the same
- Think about words that look the same
- Check to see if words look right
- Think about what words mean
- Practice words
- Use a dictionary to check
- Use a computer spell check
- Look for words in the classroom
Tags: Spelling Strategies, Word Study