Well I am coming to the end of the term and I am thinking about how my kids surface features are going. How engaged are they in their spelling learning. And How well can they identify what they can do and what they need to get better at.
The other night I had a terrible nightmare that the kids had not progressed at all and some had even gotten worse. It really shook me up for a couple of days. How Sad Is That!
Well The children are really enjoying their spelling lessons. See the attached videos of the kids.
Lexia gives the kids a clear phonics practise at the level they are at. They all enjoy working towards moving up levels. I have half of the class on Lexia now.
My beliefs on spelling education rely on 3 key learning approaches.
1) Spelling patterns/rules/phonics.
2) Knowledge of words, their meanings and the effective use of them in context.
3) The knowledge of spelling some words just needs to be rote learnt because their spelling is not phonetic or follows traditional rules. eg. science, lamb, knight.
Lexia is helping to reinforce the teaching I am doing with their groups. The results are also informing my practice. The higher achieving students who do not need as much rote learning to reinforce the phonics rules are creating instructional videos on their spelling rules or concepts. This means they need to synthesise what we do on the mat. The engagement around this is excellent. with the only problem being that 1/2 an hour a week isn't enough time on the mat to get work completed quickly. But the paperwork practise and application they do in the other sessions I think is still very valuable.
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