Want to Improve Your Students' Spelling?
Start with the words they are already misspelling.
We teachers are hit with epiphanies all the time. For me, they normally wake me in the middle of the night. However, the idea for "Personal Spelling Words" came to me after teaching 9th Grade Honors English for a couple years. I found my students could spell the "hard" words, but frequently misspelled common words. For example, I live in Etowah County. I was really surprised how many of my students couldn't even spell "Etowah," and don't get me start on homonyms.
I still remember the moment I told myself an intervention was necessary. I had a super smart student who had turned in an essay about a trip she'd taken. She wrote about her heavy "soupcases" and her "balleyball" game. When we met in conference to review her paper, she was shocked (almost argumentative) when I told her the correct spelling was "suitcases" and "volleyball." In fifteen years of education, no one had told her otherwise. I vowed to myself right then and there that I would send my students to the next grade much better spellers.
Starting the next week, I gave my students a
blank spelling log. I told them that every time I
corrected a misspelled word on ANY assignment
(not just essays), they were to add it immediately to
their personal spelling log (noting the
wrong spelling, the correct spelling, and the piece of work).
Each grading period (9 weeks) has its own color, so we can note the progress in their portfolios over the course of a year. At the end of the grading period, I test them on their OWN misspelled words. They are tested on 20 words, and for those who didn't have 20 of their own misspelled words, they were given "Frequently Misspelled Words" to add to their logs.
For example, if a student only had 11 words on his personal log, he'd add 9 more from the list to give him 20. Notice the bonus words too; those were always a hit - I'd say 75% of my students chose to learn them.
You're probably asking, "How in the heck did she test 160+ kids with an individual list of spelling words?" Simple. I partnered them with another student, who called out the words, and then, they swapped. I had a very strict protocol about how to do it. I always shared this PowerPoint of instructions, leaving the last slide on the screen as a checklist. The beauty of partnering students is that they learn and are accountable for each other's words.
I do go a little "old school" with these words. Students must write them 10 times each prior to testing. If they miss them again on the test, they write them 20 times each, as well as add them to the next grading period's log.