In response to the Reading Rockets article handed out in class last Thursday, and the word study activity packet, a new thought came to mind. I think the changing view of spelling more as a word study correlates more with the common core's focus on critical thinking, and coming from a science standpoint, patterns and careful observation are key to success. This simple way of structuring spelling opens us students to more success in the traditionally "tougher" subjects like math and science. I have found in my own classroom that when I start math with a story, or a mini-story I came up with that has catchy lines and pictures, success is so much greater. My first graders light up when we are learning about math and they see a double consonant, or we are getting water at the water fountain and they see a sight word on a bulletin board. Those moments make me so thankful I am in the teaching profession.
While reading the teaching strategies section of Reading Rockets I realized that so much of the study spelling has become, also correlates with reading comprehension. The skill my class is working on this week is categorizing and classifying in stories. By having kids read the room, search in books, and comparing/contrasting words, that critical eye is being trained. From the word study examples packet I learned that a great way to introduce this skill in guided reading is through the simple sorting of shoes, mittens, coats, buttons, bottle caps, legos, blocks, toys, and food. To me it is an abstract skill, but it does help in figuring out other higher-level skills like author's perspective, and point of view when you can put different details into categories. This again reinforces the idea that reading skills such as categorizing can directly connect to the skill of classifying in science.
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