Transcript Chapter Nine

Spelling and Handwriting in
the Language Arts Classroom
Chapter 9
Why teach spelling and
penmanship?
Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation
demand the most difficult constant
attention of all the language arts.
 The ratio of time students spend speaking
and listening is three times greater than the
time spent writing. There is less time to
learn spelling, capitalization, and
punctuation.

Children receive criticism for invented
spelling.
 Students do not learn to self-initiate their
own editing.
 Words in the English language are difficult
to spell.
– No one-to-one relationship between
phonemes and graphemes

– Few spellings have unique sounds
– There are 500 different letter
combinations.
 Spelling and writing conventions have been
altered by changes form Old and Middle to
Modern English.
 75% of the new words added to our
language are borrowed from other
languages and the spellings are foreign.
 Positioning is important in spelling and
handwriting.
Stages in Spelling
Development
Precommunicative
 Early Phonetic Spelling
 Phonetic or Letter Name
 Transitional
 Correct Spelling
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How to Teach Spelling,
Capitalization, and
Punctuation

Invented spelling and creative conventions
– Valuable stage in writing development
– Written the way they sound, the way they
make sense, or the way they look.
– Allows higher ordered thinking
– Develop a deeper understanding of
English orthography and writing
principles.
– Quality of writing increases

Modified textbook approach
– pretest
– correct their own tests to get immediate
feedback
– Use no more than 12-15 minutes
– Use more than one grade level
– Have students add words
– Use words that were misspelled in
writings
– Use theme words
– Group for similar problems
– Can work at own pace
 Basic word list instruction
– divide 3,000 most frequently used words
into lists
– one hour of instruction

Learning to spell during the editing stage of
writing
– minilessons
– disappearing lists
– wheel of fortune spelling
– Friday-Is-Game-Day
– Look, say, cover, and write
– Word families
– Discovering famous author’s use of
conventions
How to teach handwriting
The need for legible handwriting has
increased
 Principles
– model visually and ask them to say letter
strokes
– Make sure students are ready physically
and give proper instructions
– One-to-one instruction to alter errors
– Cross our errors
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Manuscript
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Requires less small
muscle coordination
Looks like typeset
Teach lowercase then
uppercase
Teach by type of
stroke family

Activities
– Verbalize what you
are doing and then
have them verbalize
as they write.
– Trace letters in the
air
– Chalkboard
– Model on desk
– Variety of writing
tools
Cursive Writing
Strokes of looping, retracing, rounding, and
closing are taught separately.
 Teach less complicated letters first
 Use short words, then go to longer
 Teach proper pencil grip, correct paper
placement, and correct posture

Left handed writers
Hand preference makes no difference in
level of success in life.
 They push the pencil rather than pull it.
 Alter the way they hold pencil, the position
of the paper, and how they form letters
 Grippers help

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Calligraphy is fun to learn.
How to improve penmanship
Practice downstrokes, upstrokes , circles
and slants in cursive writing.
 One-story, two-story and basement letters
 Assess for problems and remediate

Teaching Spelling demons
and Writing conventions
Post a Spelling Demon chart
 Use configuration
 Use class writing samples
 Cartoon strips with capital letters and
punctuation whited out
 Editing committee spelling rules chart
 Explore how punctuation mark began
 Audible Punctuation system
 Computer software
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Building punctuation and
capitalization skills
This should rise in importance during the
editing and revising
 Myths, legends, folktales, and proverbs
develop these skills because these stories
have a wide variety of punctuation.
 Historical fiction
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Helping Multicultural Children
Put pictures or write word in first language
beside it
 Teach survival words
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Self-Assessment of Editng
and Small Group Discussions
Helpful for students to evaluate the
strategies discussed
 Especially valuable in editing during
writing and after discussions
 Write annotations to attach to their grade
card
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Technical support
Hypertext computerized way of linking
information
 HyperCard-supports hypertext
 Enables immediate cross-referencing, help,
support, and shifts in approaches to a topic
to meet student’s purposes and pursuits
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Teaching word patterns
– Word Wizard
– Use morphemes to help spelling
– teach related words
Spelling journals
Identify words that they misspelled- 3 to 5 a
week
 Use for spelling assessment
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Taking spelling home
Select one difficult word to learn and teach
their parents. Create mnemonic device to go
with it.
 Parents suggest words that are difficult for
them.
 Make a spelling demon list
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