What evil troll came up with WORD STUDY as a way to learn spelling words?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our children's school word study is the actual study of the way word sounds are made and put together. They would take a bunch of words with the same letter groupings and sort them by the different sounds. Or vice versa (like the long "a" sound week, they might study words that have "eigh" "ay" and "a-e"). There were no games without purpose. I'm sorry they have your child doing all that!

can you explain a little more?

[Anonymous]

The only thing worse is Wordly Wise. We have both this year in 4th. Hate!

[Anonymous]

English major and mother of three FCPS ES students. I abhor Word Study. I consider it a waste of time and truly ineffective.

I have three terrible spellers who resist my attempts to simply study their spelling words the way I did; memorize, continue to read widely and learn the definitions.

It seems that teachers today are bogged down with teaching methodologies and are moving too far away from the mechanics of literacy.

I am grateful for my own elementary school education in a depressed rural area. My school had no extra resources but was equipped with engaging, semi-strict teachers who made us memorize spelling lists and be able to use each word in a sentence of our creation. Same school insisted in cursive writing and lessons in spelling would integrate writing spelling words in cursive. Win-win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our children's school word study is the actual study of the way word sounds are made and put together. They would take a bunch of words with the same letter groupings and sort them by the different sounds. Or vice versa (like the long "a" sound week, they might study words that have "eigh" "ay" and "a-e"). There were no games without purpose. I'm sorry they have your child doing all that!

can you explain a little more?

There are two main possibilities for they list. One would be similar sounds, and they would sort notecards into piles based on the patterns. So for the sound I mentioned above, the words might be eight, neigh, hate, hay, pray, abate. Sort into groups, noticing the same sound can be made with several letter combinations.

The other approach would be the same letter combination making different sounds. An example of the list that week might be abbey, convey, hey, alley. Several words containing "ey" but two different sounds, depending on the word

[Anonymous]

It's only week 2 but it sounds like what my 3rd grader is doing. I thought it made sense - 1 day was just writing the words; one was writing sentences using the words; one was solvijg a crossword puzzle with the words; one was solvijg scrambled words; I know they sorted at school. Most of the homework sheets only took about 5-10 minutes. Is that what you were talking about? I don't get why it is so bad though.

[Anonymous]

Where is this done?

[Anonymous]

We've been doing it since K or 1. We are now in 4th and I haven't seen any spelling yet. Fingers crossed we aren't gluing in "sorts" again this year. It has been a horrible way for my DD to learn to spell. I can see how it could work for some kids - train wreck for mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only thing worse is Wordly Wise. We have both this year in 4th. Hate!

HATE WORDLY WISE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am grateful for my own elementary school education in a depressed rural area. My school had no extra resources but was equipped with engaging, semi-strict teachers who made us memorize spelling lists and be able to use each word in a sentence of our creation. Same school insisted in cursive writing and lessons in spelling would integrate writing spelling words in cursive. Win-win.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my father.

Him: I can spell, because I took Latin.
Me: I didn't take Latin, and I can spell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:English major and mother of three FCPS ES students. I abhor Word Study. I consider it a waste of time and truly ineffective.

I have three terrible spellers who resist my attempts to simply study their spelling words the way I did; memorize, continue to read widely and learn the definitions.

It seems that teachers today are bogged down with teaching methodologies and are moving too far away from the mechanics of literacy.

I am grateful for my own elementary school education in a depressed rural area. My school had no extra resources but was equipped with engaging, semi-strict teachers who made us memorize spelling lists and be able to use each word in a sentence of our creation. Same school insisted in cursive writing and lessons in spelling would integrate writing spelling words in cursive. Win-win.

But you just said what worked for you does not work for your three kids.

[Anonymous]

English major and mother of three FCPS ES students. I abhor Word Study. I consider it a waste of time and truly ineffective.

I have three terrible spellers who resist my attempts to simply study their spelling words the way I did; memorize, continue to read widely and learn the definitions.

It seems that teachers today are bogged down with teaching methodologies and are moving too far away from the mechanics of literacy.

I am grateful for my own elementary school education in a depressed rural area. My school had no extra resources but was equipped with engaging, semi-strict teachers who made us memorize spelling lists and be able to use each word in a sentence of our creation. Same school insisted in cursive writing and lessons in spelling would integrate writing spelling words in cursive. Win-win.


But you just said what worked for you does not work for your three kids.

Not the PP. I don't think she said that it doesn't work for her kids; she said that they resist her attempts to get them to study a different way. I can relate to this because my own child believes that I know nothing and that the teacher knows everything. He resists my attempts to show him other ways of doing things because "that's not the way we're supposed to learn it". Maybe you have not experienced this with your kid, but I think it's very common.

[Anonymous]

It seems that teachers today are bogged down with teaching methodologies and are moving too far away from the mechanics of literacy.

I am a teacher and I agree with your assessment 100%. The teacher is not encouraged to see the bigger picture in terms of the reading and writing process. The problem is that that kind of emphasis doesn't sell discrete item practice workbooks that lead to measurable test items (which sells standardized tests). The whole thing has gotten out of control.

The things that cannot be measured easily are the most important things . . . in school and in life.

[Anonymous]

I find out at back to school night or ask my child what is the penalty for not turning in homework. Except for one teacher, there was no penalty except some type of "needs improvement" homework grade on the report card. I have my son take a pretest and if he gets 100% I don't make him do any of the spelling homework. Whatever he misses then he only studies those one or two words. Over summer break I have him do a spelling program called All About Spelling, which actually breaks down words and teaches rules about spelling instead of getting random spelling words. He learned before first grade that words in English (except for rare exceptions) don't end in i,j, u or v. He mentioned it to his first grade teacher who was amazed. She commented after school to me one day that my son had said that and she hadn't ever thought of it. The problem is that many teachers never learned how to systematically spell words and don't know spelling rules.

[Anonymous]

I find word study to be a way more useful way to teach spelling (as opposed to outright memorization). My DS's 2nd grade teacher did an excellent job with it...we will see what 3rd grade holds. Grouping words with similar characteristics really makes sense to me (and my son) and does teach more about phonics and how letter combinations work. I was terrible at spelling as a child because I just can't memorize - I need a reason to remember or some piece of knowledge to link the new word to....which word study seems to provide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find out at back to school night or ask my child what is the penalty for not turning in homework. Except for one teacher, there was no penalty except some type of "needs improvement" homework grade on the report card. I have my son take a pretest and if he gets 100% I don't make him do any of the spelling homework. Whatever he misses then he only studies those one or two words. Over summer break I have him do a spelling program called All About Spelling, which actually breaks down words and teaches rules about spelling instead of getting random spelling words. He learned before first grade that words in English (except for rare exceptions) don't end in i,j, u or v. He mentioned it to his first grade teacher who was amazed. She commented after school to me one day that my son had said that and she hadn't ever thought of it. The problem is that many teachers never learned how to systematically spell words and don't know spelling rules.

Just looked up All About Spelling. Looks like a fabulous and very comprehensive spelling program.