Assessing Orthographic Development
Words Their Way pp. 23–39
There is synchrony in the development of reading, writing, and spelling. Because of this synchrony, informal observations of what students do when they read and write provides information for planning word study instruction.
Daily observations of student writing reveal what students understand about words.
Look for What Students Know and what they Use But Confuse
Keep students' work to see progress of writing over time.
The Limitations of Writing Samples
Some students are anxious about the accuracy of their spelling and will only use words they know how to spell
Others will get help from resources in the room, such as word walls, dictionaries, and the person sitting nearby, and thus their writing may overestimate what they really know.
On the other hand, when students concentrate on getting their ideas on paper, they may not pay attention to spelling and make excessive errors.
Some students write freely with little concern about accuracy and need to be reminded to use what they know.
TIPS
Daily observations will help you to determine not only students’ orthographic knowledge but also their habits and dispositions.
Spelling is a conservative measure of what students know about words in general, so if students can spell a word, then we know they can read the word. It seldom works the other way around except in the emergent and early letter name stages, in which students might generate spellings they don’t know how to read
assessments should also include an informal qualitative spelling inventory administered two or three times a year.
Spelling inventories consist of lists of words specially chosen to represent a variety of spelling or phonics features at increasing levels of difficulty.
Using Inventories
Select a spelling inventory based on grade level and students’ achievement levels. Administer the inventory much as you would a traditional spelling test, but do not let students study the words in advance.
Analyze students’ spellings using a feature guide. This analysis will help you identify what orthographic features students know and what they are ready to study, as well as their approximate stage.
Organize groups using a classroom composite form and/or the spelling-by-stage classroom organization chart. These will help you plan instruction for developmental groups.
Monitor overall progress by using the same inventory two or three times a year. Weekly spelling tests and unit spell checks will also help you assess students’ mastery of the orthographic features they study, and are excellent tools to monitor progress.
Selecting an Inventory
Primary Spelling Inventory (PSI)
consists of a list of 26 words that begins with simple CVC words (fan, pet) and ends with inflectional endings (clapping, riding). It is recommended for kindergarten through early third grade because it assesses features found from the emergent stage through the within word pattern stage.
Elementary Spelling Inventory (ESI)
is a list of 25 increasingly difficult words that begins with bed and ends with opposition. The ESI can be used in grades 1 through 6 to identify students up to the derivational relations stage. If a school or school system wants to use the same inventory throughout the elementary grades to track growth over time, this inventory is a good choice, but we especially recommend this inventory for grades 3 through 5. By third grade, most students can try all 25 words but be ready to discontinue testing for students who are visibly frustrated or misspell five in a row. Students who spell more than 18 words correctly should be given the Upper-Level Spelling Inventory.
Upper-Level Spelling Inventory (USI)
consists of a list of 31 words, arranged in order of difficulty from switch to succession. It can be used with students in upper elementary to college. List words were chosen because they help identify—more specifically than the ESI—what students in the syllables and affixes and derivational relations stages are doing in their spelling.
Preparing Students for the Spelling Inventory
Create a Relaxed Atmosphere
Explain the Purpose
Copying
Some students will try to copy if they feel especially concerned about doing well on a test. Creating a relaxed atmosphere with the explanation suggested earlier can help overcome some of the stress students feel. Arrange seating to minimize the risk of copying or hand out cover sheets. There will be many opportunities to collect corroborating information, so there is no reason to be upset if primary students copy. If it is clear that a student has copied, make a note to this effect after collecting the papers and administer the inventory individually at another time.
Talk about spelling: Begin a discussion by saying something like, “We are going to do a lot of writing this year. When we want to write a word and we don’t know how to spell it what can we do?” Students might respond with, “Ask the teacher, ask someone else, use the word wall, or use another word.” If no one suggests the strategy of listening for the sounds, bring it up: “You can say the words slowly and listen for the sounds. Do you ever do that? Let’s practice.”
Spell some words together: Say, “Let’s try spelling some words by listening for the sounds. Who has a word they want to spell?” A student might suggest something like turtle. The teacher can then respond, “That’s a good one. Let’s say it slowly and stretch out the sounds. Turtle has two syllables: turrr – till. What is the sound at the beginning of turtle? What letter do we need to spell that /t/ sound? Continue to stretch out the word and listen for more sounds. Depending on the level of the group you might generate a range of possible spellings: TL, TRTL, TERTL, and TERTUL. Write down what the children come up with.
Spell it the best you can: Explain, “This is not the way you would see turtle spelled in a book, but it has some of the right letters. In kindergarten (or __ grade) it is okay to spell the best you can. Sometimes all you can do is start with the sound at the beginning and write the first letter, but you are getting practice in spelling! At the end of the year you will be surprised by how much more you can write.” Repeat this exercise several times or when you feel it is needed.
If students criticize each other: Occasionally a student might be critical about another student’s attempt: “That’s not right.” Handle this firmly and say something like, “The important thing is that you have written down the word you need and spelled it the best you can. You and I can read it. Later you will learn how to spell it correctly, but for now this is a good try.”
Letter reversals or static reversals, such as writing b as d, are not unusual for young spellers. Reversals should be noted and there is a space in the boxes of the feature analysis to record them but they are not considered spelling errors.
kinetic reversals when the letters are present but out of order.
Some students are out of synchrony in their development, such as the student who is notoriously poor at spelling but is a capable reader. When there is a mismatch between reading and spelling development, you can help improve spelling and obtain synchrony by pinpointing the stage of spelling development and then providing instruction that addresses the student’s needs.
Words Their Way pp. 317–329
Ways to Assess
Ask students to spell the words studied that week. This works well for endings such as -ion, -ible/-able, and -ence/-ance, in which sound is not a clue.
Ask students to both spell and define words; definitions should be in their own words.
Give students a base word and ask them to add suffixes, such as adding -ion to words like separate (separation), invade (invasion), and commit (commission). Use words that they have not sorted to test for understanding of generalizations.
Ask students to generate words given a prefix, suffix, or root. For example, the root tract should yield words like attract, traction, and perhaps tractor.
Ask students to generate a related word in which a consonant or vowel sound is heard. For example, “There is a silent letter in moisten. Write a related word in which you can hear the sound of the letter.” (moist)
Ask students to match elements to meaning, such as matching hyper- and hypo- to the meanings “over” and “under.”
Ask students to spell a word and then underline a prefix, suffix, or root and also define the element, such as fracture means “break.”
Provide a sentence and ask students to supply or select the target word, as in the following: He loved to learn magic tricks and wanted to become a ___.
Cognates are words in different languages that share similar structures/spelling and similar meanings because they share similar origins.
Paying attention to cognates helps both English learners and native speakers of English see morphological similarities between their native language and their to-be-learned language.
Teaching Tips Extending Word Study Activities for Derivational Spellers
Word meanings are very important so use routines that focus on this. For example, have students use the dictionary to look up and record definitions and word origins of a few selected words (not 20 at a time!). Have students use words in sentences to demonstrate their understanding of meaning, but invite them also to try illustrations or cartoons. These visual representations can be powerful mnemonics, as shown in Figure 8.9. Having students work cooperatively and letting them share their sentences or drawings is engaging.
Sorting words into categories according to focused contrasts is still a powerful learning activity; however, some teachers rely more on writing words into categories than on cutting out words and sorting them physically.
Blind sorts still work well when spelling is an issue (as in -able and -ible sorts or when working with the /shәn/ ending), but do not pose much of a challenge when the sort features prefixes and roots. The blind sort can be modified so that instead of saying a word to sort, the leader offers a definition as in, “This word means 'to breath in.'” The partner would respond with inhale and indicate that it goes under the in- prefix heading.
Word hunts should extend over longer periods of time. In addition to words and features pulled from literary and informational texts, brainstorming additional words (“word hunts in the head”) sometimes works well, and dictionaries can become a place for word hunts. Students can be taught to search online dictionaries by using an asterisk before and/or after the word part to get a list of words (e.g., cian will give you words that end with -cian; hydr* will yield the hundreds of words that contain this root).
Word displays provide an ongoing review as words turn up in reading and in class discussions; these can be added to categories started weeks before.
Explore etymologies. As students research word histories, show them how to reference and read the entries in unabridged dictionaries and in the resources available for such exploration.
Games are a valuable way to review words not only for a test, but also over time. At this level students can create many games themselves based on popular games like Concentration, Rummy, War, Slap Jack, Uno, Trivial Pursuit, and Jeopardy. Give them blank game board templates from Appendix G or card stock for playing cards and they can do the rest. While creating games, they will remember the words and come to understand the feature better.
Setting up The Notebook
Word Study. A weekly record of sorts, reflections, and homework, this is also the section to record words that consistently present spelling challenges. Thinking of related words is one way to help clarify spellings.
Looking into Language. Includes records of whole-group word study of related words, concept sorts, word webs, interesting word collections, investigations, and thematic words.
New and Interesting Words. Words that students encounter in their reading that really grab them (much as “golden lines” do in their reading) are golden words.
Collecting Words
Collect the word. While reading, mark words that really grab you or that you find difficult. When you are through reading or studying, go back to these words.
Record the word and sentence. Write the word, followed by the sentence in which it was used, the page number, and an abbreviation for the title of the book. (At times the sentence will be too long; write enough of it to give a clue to meaning.) Think about the word’s meaning.
Look at word parts and think about their meanings. Look at the different parts of the word—prefixes, suffixes, and base word or root word. Think about the meanings of the affixes and the base or root.
Record related words. Think of other words that are like this word, and write them underneath the part of the word that is similar.
Use the dictionary. Look the word up in the dictionary, read the various definitions, and record the one that applies to the word in the book you are reading. Look for similar words (both in form and meaning) above and below the target word and list them as well. Look at the origin of the word, and add it to your entry if it is interesting.
Review the words.
Word consciousness becomes a mindset. Students who develop word consciousness become lifelong wordsmiths and almost automatically wonder about the relationships among words in general, and about a particular word specifically
Cute Games
Operation Examination
Put the cue cards (such as “drop a final e and add -ion”) into one deck facedown. Deal the rest of the cards out to the players making sure that everyone gets the same number. The rest are set aside.
The first player turns over a cue card. All the players look for words in their hand that fit the criteria. For example, if the cue card says, “change the d to s and add –ion,” players look for matches such as explosion and expansion and remove them from their hands.
The matches are displayed faceup and if any are contested the player must justify their decision by naming the base word and how it changed. For example, “The base word was explode so the d was changed to an s when -ion was added to make explosion.”
The next player turns over a new cue card and again students look for all possible matches and pull them from their hands.
The winner is the player who runs out of cards first.
Words That Grow from Base Words and Word Roots
Decide on a base word or a word root to highlight. Begin with more frequently occurring words; over time, move to less frequently occurring roots.
Write the base word or word root at the bottom of the tree, and think of as many forms as possible.
Write the different forms on individual branches.
Display the word tree in the classroom for several days and encourage students to think of, find, and record more derived words. At the end of the week wipe them off and begin again by introducing a new base or word root.
Quartet
Each player is dealt seven cards; the rest are put in a deck. Each player looks through his or her cards for words in the same suit.
The first player turns to the next and asks for a particular root: “Give me any cards with the bio root.” If the second player has any cards with the requested root, the player must give them up and the first player gets to go again. If the second player does not have any matches, he or she responds, “Draw one” and the first player draws from the deck.
Play proceeds in a clockwise fashion. When a player has a complete suit of four cards, he or she may lay them down. The player who has the most suits at the end—when someone runs out of cards—is the winner.
Assessing Orthographic Development
Qualitative Spelling Inventory
evaluate the “quality” of a child’s spelling to determine stages of spelling development. A QSI is given like a spelling test.
Steps
Analyze Results
Create Classroom Composite Sheet
Divide groups into instruction level groups
Plan focused, individualized instruction