A New Way to Do Spelling

When I was teaching in the public school system spelling instruction was pretty routine. We used the required curriculum in which student’s were given a new list at the beginning of the week and a test at the end of the week to determine how well they had learned or “memorized” their words. I did make sure we had fun and creative study sessions that would give student’s a grasp of their words.  When I began private tutoring I became very frustrated with this method because I was spending countless hours assisting students memorize their words, only to have them completely forget them one or two weeks later. Then I came across the method of Word Study. “A word study program is a cohesive approach that addresses word recognition, vocabulary, and phonics as well as spelling” –(Zutell, 1992). I like this method because students are given developmentally appropriate words and together with the teacher discover patterns and word characteristics that help the child absorb the word rather than memorizing it. I find this method works well for private tutors as we are not bound to a certain curriculum and we have the time and freedom to explore word patterns and characteristics. I also find this method more reasonable for private or small group tutoring because the words that are compiled are really dependent upon a certain child’s level and this is hard to implement in a classroom of 20 or more children. It should be noted that I am not saying that this method can’t work in a classroom setting I just think it would be a challenging endeavor. And believe me, classroom teachers do embark on challenging endeavors in instruction every day! I like the idea of student’s becoming word detectives and diving into real exploration of words and deciphering attributes of a set of words that will be meaningful and lasting.