Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Spelling vs. vocabulary

Hi all,

I was wondering about other people's experiences with spelling vs. vocabulary in the lower grades. We're having a good experience this year and I thought I'd bring the idea up.

My DD6 is a natural speller. She does third grade spelling and got two wrong out of fifteen on her first test. The most she's missed this year are four on one test.

Her teacher is totally cool ( !), and recently started giving her vocabulary words in addition to her spelling words (they're called "Extra Bonus" words). This week she learned about medical terms like asthma and contagious and chickenpox. We spent some time learning about these things. Bonus: she was pleased to know that those unpleasant shots she gets protect her from yucky diseases.

I really like this approach. She gets stretched academically and builds her vocabulary. Has anyone else experienced this with their kids? I think I remember reading about the idea on this board not long ago.

Val

I've been giving DS5 spelling words lately, to get him thinking about basic building blocks. Some are short, some are longer (a recent longer one was "debilitated"). Every time we do a new block, I have him recite spellings of at least some of the previous ones. I also do not hesitate to throw in spelling words he doesn't have in his vocabulary yet, if they share a common prefix, suffix or base with others in the set.

I've been thinking about printing out the sight-word lists up through fourth grade or so and just having him plow through them for spelling practice in the short term. He is remembering spellings from his reading anyway.

We've not had any teachers extend the spelling that way. My dd12 is also a natural speller. They no longer do spelling in 8th grade anyway.

My dd10 is the polar opposite. Your thread title made me think of her b/c she has spelling in her homeroom class and vocab in her GT reading pull out. They use Caesar's English which deals with prefixes and suffixes as well as other whole words. She generally gets all of the definitions correct, but she keeps missing points for misspelling the definitions or the words themselves. That bugs me a bit b/c it isn't a spelling test yet she'll get no points for getting the definition right but spelling it wrong.

We also have spelling AND vocabulary (they call it "robust vocabulary") and DS7 loves it. They do a pretest with "easy" words and if they get all of those correct, they get 10 harder words. Plus, they have 10 of the vocabulary words which they practice by writing sentences using those words. My son loves this. Nan

DS7 (2nd grade) gets 5th grade spelling words, and always gets them all right. I like the idea of vocabulary words - maybe I'll mention it at conferences in a couple of weeks. I did have the idea of extending his spelling words - looking them up in the dictionary, writing a sentence etc - now that it's getting cooler, we might actually have time to do that in the afternoons

I see this as reinforcing spelling. No matter if they are writing a story or defining a word they should attempt to spell it right and taking a point off just might encourage them to try harder. Spelling isn't just for spelling tests.

As the mother of a gifted dyslexic, I agree with cricket2. There is a huge disparity between DD's vocabulary and her ability to spell. I would rather the teacher correct the spelling so DD can see what is should look like but not deduct points if DD knows the definition.

I printed a list of the dolch sight words, figured it was as good a place to start as any. �I'm about to start teaching the boy some spelling since his lettering is nice and he can copy a list of six words without losing interest, consistently. �

I have that enchanted learning subscription and I printed up a packet for each group of 10 dolch words, including a word list they want copied in abc order ( just going to have him copy them ), a page of " fill in the blank" sentences with a word bank (I thought that was pretty great for a new writer who would get tired writing definitions or whole sentences), and a search a word. �I gave him a halloween word search and he found four easy words that I showed him from the list after I told him how to do it. �(I wanted to brag about that, but I've posted too many brags lately to add one right now). �The other thing they had which I didn't print was the word shape boxes which he loves on starfall but I thought that might not be the same on paper. �Shoot, �I should print them. �If you're going to do it do it right.


Aww, I erased the link. �I read this website a little while ago that suggested the best practice for teaching spelling was to not teach the kids the right way to spell, but to have them guess. �Even if it's wildly inaccurate, the authors said, it will make them better spellers in the long run. �Of course with the stage my guy's at he can't spell anything. �I'm going to have to teach him how to spell something or how's he ever going to guess? �I remember that website said to have the kid write their 3 best guesses when they ask you how to spell a word, then they should chose the one that they think looks the best.

Since we're just starting the spelling I haven't seen it expand his vocabulary but I can't see how it wouldn't.

DS did a "word of the day" exercise for a long time. I'd give him a word and he'd look it up in the dictionary and thesaraus. He'd write down the information, then write a sentence using the word. If the word could take on multiple forms such as a verb and noun, he wrote a sentence for each form.

Although LA is not his favorite, he liked this exercise. It only took him a few minutes a day which may have been part of the attraction! He too is a natural speller so I never worried about testing him on the spelling of these words.

LoL. My 3 yr old is arguing with me that he's not learning spelling. I said you already have been.. He said, "that's not spelling; it's only writing."
(((Ok, you win. It's not spelling, it's only writing words. :)))