Wonderings:

Will developing spelling fluency raise the writing achievement in students from Room1?

Evidence that supports this contention from research:

From: http://www.righttrackreading.com/howtospell.htmlAnd : http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED496700

IMPROVING SPELLING OF HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS FOR TRANSFER IN WRITTEN WORKKathleen DuBois Kristie Erickson Monica Jacobs (2007)

“Spelling, although a small piece of the writing process, is of great concern to teachers, parents, and the general public” (Laminack, Lester, & Woods, 1996, p. 10). Many educators, both locally and nationally, have noticed a common trend in students’ lack of ability to transfer the correct spelling of high frequency and commonly used words into their daily work and writing. Shah and Thomas (2002) wrote “according to the 1989 Gallop Poll, the United States placed last in spelling behind Australia, Britain, and Canada. In addition, on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, elementary school scores have dropped steadily since 1990” (p. 31). Shah and Thomas provide evidence that spelling is of national concern and is indeed in need of attention. Johnston (2000) stated “English spelling has traditionally been considered a trial and tribulation to those who teach it and those who must learn it” (p. 372). Gentry (2004) discussed a possible explanation for the difficulty of learning to spell the English language.But in English, the alphabetic principle is complex, with a plethora of foreign spellings, myriad spelling combinations, a huge vocabulary, and sometimes arbitrary spelling patterns (and) this complex system of English spelling makes it more difficult to spell than an alphabetic language such as Italian (Gentry, 2004,p. 13). As educators, we find it difficult and frustrating to teach spelling because the English language has so many inconsistencies and words that do not follow spelling rules.It is our opinion that many students can correctly spell high frequency and spelling words in isolation, such as on a weekly spelling test, but they cannot correctly spell

Will the explicit teaching of spelling assist students to

become more fluent writers quickly?

these words in their daily work and writing. We believe that students may not see a purpose or reason to make correct spelling a priority in their writing. Thus, many students simply spell words phonetically, even when the word was a word that they had been taught and had already been mastered on a weekly spelling test. Yet “correct spelling is not only important on a Friday spelling test, but in all areas of the curriculum” (Murphy, 1997, p. 18).In addition to teachers teaching spelling simply for mastery on the weekly spelling test, we believe that teachers are not using the current research on spelling in their daily instruction. According to Gentry (1987)Too much that is known about how to teach spelling isn’t being put into practice. I can think of no subject we teach more poorly or harbor more myths about than spelling. In spite of volumes of research, teachers still use the same unsubstantiated teaching formulas (p. 7).Teachers must help students understand that spelling is important and is a reflection of the students’ reading and writing ability. As sighted in Brecher, Gray, Price & Sayles (1998) “The focus for spelling needs to be shifted from rote memorization to communication between writer and reader” (p.i). The words that we expect our students to spell correctly are high frequency words that are seen daily in reading and writing, and thus students need to know how to spell these words correctly.We believe that spelling is an area that needs to be addressed in the primary school years. We believe that with effective spelling strategies, students’ ability to transfer spelling into their written work will be enhanced. Phenix and Scott-Dune (1991) wrote that “we need to strike a balance in our teaching so that students understand the place of spelling, and have enough confidence as spellers that they are not inhibited as writers” (p. 17). A review of the literature confirms that student spelling and the inconsistency of spelling instruction is of national concern; teachers need to be aware of more effective ways of teaching spelling so that students transfer correct spelling into daily written work.

Resources:Measured mom- practice games related directly to the instruction Joy Allcock Switch onto Spelling – instructional techniques and strategiesJolly Phonics- letter/ sound links practise

Why: The children in my class have great ideas to write with but lack the phonological knowledge required to assist them to spell. This is evidenced through the Pseudo word test, testing of the Essential Word Lists and by classroom observations.

Children appear to know most letter sound links but are not using this knowledge to assist them to spell fluently when writing.

Some of the group are showing strong progress now in reading and these skills are not yet transferring into their writing. They appear to compartmentalise them as two separate tasks and have not yet seen the links between the two.

Target group of students:L L-EO S -EL V-MT T-ME J J –MTJM- M

How the students were selected:

Students were identified through the data from end of year 2014 and were included into the school wide goals for 2015. Students were identified by observation by teachers, previous data and current assessment- Pseudo Word Test and Essential Word Lists.

Inquiry Process:

I began to prepare the class for this inquiry by using Pseudo word test (Joy Allcock) and testing the Essential Word lists to establish their prior knowledge in spelling. These tests were selected based on their prior use in the school, my knowledge of the tests and the direct reference to the Essential Word lists in the NZ National Standards for Reading and Writing in the Literacy Learning Progressions (Learning Media).

My previous inquiries into raising student achievement in writing has shown that with regular practise, use and exposure to the HFW students were then able to transfer these into their writing with ongoing support and reminding of the links between words they read and writing them. Particularly the overt demonstration of what we read and how it is spelt when we use it for writing. This needs to be ongoing and explicit during reading and writing.

Term 1: I implemented Jolly phonics and began to remind and strengthen letter/ sound links with the children as a whole class. I created a wall of words that children were encouraged to take and use and copy during for writing tasks, alphabet, blend and diagraph word mats were available to students and writing interest words were brainstormed for writing tasks or children were assisted to isolate and identify chunks of sound while writing with the teacher. A deliberate act of teaching was pushing the use of imaging…. When you read the word what does it look like?

To build spelling fluency I also shared the Essential word lists in the homebook and this was used by some of my families to support their children’s learning independently.

When first tested it was obvious to me that students were not used to independent testing so this I believe was reflected in the results to some extent.

The baseline data for the beginning of 2015 was:This evidence was gathered in March.

There was some progress made during the term and when the test was used again as a diagnostic test for this inquiry.

Term 2: Once the class was once again settled after the school holiday break I started to teach the spelling games associated with practice opportunities for this inquiry and laminate the practise sheets around discrimination, word building using chunks and identifying HFW.

I also sourced on the internet, word matching and bingo games around short and long vowels that proved to be engaging with the students however they proved difficult to keep organised based on the students lack of self management when playing games. I suspect this is partly due to not having been required to be self-managing previously and some children are still very young. Next step was to teach them how we wanted the games played and looked after.

These resources were used as practise opportunities and met the varying levels of ability within the diverse classroom, with reading levels ranging from emergent to blue. They were selected based on their readability, functionality and highly visual use of prompts, all necessary requirements to meet individual needs amongst the learners in Room 1.

Next step was to establish the necessary routines given the time constraints and the staff available to assist the teaching. The timing of the teacher aid assistance available in the class was not until reading and my professional judgement was that her time was better maximised during reading. My contention was that the more progress the students made in reading the better that they would make the links between what they could read and how to use that to spell more effectively.

Within the reading programme there is solid evidence in modelling books that looking for and using small words within larger or compound words was explicitly targeted for teaching. Also word-building exercises were consistently used during the reading programme.

See evidence of modelling books.

In Week 5 of term 2, I re-established the baseline data from students by once again testing them for letter / sound links using the pseudo word test and testing the Essential Word Lists. Prior to the beginning of the inquiry students were able to learn the Essential Word lists as they were made available to parents through the students home books. However in order to provide fair testing students were unable to take spelling notebooks home and given equal access to them in classroom time.

All word lists were individual and ranged between 5-10 words depending on student ability and in order to differentiate the learning for those who had difficulty.

During the course of the term it became apparent that one child in the class was quite certainly dyslexic… to this effect I offered the family independent learning through the Smart words spelling programme. This is the only exception other than two students working in Reading Recovery and another who has been identified as needing glasses since April but to date these have not been able to be available to him. These children have not been selected as targeted students for these reasons.

Even my high needs student was given the first words of Essential list one, I am tracking her progress separately for my own interest given her serious lack of phonetic awareness and the fact she has an identified hearing loss confirmed from the hospital.

Pre intervention data

It can be seen that without any intervention other than parental assistance at home, teaching through reading programme and the jolly phonics programme; students generally made progress.

However, I wanted to create a level playing field for the students and develop their own independence in learning spelling words

I set about explicitly teaching strategies to help students learn to spell. The strategies taught to the students were: rainbow writing, repeated copying, write,fold and copy technique, chunking parts of words (this was also a focus in the reading programme).

Essential List results, pre intervention:

The Pseudo word test results pre- intervention

Regular classroom practice includes collecting an unassisted writing sample from students each term to monitor and moderate writing within the classroom. No direct assistance is given from the teacher apart from providing motivation for the writing and encouragement to attempt the task.

Term 3At the beginning of the term I was able to quickly re-establish the spelling group routines and it was easier to maintain the momentum of the Switch Onto Spelling Programme with my modifications to it in order to be able to manage the programme without teacher aide support.

The modifications included using a tumble board, having the exercises set up the night before and limiting the time spent on News in the classroom. We had a very tight window of 20 minutes to run the programme, four days a week.

The links into the reading programme through word building and word families, looking at root words and their endings were still maintained.

At the end of five weeks of instruction I again tested the children using the Essential Word Lists and the pseudo word test.

Essential Lists Results: August 2015

Pseudo Word List data: August 2015

The results show:Every child has made gains in their spelling ability based on pre and post- test data from the intervention. The data on the left hand side of the graph represents the pre intervention results and the data on the right hand side represents the post intervention results.

Conclusion:My conclusion is that children of any age benefit from the explicit teaching of spelling supported by daily practise and instruction four times a week. Two of these children are Year 1 children and the other four children are Yr2 children.

Beg Data Ess List 1 Ess List 2 Ess List 3 Ess List 4Oakley 90% 65% 36% 0%Linkin 80% 55% 23% 0%Lincoln-M 90% 25% 0% 0%Tiare-M 100% 60% 30% 0%ErerangiM 90% 90% 40% 0%TJ-M 100% 95% 66% 0%

Yr 1 studentsM = Identified as Maori

End data Ess List 1 Ess List 2 Ess List 3 Ess List 4Oakley 100% 90% 63% 38%Linkin 100% 85% 56% 38%Lincoln-M 90% 70% 23% 8%Tiare-M 100% 70% 46% 28%ErerangiM 100% 95% 56% 64%TJ-M 90% 85% 100% 96%

Yr 1 studentsM = Identified as Maori

Has this transferred into their writing?For all of the students involved in the inquiry I would certainly conclude their spelling of HFW has improved from the intervention and their willingness to attempt other words has been noticed and identified through results in their UWS pre and post intervention.

I have noticed the ability in more students to their writing fluency (the ability to add length to their writing). Given the age of my students I believe the intervention has had a positive effect on their ability to transfer the learning into their writing.

Was this a successful intervention and why?

The conclusion to be drawn form this intervention was that it was indeed successful as a spelling intervention. We need now to determine that it was successful as a writing intervention.

Recommendations from the inquiry:

1. I believe this intervention be applied across the school with adaption for differing levels of the curriculum.

2. Develop a school wide spelling programme that meets the needs of most students

3. Develop similar routines across the school in order to ease children into new classrooms (research shows that children can loose up to 3 months of instruction settling into a new teacher and classroom). This is especially relevant to our high needs and highly dependent learners.

4. Share my decisions and concerns with the leadership team and work with them to create a functional spelling programme/s for school wide use that feed into each other to reduce the fall off in spelling instruction when students change rooms.For example: Jolly phonics vs Early Words. Should we be using one or the other?Will having two similar but different programmes confuse students? How much has the school invested in resources and knowledge that will be lost?

Barriers identified that proved difficult:1. Students regular absence from school.2. Timetabling constraints- very narrow window of time to implement the learning3. Parent interruptions to the programme by lateness to class, needing assistance

between 8.55am and 9.10am. (A lot of needy boys who for lots of reasons that do not separate easily from mothers and grandmothers).

4. No specific budget for the photocopying of resources to assist the Inquiry. This drained my budget and has left me very tight until the end of the year. Something to remember for next year.

5. My own absence from class due to leadership commitments and bereavement.

Where to from here?1. Parent education about spelling: Holding parent education evenings to assist

them to help their children spell and explain what they can do at home to help.This has been asked for in Room 1. I am willing and able to do this but will need the support of leadership to prepare and present.

2. Share my learning with my team and encourage them to try these interventions or with the support of the leadership team research, identify and test spelling programmes

Post intervention observations:In the last few weeks of the term the children have fully engaged with the tumble-board activities now and I shall keep this up, as it is becoming a normal routine in the class.My thoughts for next year will be to introduce it earlier perhaps the second half of the first term, should I be lucky enough to keep my Year One students to act as peer tutors and role models. If this is not possible I believe it will take longer to introduce as very junior children with no experience of tumble boards. They need time to settle into the routines required.

After taking the UWS it is clear to me that the spelling approximations and level of transfer of correct use of HFW is beginning to take place.

Student voice:

Click the picture to hear from Lincoln Yr 1

Click the picture to hear from Tiare

Yr 2

Click on the picture to hear from TJ

Yr 1

Click to hear from Oakley Yr 2

Parent voice:Petrina Toimata: Originally Petrina was concerned about the lack of spelling coming home and at an interview on 17/9/15 when given the results of testing pre and post intervention was delighted.