[jezzy987]

Hello, thinking about using words thier way for spelling this year...wondering if anyone does and has any suggestions, I have the book, wish thier was a class or seminar too

[soccerfan13]

I use this method for my weekly spelling. I have sometimes four or five groups based on my kiddos levels. This can be time consuming. My best suggest is to get into a routine. Mondays I do not do guided reading. We do Word Study groups. I meet with every group to discuss and sort words and discuss categories.

Some other activities through the week:


Rainbow sort (each category is a different color- the kids love to write in crayon)
Draw and Label (Draw a picture of word and label)
Word Hunt - Find words in reading material that has the same features that you are study through the week.
Blind Sort- Have a friend call out the word to a student, the student spells the word without looking at it.

Management suggestions- I have a "Word Study Notebook" - Composition notebook that students put their activities throughout the week in. i've seen were teachers place a library pocket in front to keep their words safe. I use ziplock baggies. The snack size works great. We keep our words in our baggies in our pencil boxes.

I also make two copies for each child. One copy for home and one copy for school. Parents will not always do the activites with the kids at home. I need to figure out a way to really get them on board. I explain during conferences and write a detailed note home.

PS University of VA offers classes in Word Study. I took a class 5 years ago. Very beneficial. I suggest Word Journeys in addition to the Word Study books.

[reesespieces]

I also used WTW this past year in third grade. To set up for groups, I laminated 3 pieces of different colored construction paper and taped them to a cabinet (I ended up having 3 groups this year from within word to derivational relations, but first grade would be lower levels).

I wrote the students names down on post-it notes so that they could easily be moved from group to group as I saw fit and also so that students wouldn't think that one group was the low group or the high group, but that they were in flexible groups. It was easy for students to see what group they were in and for me to manage ("Green group, please meet me on the carpet").

The initial spelling inventory is time consuming, but VERY powerful! I would show it to parents and conferences and explain to them about their child's developmental level and ALL of my parents expressed how happy they were that their children were given different spelling lists based on this research!

[TeAcHeRinFL]

I am using it next year. I'm taking a Master's class that requires the book as a textbook. It comes with a DVD and CD-Rom. I highly suggest buying it because the DVD will help you understand how to implement the program in your classroom. The book is Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (fourth edition) by Donald R. Bear. The ISBN number is 978-0-13-223968-4.

You can find all the spelling inventory tests in there as well as game and sort templates.