I'm a little confused

Firstgradefun · **I'm a little confused** 10-30-2009, 07:50 PM

I posted something about a week ago saying that during writing time I am constantly spelling words for my kids and was wondering if I should be doing that or not. Everyone who responded said they do NOT spell out words for their kids. They have them look at the word wall, sound them out, etc.
So now my question is, after they have written their story and have sounded out their words. Do you correct the words after they are done? Or do you just leave them if you understand what they are trying to say?

I'm really struggling with this writing thing for some reason....

My kids journal every single day and I just want to make sure I'm not leading any of them in the wrong way....

SDNana · **young spellers** 10-30-2009, 07:59 PM

When my children are writing in their journals or something that is not going to be published I do not correct the spelling. If it is a word wall word and it is spelled incorrectly then I write WWW beside it and they do have to fix those. Also once I have taught a certain phonetic skill (th, sh, ai, ay, etc.) I hold them accountable for those too. If a piece of writing is going to be published the children write the word the way they think it is spelled and then when they conference with me we edit for errors (spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc) and the children then rewrite a polished copy to display. Hope this makes sense.

Firstgradefun · **That definitely makes** 10-30-2009, 08:09 PM

sense. I was just worried that if they continually spelled a word wrong, they may think that is the correct way to spell it. That's why I was spelling all words for them. But their journals are not published or anything of that sort so I will stop spelling all words for them.

Foster14305 · 10-31-2009, 04:00 AM

I use a tool called "Words I use when i write". Its a little dictionary, specifically for first graders. It has a lot of words they use, plus extra space for me to write new words they want to use. This works great because I don't have to spell a million words. They will occasionally come ask if it is this word or that word, but beyond that it cuts a lot of that time out. I also do the same thing as the previous teacher. If its published, I will meet with the student to correct the errors.

Lottalove · **I am SpEd but a lot of my kids** 10-31-2009, 10:02 AM

are on a first grade level academically. I do many of the same things that the others have mentioned.

I also will usually have a word bank or vocab page printed out if we are writing about certain topics. In October, the kids are sure interested in Halloween of course and it shows in a lot of their writing. I print out a master list and include a clip art picture if it is available.

Some of these words may be part of the personal dictionaries or word walls now or later. But some are purely seasonal and I will not leave them.

bells4me · **"first grade writing"** 10-31-2009, 11:34 AM

In my class the kids use "first grade writing". In other words, they sound it out, use the word wall, or anything else-except me! I will give them the spelling of a sound if they can segment the sound for me. ex. If they tell me they can't spell house because they don't know the sounds, I will ask them to tell me the sound they don't know, then if they come up with /ou/ I will tell them it is spelled o u. When they have written the word hous I will then tell them there is an 'e' at the end that no one hears. I have seen the children gradually become wonderful spellers. They don't continue spelling just the sounds. They want to write words correctly. Some take reminding, others I just have to mention the double letters or 'e' at the end once. We have been stressing capital letters at the beginning of sentences and in their journals I have seen so many capital letters-appropriate ones! Of course, there are the ones that I think will never get it, but they do-eventually.
There are times when we are writing for someone who can not read "first grade writing". I explain that to the kids and we do a lot of editing. Or for these projects I will write some words on the board.

queenmom09 · 10-31-2009, 04:58 PM

I don't correct my kids writing. If you use Lucy Calkins there is a unit on revision/editing, but I have found that my kids are not ready for a lot of that this early in the year. Of course there are always exceptions. My purpose for having the kids write is to explore different genres of writing and to be able to get an idea and put it on paper. There are lots of great resources about writing...I like Stephanie Parson's First Grade Writers and Lucy Calkins' Units of Study for Primary Writing.