This year your child’s weekly words will consist of three main focus groups.
High Frequency Words:
These are words that occur very often in our reading and they comprise many of the words we use when writing. Often times they do not follow the rules of spelling but they become familiar due to the frequency with which we encounter them. The weekly frequency words will be taken from our shared and guided reading stories.
Story Words:
These are from our weekly reading as well. The difference between the two groups will be that, unlike the high frequency words, the story words will have a common phonetic pattern, for example short a.
Challenge Words:
These words will follow the same patterns as our story words but will be somewhat more difficult, perhaps multi-syllable, compound words, etc.. The expectation for this group of words is that your child knows what each word means and can spell any TWO of them. The two words will be of their choosing.
Every Monday your child will be bringing home their Word Study bag. In this bag you will find an assignment sheet for the week. The sheet will also include the weekly focus words and the skill we are focusing on. The activities on the assignment sheet are meant to be homework. Weekly assignments will include practice sheets, a word sort and perhaps a phonetic poem to read together. Word Study bags are due back to school on Friday of that week.
Every Friday your child will have a weekly assessment. Weekly assessments consist of the focus words (high frequency and story words) for the week. Students will have to spell two of the challenge words (their choice) on the test, however if they choose to spell more that’s great! In addition to those words the students will have 3-4 dictation sentences that incorporate high frequency words. Tests are usually sent home the following Monday and I ask that you sign and return them the following day. These are kept in your son or daughter’s portfolio of work and, together with their daily writing, help to determine the final report card score for spelling.
High Frequency Words:
These are words that occur very often in our reading and they comprise many of the words we use when writing. Often times they do not follow the rules of spelling but they become familiar due to the frequency with which we encounter them. The weekly frequency words will be taken from our shared and guided reading stories.
Story Words:
These are from our weekly reading as well. The difference between the two groups will be that, unlike the high frequency words, the story words will have a common phonetic pattern, for example short a.
Challenge Words:
These words will follow the same patterns as our story words but will be somewhat more difficult, perhaps multi-syllable, compound words, etc.. The expectation for this group of words is that your child knows what each word means and can spell any TWO of them. The two words will be of their choosing.
Every Monday your child will be bringing home their Word Study bag. In this bag you will find an assignment sheet for the week. The sheet will also include the weekly focus words and the skill we are focusing on. The activities on the assignment sheet are meant to be homework. Weekly assignments will include practice sheets, a word sort and perhaps a phonetic poem to read together. Word Study bags are due back to school on Friday of that week.
Every Friday your child will have a weekly assessment. Weekly assessments consist of the focus words (high frequency and story words) for the week. Students will have to spell two of the challenge words (their choice) on the test, however if they choose to spell more that’s great! In addition to those words the students will have 3-4 dictation sentences that incorporate high frequency words. Tests are usually sent home the following Monday and I ask that you sign and return them the following day. These are kept in your son or daughter’s portfolio of work and, together with their daily writing, help to determine the final report card score for spelling.