Assessing+Spelling

__** __Word work: spelling __ ‘Spelling is important, and children need to learn how to spell so that their writing can be read by other people.’  (Hill, 2006, p.266)  (, retrieved 26/04/08) Teachers can check a child’s spelling ability by examining their writing. By doing this, teachers will be given an indication as to what level of spelling the child is at. They will either be a phonetic speller, transitional speller or an independent speller.
 * __ Assessing Spelling

Another way to assess spelling is the use of dictation. This is where the teacher will slowly read sentences to the children and get them so write down what has been said. Teachers can develop their own sentences tailored to their group of children, so that the teacher can add words which students have previously displayed difficulty with. There are many different mistakes that children can make when trying to spell words. Examples of different mistakes include;  Students over-relying ‘on limited phonics knowledge.’ (Hill, 2006, p. 271) for example if a student wrote the word //sell// when they were supposed to write //cell//.  ‘Omission of letters  Insertion of letters  Transposition of letters  Confusion of homonym (e.g. there instead of their)  Does not know generalization for dropping ‘e’ when adding ‘ing’ in words ending with ‘e’’ (Hill, 2006, p.271)  It is very important that children learn and accumulate a large bank of high frequency words in their mind, such as; //so, and, if, to,// etc. By doing this, children will eventually find it a lot easier to learn more challenging words, and will be able to write flowing sentences with the inclusion of correctly spelt high frequency words.