![]() In addition to the usual stuff, Brian and I are in a season of actively trying to simplify our (fine, my ) life a bit right now. They can give tricky words their best try, using all the strategies they know, and then continue on with their work.This doesn’t really help anything but rest assured, this is not for my lack of effort at pretending to be completely fine! Just like Dory in Finding Nemo, your young writers can learn to just keep swimming. When kids are totally, completely stuck, after five seconds it’s okay to “give it a try.” It’s important that we coach students to be both persistent and flexible – not to get stopped in their tracks for too long by a tricky word. Use the five-second rule – just like for food. ![]() Going one letter a time and using the alphabet routine will help them find the letter they need.Ħ. Too often we simply direct kids, “Use your alphabet chart,” forgetting that if they knew what the letter looked like, they wouldn’t need the chart. Keep going until you find the letter you were looking for (“T, telephone, /t/… hooray!”).Do this the same way as your daily alphabet routine. Say the name of the letter, the picture for each letter, and the sound (“A, apple, /a/ B, butterfly, /b/…”).Point to your alphabet chart, one letter at a time.Say the sound you want to write (“/t/”).Teach your writers exactly how to use their alphabet chart and/or blends chart: When students put their pens down, their attention often shifts away from their work to other things, making it harder to focus and give tricky words their best try.ĥ. Coach kids to keep their pen on the paper while they are working on a tricky word. Often each attempt gets a little closer to the conventional spelling.Ĥ. Try it three different ways on a post-it or a scrap of paper, then choose the one that looks right. This is akin to an adult writing “sp” next to a word.ģ. Sometimes kids just need everyone to know that they knew that the word wasn’t spelled correctly. Teach your writers that when they aren’t sure of a word, give it their best try, circle it…and move on. Trying to “hear” the word inside their head, or listening to you say the word for them isn’t as helpful.Ģ. Often young writers have trouble spelling the word unless they physically say the word, slowly. ![]() Coach the writer to say the word out loud. To keep writers moving, here are a few tried and true strategies:ġ. Or worse–choose a different, easier word to spell, at the expense of the quality of their writing. Others will sit and stare at the page, completely paralyzed. Some will insist on convincing an adult to provide the correct spelling. This frustration leads to some unproductive behaviors. Many kids will enter a stage where they know just enough about spelling to realize how much they still don’t know. Especially if you are aware that the word you have written is not spelled correctly–but you want it to be. However, it’s not always so easy to just keep swimming. So what can emerging writers do? Like Dory says, “Just keep swimming.” Give those tricky words their best try… and move on. Just like Dory, in the movie Finding Nemo, young writers can easily lose their way and forget where they were headed, especially if they stop for too long and lose their momentum. If they take too much time to work on a single word, chances are they’ll forget what they were writing about. When emergent and beginning writers want to spell a word, what can they do? They are still learning letter sounds and spelling patterns, and dictionaries are far too complicated to be of use.
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