Reading Response #9

As I read about young children's concepts of words in text, I thought of a question I often have when teaching. When I do my creative writing activities after school with kindergarteners, first and second graders, I often find myself helping kids to spell a lot (or all) of the words they want to write. At this age level, I typically modify the activities to be more drawing- or craft-based than writing-based. But I do like to ask them to at least write a few words describing what they've drawn or made.

My question is: Is it better for me to flat-out tell them when they ask me "How do you spell _____?" or do I give them hints? For example, a student might ask, "How do you spell horse?" Do I go "H-O-R-S-E" or do I say, "Well, it starts with a "huh" sound, so what letter do you think that is?"

Telling them to "sound out" a word often leads to very interesting results, because the letter sounds and letter names can be misleading for them as they are still learning the alphabetic principle. But I enjoy seeing kids' invented spellings of words, and seeing how they try to figure things out on their own. And I think that it helps them in the long run to work through things on their own rather than just be flat-out told what the correct spelling is.

As it says in the reading on page 209, "accept students' best spelling efforts but make it clear that they are also responsible for spelling word features they have formally studied, and that they should use a variety of strategies to spell words they do not know." It goes on to say that it's important to let them attempt to spell a new word on their own before asking for help.

So I have the answer to my question! I just have to remember these strategies next time I am in the classroom with first and second grade students, and try to be patient when there are multiple hands raised at the same time, all asking for help with spelling.