Meeting, Thursday, March 19th, 2009

As special education teachers working in middle and high school levels we have found our students to demonstrate spelling levels that range from the beginner level, or "Letter Name - Alphabetic Stage" through the transitional level, or "Within Word Pattern Stage". Based on "Spelling Stage Expectations by Grade Level" as stated in Table 2-3 on page 44, we find that the identified grade levels of Kindergarten through Second to be an expected match. Thus, the remainder of our readings focused on Chapters Five and Six which target these levels. We also referenced the supplemental texts that correspond to these levels and found the examples of sorts provided within them to be appropriate.
Those of us that make use of a direct instruction approach in reading decoding and fluency in our classrooms (SRA's Decoding Strategies) find these sorts to correspond well to the word attack skills targeted in our reading curriculum.
There is a wide range of activities provided in the primary and supplemental texts that are motivational for our students and provide good opportunities for them to practice independence in learning as well as are beneficial and easy to implement from a teacher perspective. One such activity is "Word O" which asks students to take a word from the sort and add, delete, or substitute letter(s) to make a new word (ie, substituting "b" for "st" in "stone" makes "bone"). You can see how students might relate this to games like "Boggle". From a teacher perspective, not only are students working on generalization of patterns, but they are also working on vocabulary development. Another activity is "Word Hunt" which asks students to find words that match patterns used in their sorts from a variety of text (ie, books, articles, etc.). For students, this is similar to the word searches that they love to complete. From a teacher perspective, this is another way that the students work on generalizing the patterns they are learning to everday experiences.
One of our members provided us with a sample of worksheets being used by our general education teachers at the 6th grade level. They include a weekly schedule, activity sheet, and expectations for activities.