20 April 2015
Ruth Christiane Rawlings
TEDU 426 Spelling Assessment and Connected Lesson
Purpose: SOL K.7 (b) (c) K.12 (c) (d)

The students’ spelling skills will be assessed using DSA Form A-Understanding
Children’s Word Knowledge.

Based on the students’ Using but Confusing score, the teacher will implement three
teaching activities to strengthen the students’ spelling skills.

A long vowel short vowel sort, a long vowel short vowel game and an oral spelling
activity will be used.

This assessment and connected activities are essential to successfully furthering the
students’ literacy skills in the appropriate progression validating already acquired
skills and successfully building new skills.
Objective:

The student will be able to spell/write twenty five words with the expected accuracy
of 80% using auditory prompts by the teacher during the assessment stage.

After the assessment and connected spelling strengthening activities the student will
be able to recognize, sort and spell/write twenty five words with 95% accuracy using
auditory and visual skills.
Procedure:

I will introduce the spelling assessment activity using the DSA Form A-Letter Name
Understanding Children’s Word Knowledge.

I will begin using Word Set A. Based on the students’ level of successful spelling I
will then proceed to Word Set B. I will continue the same process through Word Sets
C, D and E based on the students’ success.

If the student is 100% successful with Form A-Letter Name then Form A-Within
Word Pattern will be used.

I will then score the students’ Using but Confusing score card.

Based on that score I will proceed to the long vowel short vowel Word Sort activity. I
will have the student organize the headers and proceed with a new group of words I
have prepared, that he/she will place in columns under the correct headers.

After the 100% successful completion of the Word Sort activity I will introduce the
long vowel short vowel game. I will use the train track activity using train engine
playing pieces and a train track with long vowel short vowel words written on the
tracks in equal intervals. The train track activity is from Words Their Way. The
student will choose from a stack of long vowel short vowel cards and with each
choice move the train engine piece to the nearest matching sound word on the track
advancing toward the finish line which is the train station. The stack will have
random long vowel short vowel cards.

The teacher will then begin the next activity by administering a blind assessment
from the previous activities and having the student using auditory recognition skills to
write the words on paper.

At the completion of the assessment and activities the teacher will ask the students’
opinion on which of the activities helped more successfully in strengthening the
students spelling skills.

The teacher will then share his/her observations and compliment the student on the
successes and share a learning plan with the student for future skill building.
Materials:

DSA Form A-Letter Name Understanding Children’s Word Knowledge.

DSA Form A-Within Word Pattern Understanding Children’s Word Knowledge.

Using but Confusing score sheet

Student writing paper

Pencils

Long Vowel Short Vowel Word Sort, Walpole & Hayes, 2002

Train Track Long Vowel Short Vowel Game and playing pieces,
idea from Words Their Way
Evaluation Part A:

I will assess the students’ existing spelling knowledge by using The DSA Form ALetter Name and DSA Form A-Within Word Pattern assessment tests with the
prescribed words.

I will use the Using but Confusing scorecard to determine the level of spelling
strengthening activities to implement.

I will implement the appropriate spelling strengthening activities to build the students
spelling skills.
Evaluation Part B:

Nanda is an ELL student and he exceeded my expectations by achieving 100%
success on the first spelling assessment DSA Form A-Letter Name.

I then administered DSA Form A-Within Word Pattern. He spelled the first five
words incorrectly so I stopped the assessment.

At the suggestion of my instructor I prepared the spelling strengthening activities
listed above and conducted the lesson the following week based on student
availability.

I was pleasantly surprised at Nanda’s skill and confidence in completing the Word
Sort with 100% success. After explaining the train track game twice Nanda was able
to successfully play the game and asked if he could play it three times.

After the train track activity I verbally administered a follow up blind spelling
assessment which he achieved 90% success.

The strengths of the lesson were definitely the Word Sort and the train game. The
student was weary of the lesson by the time we got to the blind spelling assessment.
The weakness is the lesson took more time than my little kindergartener should have
had to endure.

I would assess his success based on the success of the word sort and the train game.
Resources:
Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (5th Edition)
(Words Their Way Series) Author: Donald R. Bear, Marcia A. Invernizzi, Shane R.
Templeton, Francine A. Johnston
Walpole & Hayes, 2002