Blog #4

When looking at the readings for the week, I struggled with thinking about my classroom and how they go about spelling when it comes time to write. Usually the teacher does not care about spelling and has the students spell words based on how they think they should be spelled. She also encourages them to use the word wall in the room to find words and also use a worksheet that the teacher made that has many common site words. However, I often find myself being asked, "How do you spell this?" I always answer the same way and tell them to spell it how they think it sounds. This is what the teacher wants, so I go along with it. Then again, I still find myself asking when is the cut off when spelling goes from not being important, to being an essential aspect of good writing? How are teachers supposed to transition from one stage to another as far as spelling is concerned? I wonder because at some point the kids will need to know how to spell and be able to come up with spellings on their own.
Looking into the matter further, I wonder if there is a way to incorporate perceived spellings of words and the actual spelling of words and make them work in a way so that children remember how to spell words in the future. I always wonder this and often think to myself that there must be a way to take words and make them easier to remember. So when our CT has the students write about something, I often times try to work with students who ask me more often than others how to spell certain words. I first ask them how they think it should be spelled and then go over how it should be spelled correctly. When I do this I try to think of ways in which they would be able to remember the word without having to ask again. I don't know if this is at all possible, but I would think that this would be the best way to get rid of questioning of spelling during writing time. I feel some students are too concerned with spelling and not concerned enough about the content. If spelling issues are eliminated, I feel the ideas would be able to flow more easily and fluently.