Dear Families,
Happy almost end of April! You may have noticed that spelling lists have not been coming home, and students have not been taking spelling tests on Fridays. This has been due to mostly all of the NWEA testing that has been happening. As we head into more testing (soon M-STEP testing will begin), we will be saying good bye to future spelling tests as well.
According to our 4th grade standards, spelling tests are not a requirement. There is not a “spelling” category, nor is there a standard which states that students have to be able to memorize spelling words.
→CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.2.D Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed.
As you can see, the sub-standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.2.D: Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed is the requirement for spelling in 4th grade. As a result, for the rest of the school year, more of my time will be spent teaching other vocabulary, language, and usage skills and equipping students with the ability to find and correct misspellings on their own instead of studying and memorizing predetermined words which often get forgotten after the test. I hope this makes sense and I hope parents and guardians see the value in teaching students how to recognize and correct their own (and others’) mistakes. It makes their learning more valuable and will benefit their future language and writing skills.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me at eraymond@kpschools.com or 231.258.9146 ext 5129. Thanks so much!
Mrs. Raymond
No comments:
Post a Comment