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I tell her to sound it out; ask what is the first sound, etc. /m/…/ah/…/m/… She says these sounds slowly, maybe to please me.
“/m/,” she repeats, and then write down one letter: M. I have to leave to check on others. From a distance I see her write down K, then erase and switch it to C. Was she sounding out “cat”?
Document 2: Later that year: Ms Scanton’s log of Ashley’s misspellings
Ashley, November 21: Ashley is still misspelling so many words in her writing that I’m getting exasperated, to put it nicely. Here’s a list of her misspellings from the past two weeks—mostly from her journal:
techrs (teachers)
milmen (mailmen)
peliec (police)
fier pepel (fire people)
pepl (people)
librein (librarian)
lectrisudie (electricity)
doctrs (doctors)
nrsis (nurses)
loyors (lawyers)
* What to do for her? *
Document #3: Still later: Ms Scanton journal reflections
April 21: Just finished a cool book, GNYS AT WRK, by Glenda Bissex, that made me think about Ashley and her misspellings. The author described her son’s invented spellings and how they became more plentiful and complicated at first, but eventually became more “adultlike” or conventional. Fascinating! The mom was in no hurry to cure her child of his spelling problems, but he seemed to outgrow them on his own. The chief point seemed to be that invented spellings may be good because they show active efforts by the child to figure out the rules of spelling.
So maybe Ashley will outgrow her misspellings too? I do note that her misspellings—her inventions—have become more complicated across the year. Here’s from her journal last week:
TDA W WT T JM NAD W PLY TWLIT TAG
With a little help from Ashley, I figured this out as “Today we went to gym and we played toilet tag.”
Here’s from the week before:
TIZ WK W MAD PTY MAX.
Translation: “This week we made party masks.”
Quite a difference from the start of the year, when she would only write down a couple of letters during journal-writing time! Maybe I need to support her efforts more and worry about them less. But how to do that and still make sure she really is learning how to spell?
P.S. If you are interested, the book about invented spellings that Ms Scanton mentioned in Document #3 is listed in the bibliography.
In these excerpts from her journal, Ms Scanton has observed and reflected on Ashley’s learning to spell. Considered her activities as a whole, how much do they qualify as action research in the sense described in this chapter? What should be added or changed to make her activities a full-fledged example of action research?
Consider the list of misspellings (or invented spellings) in Document #2. Suggest how, if at all, Ms Scanton might address those misspellings with Ashley. In particular, comment on whether she should make time to work with Ashley in the same way that she did in Document #1. Assuming that she does make time, how she might set priorities about which word(s) to focus on if she does not have time to deal with them all?
Suppose that Ms Scanton does not have time to review every misspelled word with Ashley. How else could she address Ashley’s spelling problems? Consider briefly how she might use each of the following: (1) peer tutor, (2) classroom computer, (3) homework. Comment on how Ms Scanton might collect information about each of these strategies.
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