I can't believe Spelling Tests is the topic of my 13th blog and not my first one. In fact, I had to skim through my previous posts to make sure that I didn't already write about one of my all-time favourite topics. I LOVE talking to people about spelling tests and dictées. I visit teachers in their classrooms and offer to show them alternatives to spelling tests. I flat out don't believe in them. They cause anxiety among students, some parents put pressure on their children to get 100% and the children generally forget words right after the spelling test is done. My grandmother turned 100 years old last December. My sister and I flew out to Vernon, B.C. for one night to celebrate this momentous occasion. Just looking at the picture, I remember how emotional the event was! Why am I mentioning this? Because, when my grandmother was young she did spelling tests. Do you see the connection now? Yep! Teachers have been giving spelling tests for well over 100 years! Is it important to learn to spell? Absolutely! It is important to spell but it is not the most important tool needed to become a good writer. Content is much more important than the spelling itself. As a teacher who has corrected thousands of papers in her lifetime, I can honestly say that I enjoyed reading a paper more with poor spelling and a good story line, rather than good spelling and a poor story line. It is important to teach spelling but tests are not the most effective way to teach children how to spell. As a teacher, I used to give weekly spelling tests because that's what my teachers did when I was young. After a few years, I got tired of giving them. So, I stopped. I didn't enjoy searching for new words every week, I didn't like that added homework of kids going home and memorizing them, I certainly didn't enjoy correcting them, handing them back, asking the kids' parents to sign them and then collecting them again. And I especially didn't like that the kids would forget how to spell those words. It was clear to me that spelling tests were a complete waste of time. Last week, Michael Fullan, author, speaker and educational consultant, gave a talk at our school board. It was the second time in two years that I heard him speak. I really believe in his Deep Learning philosophy. And, as you can probably tell, I don’t like tests. I find that students memorize facts for tests only to forget the information soon after the test is over. According to Fullan et al. (2018) deep learning is valuable learning that sticks. More often than not, the information that students memorize is forgotten shortly afterwards. I remember having 30 students in my grade 3 class one year. I used to give out 20 spelling words every two weeks. I realized that 1/3 of the class simply looked at the spelling list and wouldn’t have to study. 1/3 of the class studied hard for the quiz and would feel very anxious on test day. They would do exceptionally well but would not be able to correctly spell these words weeks after the test. And the final 1/3 of the class would study hard but due to learning difficulties, were not able to pass the test. I knew that there must be a better way to teach spelling. Oscar Wilde once said: “Nothing worth learning can be taught”. If this is true, we need to stop teaching in traditional ways. We need to engage students more. According to Fullan, 95% of students are engaged in the early years of elementary but this number drops to 39% by the time the kids reach grade 11. And the ones who are doing their work in the later grades, seem to be studying to get good grades and not because they’re engaged. By giving percentages, are we making kids and parents obsessed with marks? Does deep learning conform to our current standards of evaluating or is it something that needs to be changed? Last year, I played Jeopardy with my students every Friday. I tried to throw in worldly questions, such as: “What is the capital of Dubai?” or “Name one of the Seven Wonders of the World.” Recently, I asked my students to name the female animal of a horse (in French). No one knew it. I decided to take the opportunity the following week and review the names of all the animals in French. I predicted one of the questions from a student, and I was right. He asked: “Is this going to be on a test?” This question saddened me. It’s as though we have conditioned our students to prepare for tests and not for learning. Deep learning encourages the opposite. We need to give children the opportunity to learn and not merely to write exams. The philosophy of Deep Learning is to get children excited about school. Imagine a child who isn’t having a good morning, and is forced to sit at the same desk all day long? How can this student concentrate during the day? Now, imagine this same student, knowing that he/she can come to school and sit on the bean bag chair and work at his/her own pace? The student in scenario number two is likely to be more productive that the same student in scenario number one. Teachers are used to hearing about new ways to teach, new ways to evaluate and different ways to engage students. So what makes Deep Learning different? Well, Deep Learning looks at students’ and teachers’ roles differently. Students have to be in charge of their own learning and teachers have to take a step back from the traditional teaching and become learners. Teachers have to understand that they don’t know all the answers and they aren’t expected to teach. Students can’t become critical thinkers if they are taught what to think. Fullan explains that teachers need to move from traditional lessons without jeopardizing student success. The authors attached a myriad of rubrics in their book and encouraged teachers to evaluate the 6 Cs (Citizenship, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and character). Some schools have been brave enough to move away from traditional report cards and are evaluating the 6Cs. To do this, the entire community has to be on board, from the teachers to the students and their parents. When I first stopped giving spelling tests, one parent asked me if there was a reason I didn't give weekly dictées. I simply told her that it wasn't the most effective way to teach children how to spell. So, what are some alternatives to traditional spelling tests? According to Calkins (2018), the answer is mini-lessons. Calkins recommends daily mini lessons where you teach spelling or how to use quotations or even how to write strong introductions...For example, if you focus on spelling, the teacher might say: "If you don't know how to spell a word, try stretching it out. If you are trying to spell vacation, stretch it out: VAAAACCCCAAAATTIIONNN. What do you hear? Write every letter that you hear." You would only work on that one strategy for a few days until all the students have tried it. On another day, the teacher would say: "Try breaking up the word into syllables: .BEA U TI FUL What do you hear? Write down the letters you hear. Another strategy is to listen for a little word in a big word. For example, the teacher might say: "FRIEND FRIEND. What little word do you hear in FRIEND? You hear END! Good!" Those are three strategies that can be used for spelling any word! When you give a spelling test, the kids are memorizing words. When you give a strategy, the kids are coming up with their own solution. My family had come over this evening. My niece was colouring and writing some words for fun and turned towards her mom and asked her how to spell certain words. Her mom gave her daughter, Leah, the answer right away. I took out my phone and filmed it. Here, Leah asked how to spell the word HIT? youtu.be/PjWFZ1eOmkM Here, she asked her how to spell KICK? youtu.be/ShJbEXVCmq4 and here, she asked how to spell the word hug? youtu.be/iI6uXnPiii4 It is a natural instinct to spell the word out for your child or even your student. The problem with spelling out the word for your child is that they didn't do any work to figure it out. They will most likely not remember afterwards and if they ask you at home how to spell a word, then they will surely turn to their teacher and ask the same question. What's the problem with that scenario? Well, if the teacher is doing a writing activity and has 30 students and each student asks the teacher to help spell just 5 words, well, the teacher will spend the entire lesson spelling words and not encouraging students to work on content. The kids will waste their writing block focusing on the spelling and not on writing. There is a big difference. Teachers have to teach their children strategies for spelling and parents should do the same thing at home. Every teacher has a list of grade level "no excuse spelling words" that children need to master. Can they be sent home? Definitely! But with clear instructions that they should be read and not written or memorized. And definitely not in the form of a spelling test. Why not post them up somewhere in class and have the kids look at them when they need to use them? Isn't a Word Wall (see image) another great strategy for children learning to spell? There are many strategies that are much more useful than traditional spelling tests. It is a 100 year old tradition that needs to be replaced with something more effective. References and recommended readings
Fullan, M., Quinn, J., & McEachen, J. (2018). Deep learning: Engage the world, change the world. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, a SAGE Company. Calkins, L. (2018), Units, Tools, and Methods for Teaching Reading and Writing -A workshop Curriculum: Grades k-8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Publishing.
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