This year, the second graders are participating in individualized spelling. On Monday, the children
are given a "pretest" of the words on the spelling unit that co-insides with what we are studying in
reading. For instance, the weeks spelling words might feature long e words. If your child is comfortable
with long e words and scores well on the pretest, he/she will not be tested on the e words that were
correctly spelled. If your child finds long e words a challenge and therefore does not do well on the test,
he/she will be tested on the words that were incorrectly spelled. Both children used in our examples
might have some of the spelling words from the reading unit, but their lists will probably not be the
same. Every child will have 6-10 word to learn for the week. Where do these "extra" words come from?
Some of them will come from words that your child has asked me to spell during the week's writing
assignments. Some will come from topics we are learning about in other subjects. Some might be
seasonal or holiday words. The goal is to challenge every child, not just the children who find spelling
difficult. In the end, we will have children who have a better command over the words that they
themselves want to use in their writing. Your children should have their list written in their student
planners by Tuesday. Our final test is always on Friday, unless bad weather forces a postponement.
