meeting, organizing, and assessing words Their Way

a long awaited post, but a post nonetheless! I keep coming up with things to blog about and forgetting to finish up how we run Words Their Way!

So, I have a picture of my handy dandy notebook! I found this little gem at Dollar Tree! It has four sections and I happen to have four spelling groups. I wish I’d picked up 2 more for math and reading groups!

inside each folder I have a few weeks of sorts copied, a sticky with the kids’ names, and their spelling benchmarks. I use a sticky note to mark where we are in the sort books and this is perfect because I leave it on there when I copy! See how the group name is at the top! Pisa is a very large group. It’s the “on grade level” one and I just pull half at a time when I meet with them. I wouldn’t normally have that many and some will move up soon so it all works out.

Now for assessment: Right after students finish their Early Bird books each Friday, they get out their spelling baggies {snack size Ziplocs} and do a sort with a friend. Then each student glues their sort into their word journals. These are just spirals that we use for this purpose. When I get better with Word Work they’ll record in this notebook!

I call one group at a time to the rug during read to self. They bring a clipboard and pencil-I fold their paper into columns {however many their particular sort had that week.} We label the “headers” together or I write them for some dearies.

I choose 10 random words from their list. I literally sit with the WTW sort books in my lap! I try to even out the amount in each column. There is no science to this y’all!

here’s my sweet Middle Lamb’s test. His teacher is nicer than me! I count off 10 points if the word is spelled incorrectly, spelled incorrectly and in the wrong column, or if it’s spelled correctly but in the wrong column. Here Jake has “whole” in the wrong column and spelled moist wrong.

I hope this helps a little with how the whole process works in my room.
If you missed out on the past series on WTW: check them out here!

I had a request for a little craft for Room on the Broom. Here’s a little preview. This lil’ freebie will be up tomorrow!