Spelling and Word Work

Why do we teach syllable types? 

Without a strategy for chunking longer words into manageable parts, students may look at a longer word and simply resort to guessing what it is — or altogether skipping it. Familiarity with syllable-spelling conventions helps readers know whether a vowel is long, short, a diphthong, r-controlled, or whether endings have been added. Familiarity with syllable patterns helps students to read longer words accurately and fluently and to solve spelling problems.  Knowledge of syllable types alone will not make everyone a great speller, we need phonics too!  Our students will learn the syllable types and practice phonetic decoding.  

Beyond the phonetic decoding 5th grades will expand their knowledge into both latin and greek suffixes, prefixes, and roots. 

We will give spelling tests sporadically during the year, only after students are strong in the spelling rules being taught.  Giving a spelling test to see if students have memorized the word is not our goal.  Assessing someone's knowledge should be based on accurate understanding of the syllable rule, spelling strategy, and phonics mastered.  Below you will find the syllable types and phonetic decoding cards.  We will let all parents know ahead of time before a test, and we will send home a hard-copy list and email list of words.