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Dear Parents,

Loudoun County Public Schools uses a spelling program called “Word Study,” based on orthographic research conducted by Donald Bear, Kathy Ganske, Marcia Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, and Francine Johnston.  This well-researched approach allows me, as your child’s teacher, to assess each student, and engage in word study activities that are appropriate to their individual developmental level.  Through word sort activities, students will learn to make generalizations about word features and spelling patterns. You may notice that the words are not difficult to spell. The objective is for students to recognize the word patterns so that they can make generalizations and transfer the knowledge to their daily written work.

Students are screened and placed in flexible groups based on their developmental spelling levels.  These groups may change as students become more familiar with spelling patterns.

On Monday, students will be given a set of spelling or picture cards to cut out and sort, seeing if they, independently, can discover meaningful patterns.  This is called an open sort.  After sharing their attempts, I will give them feature words and ask them to sort their words according to the feature words (for instance, “cap” for the short “a” sound, and “cape” for the long “a” sound).  This is called a guided, or closed sort. Throughout the week students will practice their sort in school as well as for homework.

Your child’s spelling grade will be determined by accuracy and completion of homework as well as how well they spell in their daily written work. This is to make sure that they are making generalizations about spelling patterns and are ready to transfer their knowledge into their written work. Students will be directly instructed as to how to use resources if they don’t know how to spell a word (i.e. check the word wall, use a spell-checker, reference their personal dictionary, etc.).  These strategies will become useful throughout their school years.

Thank you for your support!