READ 436 Exit slip for Tuesday, January 22nd:

In class this unit, I learned how to mark a passage during a QRI to show when the reader skipped a word, mispronounced a word, and added in another word, and then how to score the assessment based on these markings.

After the testing unit, I still wanted to know more about the concept of “using but confusing” that shows teachers that their students are ready to move onto the next spelling level.  What are the different categories of “using but confusing,” and how many times must a child “use but confuse” to demonstrate readiness to move up a level?  These were my questions for the day.

I looked through ‘Words Their Way’ and various internet resources to find some answers to my questions.  It sounds like most “using but confusing” categories have to do with long vowels.  For example, children will confuse “a” as in apron, “ai” as in wait, “ay” as in say, “eigh” as in neighbor, “aCe” as in late, “ey” as in they, etc .  So a child that is “using but confusing” the long A might spell late as “layt,” “leyt” or “lait.”  He or she recognizes that some pattern of long A must be used in this word- it is not “let” or “lit.”  However, the child is unclear about which pattern to use because they don’t have enough experience with that word in print.  At this point, the child should move up into the next spelling level. 

There are four other categories of long vowel, and each has multiple spellings that children can confuse.  Long e can be spelled “e” as in petri, “ee”  as in meet, “ea” as in each, “Cy” as in pretty, “eCe” as in fete, or “ie”  as in sweetie.  Long i can be spelled “i” as in icicle, “iCe” as in while, “igh” as in tight, “Cy” as in intensify, “ie” as in tie or “yCe” as in Bryce.  Long o can be spelled “o” as in open, “oCe” as in tome, “oa” as in foam, “ow” as in bow, “oe” as in toe or even as “eau” as in beau.  Long u can be spelled ”u” as in bugle ,“uCe” as in abuse, “ue” as in , “eu” as in beautiful, or “ew” as in mew.

 As for knowing when a child has “used but confused” enough to move up in the spelling world, it seems that it must happen only two or three times in a pattern for it to be clear that there is no fluke- the child understands long vowel patterns and now just needs practice and experience to identify which to use in a given word.

Sources:

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2012). Words their way (5th ed., pp. 205-218). New York, NY: Pearson.

Vyduna-Haskins, Grace. "Long vowel patterns." The spel-lang tree. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2013. <http://user.mc.net/~gsh/LongVowelPatterns.htm>.