Reaction to Wilde's article

Spelling came very hard for me in elementary school. I did really well in every subject except for spelling. I think part of the reason I had such a hard time with spelling as that no one took the time to help me come up with strategies or gave me anyways to improve my spelling. We had a pre-test Monday, our spelling books throughout the week, and then a final spelling test on Friday. There was no other help or strategies. I remember if students asked the teacher how to spell a word she would say, "Look it up in the dictionary." The problem with looking a word up in the dictionary is that you have to know how to spell the word.

I liked Wilde's article because it was full of ways to teach and help students who have problems learning how to spell words. I thought the "placeholder" spelling was a really cool idea, and something that can help students become better spellers, and feel better about themselves. I also liked the idea of having a very print/text rich classroom environment. If there are words, phrases, names, and other types of text all over the classroom the students have a lot of resources to look at. I think part of a rich text environment could be having the students have "trouble word" lists at their desks. These lists would be taped on their desks and would include the words that they have trouble spelling on multiple occasions, that way they see it everyday and eventually learn how to spell it on their own.

It was eventually discovered that I have a low form of dyslexia, which explains why spelling and writing was so difficult for me in elementary school. It would have been nice to have someone attempt to help me with my spelling at a younger age. It probably would have saved me from feeling like such a spelling failure. As a teacher I want to make sure not to just give my students a spelling book and tell them to memorize the words, I want to make sure I know how well each student is doing with spelling and writing. I do not want any of my students to feel like failures, so I want to make sure I find strategies and ways to help all of my students. I felt like the Wilde article was a good place to start.