4th Grade Writings

Child 1:

From his piece of writing, it is obvious that he is in a couple of different stages according to the Stages of Spelling Development. For starters, he shows very good indicators that he is well past the 3rd stage. He understands that the word "famous" is a diphthong and the -ou makes a totally new sound when put together. This particular writer seems to be mostly in stage 4, still learning how to spell using syllabication and recognizing homophones. He incorrectly uses a homophone; using "were" instead of "where". This surprised me because they have been learning about homophones during class while I have been there observing. This writer also needs more help with learning how to spell by sounding out the word. He writes "Amirican", using the "i" instead of "e" which proves that he either cannot hear the "e" in the word or he needs to pronounce the word clearer so he can spell it using the syllables. I believe that he just needs to pronounce the word better because he also misspells the word "tournament", forgetting the "r" so it looks like this, "tounament". When this word is said out loud quickly, it is hard to hear the "r" in the word. This child is clearly in stage 4, learning how to use the syllables to spell a word and knowing what spelling to use for a word with multiple meanings.

Child 2:

After reading this writing sample, child 2 is clearly in the 4th stage of spelling development. During his paper, he writes about tonsils and tonsillitis, however it is evident that he attempted to use the syllables to spell the word. He spells them "tonsalites" and "tonsales", which seems correct when sounding them out. It is also evident that this child knows about the magic 'e' concept (adding a silent 'e' on the end of a word), he just needs to know when to use it properly. He also shows evidence that he knows when to drop certain letters when adding -ing onto the end of a word. This is evident when he writes the word "riding". Instead of writing "rideing" like some students might do, he drops the 'e' and adds the -ing. One thing that surprised me with this child was he mixed up the letters in a word, which is something that is evident during the 3rd stage. At the end of his paper he writes "trails" instead of "trials", simply mixing up the 'a' and 'i'. I am curious to know if he really does not know how to spell "trials" or if he was just rushing and misspelled the word.