Download DSA Spelling Lesson Plan

Dora Cottrol
April 15, 2015
DSA Spelling Assessment Activity
Purpose:

Based on the DSA assessment, which was given prior to this lesson, the student correctly uses his
initial and final consonants when spelling a word, and is using initial consonant blends and digraphs,
the short vowels “o” and “u”, final consonant blends and digraphs and affricates. The assessment
given to the student is from the letter-name list. The student had eleven total words spelled correctly.

For this lesson, I decided to focus on one of the concepts that the student was using, but confusing.
For my activity, I had the student focus on short “o” and short “u” words. I decided upon this
activity based on the student’s frequent misuse of these words. The student often wrote the letter “u”
when the word called for an “o.” The student would also add an “e” at the end of short vowel words,
which indicates that he does not fully understand short vowel spellings.

It is important for me to conduct this lesson in order to help the student differentiate between these
letters, their sounds and their spellings. In order for the student to continue to become a better speller
and move on to words with long vowels, he has to a stronger understanding of the difference
between these two short vowels. Spelling is an important part of the language arts curriculum
because it further enhances student reading by helping the students make strong connections
between letters and their phonemes.

SOL 1.12 The student will print legibly.
A) Form letters accurately.
b) Space words within sentences.
c) Use the alphabetic code to write unknown words phonetically.

SOL 1.6 The student will apply phonetic principles to read and spell.
a) Use beginning and ending consonants to decode and spell single-syllable words.
b) Use two-letter consonant blends to decode and spell single-syllable words.
c) Use beginning consonant digraphs to decode and spell single-syllable words.
d) Use short vowel sounds to decode and spell single-syllable words.
e) Blend beginning, middle, and ending sounds to recognize and read words.
f) Use word patterns to decode unfamiliar words.
g) Read and spell simple two-syllable compound words.
h) Read and spell commonly used sight words.
Objectives:

Given a word sort of different words and pictures with short “o” and short “u” words, the student
will be able to categorize these words into their respective groups with about 80% accuracy.

Given a poster board game, which uses words from the first word sort, the student will be able to
read and verbalize a sentence using with at least 14 of the 17 words provided.

Given a piece of paper and a pencil, the student will be able to listen to me say a short “o” or
short “u” word and write it down with 90% accuracy.
Procedure:
Introduction (Word Sort)

I will introduce this activity by asking the student if he/she remembers how to do a word sort.

I will then tell the student that today we will be working on short o and short u sounds.
o I will ask the student: what sound does short u make? What sound does short o make?

I will have the two word sort categories at the top (short o and short u) and provide the student with
a word sort example.
o Short o: I will put down the word, dog,
o Short u: I will put down the word, gum

After I demonstrate the word sort, I will have him do the word sort himself.

As the students sorts his words, he will be asked to read each of these words out loud.

The words used for the word sort are:
o Job, rob, hut, hot, cup, box, top, gum, bun, run, dog, bug, tug, mom, mop, sun and lot
Development (Spelling Game/Activity)

After the student completes the word sort, I will introduce the spelling game with the student.

The words for this game are the same words used in the first writing sort.

The game is called “Catch that Frog,” which is a spinoff of the “Frog Marker and Hopping Frog
Game” found on pg. 193 in the Words Their Way textbook.

In this game, I will create and give the student a poster-board that has 20 words short o and short u
words written on “lily pads.” (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton& Johnston, 2012 p. 193).
The words used for this game are the same used for the word sort.
3 “wildcard” words are included as a shortcut to the finish line (get, fin, and vote). While
these words are not short “o” and “u” words, they will help me gauge how much the
student understands about other short vowels and what the student might know about
long vowels.

The student’s task is to read, spell and pronounce each of these words correctly. He will be the frog
in this game. If he does these things, he will be able to “jump” to the next lily pad and gain a point. If
he doesn’t, then I, the “net” will be able to move up one lily pad.

If I “the net” end up on the same lily pad as the frog, then he loses a point and I gain a point.

For the first round, the student has to read, spell and properly pronounce each word.

For the second round, the student has to read each word and think of a sentence. Of this
word.

I will model for both the first and second round of this game. First I will go to the first
“lily pad" which reads “gum.” I will then say the word gum, spell it g-u-m and pronounce
it correctly. For the second round, I will demonstrate this by saying “I want to buy some
gum at the store.”

After the game, I will tally of up the points to see who the “winner” is (it will be the
student).
Summary (Writing Sort and final reflection)

After this spelling game, I will clean up and give the student a piece of paper and a pencil to do a
writing sort.

At the top of the paper, I will label one side “short o” and the other side “short u.” I will put
vertical line down the middle of these two labels.

After I create this, I will hand it to my student and explain that I want him to write and spell the
words that I say to him aloud.

With each word I read, the student will be instructed to write the word down either under the
“short o” or “short u” category.

This writing word sort will include words from the original word sort as well as additional short
“o” and short “u” words.

When the student is done with the writing sort, I will ask him one more time what the differences
is between the short “u” and short “o” sounds.

The reinforcement of the differentiation between these two letter sounds is very important for the
student to understand. I will ask the student one more time to give me an example of a word with
each letter/sound and to remind me of the sound that each sound makes.

The words used for this writing sort were,
o Dog, rug, fog, jump, got, gut, log, hut, gum, fox, tug, box, mug, mop and chop.
Materials:

Word sort list (short ‘o’ and short ‘u)

Poster Board with word sort words written on it (on lily pads) : completed prior to lesson

Paper picture of frog and net

Pencil

Paper
o Words Used for word sort and spelling activity: Job, rob, hut, hot, cup, box, top, gum, bun, run,
dog, bug, tug, mom, mop, sun and lot
o Get, fin, and vote (these were extra, wild card words).
o Words used for writing sort: Dog, rug, fog, jump, got, gut, log, hut, gum, fox, tug, box, mug, mop
and chop.
Evaluation Part A:

I will assess the students’ knowledge in each category based on how many words he gets write.
There are about 17 words in the word sort and game and 15 in the final writing assignment. If he
correctly sorts at least 14 words and successfully reads, spells and pronounces at least 14 words
in the “Catch that frog game,” then I know that the objective has been met.

For the final writing sort, if the student gets at least 14 out of 15 words correct, then I know that
my objective has been met.
Evaluation Part B:
In the first word sort, the student was able to correctly sort all but one of the words on the list
provided. The one sort that my student got incorrect was of a picture of a cup, which he put under short
“o.” Here, the student got 16/17 of the words correct and met my objective of getting at least 80%
correct. In the activity, the student was able to come up read, spell and pronounce 15 out of the 17 words
correctly, which met the objective of getting at least 14/17 correct for this activity. In addition the word
sort list, I decided to throw in three “wild card shortcut” words that the students would have to spell if he
wanted to get to the finish line early. These words were fin, vote and get.
For the writing sort, I read additional short of and short u words that were not a part of the
original word sort. The student misspelled 3 words (but then rewrote the correct word, “log” for to
replace that misspelled word) so the student ultimately got 13/15 correct on the spelling assessment.
This means that the student did this writing word sort with 86% accuracy, which is just shy of the 90%
accuracy that the objective set forth.
One of the strengths of this lesson was that I gave the student examples of what to do during
each activity. For the word sort, I demonstrated by sorting some short “o” and “u” words myself. For the
game, I demonstrated by pronouncing, spelling and reading some words and putting these words into a
sentence. For the writing sort, I did not give a demonstration, but I made sure that my instructions were
clear and that the student wasn’t confused.
A weakness in my teaching of this activity was that I didn’t plan how long this activity was
going to take overall. Because the students were working in their reading stations anyway, timing didn’t
matter too much with this activity, but it is definitely something that I need to be mindful of in the future
when I’m teaching a lesson.
While I generally I feel that this lesson went well, I think that next time I will change some of the
words I include in my word sort. In addition to short o and short u words, I would’ve liked to include
some of the other elements of spelling that he was “using but confusing.” My student did relatively well
with this word sort and game and it would’ve been nice to use additional features (like initial consonant
blends) to help the student gain more practice using it.
References
Bear, Donald R., Invernizzi, Marcia, Templeton, Shane, Johnston, Francine, (2012). Words their way: Word
study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson
Education.