Ms. England's Spelling Update

Parents sometimes ask us, “What words should you be spelling correctly in your homework and writing?” In first grade it is tricky because we are pretty new to this spelling thing. However, Ms. England wants to give you a little clue to help you guide us when doing our homework or reflecting on our writing. She has asked us to share our “sight words”, also known as “word wall words”, up to this point in the year. These words are on the word wall and in our writers’ offices to help us make sure we spell them correctly. In homework we might need gentle reminders on how to spell them, and you can correct us when we spell these words wrong. Here is our list up until now:

I	a	to	and	we
me	the	is	in	it
go	my	see	can	not
said	you	look	come	here
big	little	for	down	up
find	run	help	play	where
one	two	three	four	five
yellow	red	blue	green	brown
black	away	funny	make	jump

We will have this list taped in our homework folders starting Monday. It would be good for us to reference our folders as a mini word wall at home. It is important that we start to develop good spelling patterns for these very common words. Some of the words we can stretch out, but some we cannot so we must just practice and practice until we have it stuck in our brains. 

Also, please continue to help us with our short vowel sounds. We should be able to apply our knowledge of the a, e, i, o, and u short vowel sounds (such as in the words, cat, met, big, pop, and rug). These can be very tricky, especially since a few are the opposite in Portuguese. We can always do with a little extra practice, maybe singing the fun little youtube song from our last assembly?  

**Another very important way we are learning to spell is through our spelling patterns. Ms. England uses some crazy word called differentiated, which means that these patterns are based on where we are right now as spellers. This week we are going to bring home our spelling words. We need to explain our spelling headers to you (these are how we sort the patterns). Please encourage us to show you how we sort our spelling words into our headers and then practice spelling these words with us. It would also really help us to find other words that also fit the rule for our headers (or spelling patterns). This helps us to apply our patterns in other settings, and that will help us to become better spellers. If you are unsure, or if I have trouble explaining anything at home, please feel free to e-mail Ms. England.