Spelling

Dear Parents,

A regular activity with children when spelling at school is the MASUTA process.  It’s an acronym for Meaning Analysing Synthesis Using Testing Applying.

With the teacher, children discuss a word’s meaning and use it in a sentence to display understanding.  They look at whether it has a prefix or suffix and if it does, the base word (morphology). They discuss its origins (etymology) and talk about other words in that family.

Then, using the Thrass chart, syllables are clapped, to check whether there is one vowel per syllable.  The word is segmented into phonemes (sounds), and the difficult grapheme (writing choice) identified.  Discussion would continue about digraphs, trigraphs and even quadgraphs.

Children write the word, often using a coloured pencil to identify their tricky grapheme. 

Part of this is the “I do, we do (together with the teacher) and finally the you do (children on their own) process.”

As you can see, spelling is not just copying letters but a much more involved study.

IDL Typing Reading Spelling

I'm very excited about a new program we are providing at Bayview to assist students with their typing, reading and spelling!

IDL is a multisensory touch typing software program that improves reading and spelling.  It has been designed to use sight, touch and voice to make links between visual, auditory and tactile pathways so spelling and reading can improve.  It is individually tailored to each student and monitored by a teacher or teacher’s aide. 

Students work on the program for 20-30 minutes four times a week.  Each lesson is tightly structured to provide comprehensive and specific teaching in sequenced modules with passages, spelling, grammar and punctuation exercises.  Each learning focus is introduced, demonstrated, practised and consolidated before progressing to the next focus.  Previous learning is continually reinforced throughout the program. 

Evidence based research suggests that students who participate in the program increase reading speed, listening comprehension and improve their writing.  It also helps students with confidence levels and transferring skills into the classroom learning environment.