Spelling to Start the Year

Have you ever found that by following your school’s spelling program (whatever it may be) your students can spell words like “deceit” and “portion” on the Friday test, but misspell much simpler words in their daily writing? In my classroom, I start the year by testing kids on their knowledge of core words - high-frequency words that will be most common in their second-grade writing. It is based on the 135 core words that spelling curriculum developer Rebecca Sitton focuses on in her second grade spelling units. I use several activities to help students learn the core words they are having trouble spelling. Click here for a freebie I recently posted to TpT that includes the materials I created to help kids with these high-frequency words. There's an introduction included in the material explaining how I use it in my classroom, but it's very flexible and can be incorporated in many different ways.