Term 3 has come...and gone! But, what a "cracker". Evaluation time and a reflective glare at what we did. What was stunning for me, was to hear the year 6 learners, actually use the words of learning...talking about their thinking... when they wanted to spell a word in their blogs. I have worked hard to infiltrate their minds with the term, "how words word" as opposed to using that horrible word...spelling. I hate it with a vengeance, because it brings with it, horrors, tremors and other unmentionable "feelings" for many learners. It haunts those that cannot "do it" well. It is a favourite of parents and I hate to add, some teachers, as one of the first comments about their written literacy. Thank goodness we have deeper and surface features in our vocabulary when reviewing written language in our schools now! Thank goodness we have exemplars to use as guides, as to what learners are acturally able to do, in different genre.
I was fortunate enough to be trained as a Reading Recovery teacher, back in 1991, when I was teaching at Lake Rotoma school, 30 minutes out of Rotorua,NZ on the way to Whakatane. I hadn`t taken any particular notice to the term, "how words work" until then. Used it, but not really reflected, on how massive that term is. I undertook the speld training in 1997 and learned even more about how important it is, for learners to understand how words work...for many literate reasons. For dyslexic learners, having to look at and learn how words work can be a "biggie", but thanks to the ever-increasing number of ICT tools, particularly, web 2.0 tools, there is a myriad of reasons for everybody to get their ideas, thoughts and thinking out there, for others to read and enjoy.
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