Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Spelling Sentences

I have nightmares about writing sentences for spelling words. Helping 2nd and 4th graders write 15 - 25 (correct) sentences is tedius.

Why can't teachers split the sentences up through out the week... it aint rocket science.

Posted during hour 2 of 15 2nd grade sentences.

6 comments:

KDeRosa said...

The trick is to find a dictionary that gives example sentences and use them.

TurbineGuy said...

I can easily come up with sentences, so that's not the issue.
If I tell them the sentences and help them (mostly the 2nd grader), we can finish the assignment in 20 minutes.

Hell, I have gone as far as writing the sentences and having the kids copy them.

The point is that if the kids do the assignment honestly (really make them up) then it will take a long ass time.

Remember that sentences are only part of the homework... we still have the other stuff to do as well.

concernedCTparent said...

Guess I can't complain. My second grader got to choose 10 words out of 21 to write sentences about. He got the list on Monday and they are due Friday. He can do a few a day and be done or if he's feeling really creative crank all 10 out at once. Works well when you have soccer practice, chess club, discussion group at the library and math facts too.

Anonymous said...

Hi Rory! It's Liz from I Speak of Dreams.

All of my kids had writing issues (two with physical difficulties with writing, one with dyslexia).

The goal in spelling is two-fold: to master the spelling of the word, and to understand the meaning of the word (this gets more meaty >3rd grade).

The goal is not to have your kid in tears with frustration and exhaustion.

My solution: have them say a sentence out loud, while I scribed for them.

For my youngest, I actually typed the sentences.

I did make all of them practice spelling the words out loud, and assembling them from magnetic letters, and for the dyslexic one, using her finger to write the word in a grainy substance (cornmeal turned out to be the best).

The older two have graduated from college and the youngest has just started -- and their verbal SATs were high, thank you very much.

Anonymous said...

It used to take my 3rd grade son at least two hours on a Monday night to do his spelling sentences. The words were assigned Monday, and due in spelling sentences the next day. Every week started out as a miserable disaster fighting to get the sentences done. Finally, I started emailing the teacher EVERY Friday asking her for the words for Monday so he could pace himself in chunks of 7-8 words at a time over Fri/Sat/Sun nights. It worked, and now he's doing them much faster and all at the same time in an hour.

He just finished his 20 spelling words today (Sunday afternoon) all in one swoop. I told him his goal was to finish in an hour, and that for every minute he finished earlier than an hour he'd get 5 cents. He got the job done in 48 minutes.

Interesting, I told the teacher a few weeks ago how he was now doing them in just an hour. She said that's ridiculous and that the sentences should only take 30 minutes to do, absolutely no more than 2 minutes a piece. I thought that was a bit unrealistic for a 3rd grader.

He also types them which makes things a bit faster, so when I review them when he's done, it's easier for him to fix any grammar issues.

Eastcoastjac said...

My second-grader gets a list of 12 words for the week, and has to make two sentences per day. He can do those two in about 5 minutes IF he does't get hung up on whether or not he has to write the absolute truth! Trying to explain that making something up is not the same as lying, can be quite a trick!