Word Preview

The Word Preview is an essential practice activity for teaching students how to visualize words. Although most students can successfully complete the Word Preview in the standard format suggested in your Teaching Notes, some students struggle while others are so visually strong that they rarely feel challenged. Use the following adaptations so that all your students will gain maximum benefit from this quick and powerful practice activity.

1.	The Challenged Speller: Some students benefit from a line or box for each letter of the Word Preview word. For example, if the Core Word told is a Word Preview word, provide the student with the lines on one or both columns of their paper. If you want to provide stronger visual support, make boxes of tall and short letters for the word told. Another option is to provide challenged students with manipulatives such as plastic or magnetic letters or photocopies of each letter. See your Sourcebook, Levels 1-3 for letters that can be photocopied. While the class writes the words on paper, challenged students can use the letters to make the same words. Some students can manipulate the letters and then copy the spelling on paper, while other challenged spellers may just work with the letters. During the correction procedure, challenged spellers may benefit from keeping a visual model of the word on a sentence strip or note card in front of them. Students can use the visual model to correct their first attempt as well as to copy the word into the rewrite column. For students who benefit from sensory-tactile support, tracing the sentence strip model with white glue or glitter glue can provide a fun way to feel each letter formation. For an emerging reader or English Language Learner, it is often useful to write the words in both columns with a highlighter pen or light pencil. While other students practice visual skills by writing and copying the words, challenged spellers gain additional practice and familiarity with these important high-utility words. With time and practice, you may make the student responsible for writing the Core Words in the first column while continuing to use a highlighter for the words in the rewrite column. The above suggestions should be accompanied by extra visual development practice such as the activities labeled visual skill building in the Seeds for Sowing Skills. With time and practice, you will notice that many of these scaffolds and adjustments can be phased out.
2.	The More Capable Speller: Many capable spellers enjoy the challenge of being a class leader. They can use their knowledge to help you add an activity that is not a "teacher's helper" activity – something a kid would enjoy. Invite the students to choose several words from the Word Preview words to present to the class the next day, in a context-specific format of their choosing, such as a poem, a comedy sketch, a poster or an illustrated cartoon. Add two to three bonus Word Preview words for the more capable speller by choosing vocabulary from the content curriculum. Follow the same procedure used for the Word Preview words. These extra words could be given to the more capable spellers while the rest of the class is writing the words in the rewrite column.

Exercise Express

Although the Exercise Express activities are considered an optional component of the Sourcebooks, teachers find these activities to be a powerful way to build spelling and language skills quickly. Since one important element of effective differentiation is empowering students with opportunities to make choices, you can allow students to choose the Exercise Express activities that they would like to complete. Remember, once students know the routine for each Exercise Express activity, the only elements that change from unit to unit are the actual words or sentences.

1.	The Challenged Speller: When inviting the challenged speller to choose an Exercise Express activity, it is helpful to limit the choices. Choose activities that would benefit the challenged speller, who then picks one to complete. The Exercise Express activities provide many opportunities for differentiation. • Stretch-it: The challenged speller can participate in an oral language activity, using the prompt as a tool to further practice verbal communication skills. • Fix-it: Work with a small group to contribute to editing and proofing. You can complete the activity with writing to offer additional support. • Sort-it: Tell the challenged speller how to sort the words provided, perhaps by number of letters or parts of speech. • Add-it: Tell the challenged speller to focus on finding one-syllable words that match the provided words. • Find-it: Provide the student with user-friendly resources such as books at an appropriate instructional level or charts that have been created in class. Limiting the number of words that the student needs to find can simplify the process and make it feel less overwhelming.
2.	The More Capable Speller: The more capable speller may choose from all Exercise Express activities, picking three or four to complete during a given period of time. You can also differentiate both the process and the end product for the more capable speller. • Stretch-it: This activity can prompt a well-written paragraph or story for the student seeking extra challenge. • Fix-it: This same student can proofread the activity and then add a few more sentences, based on the prompt, to write out and proofread. • Sort-it: The more capable speller might be asked to come up with several different ways to sort the words and then share them with the class. It is often surprising how many ways students can discover to sort words! • Add-it and Find-it: Challenge capable spellers to come up with a certain number of words, perhaps 20 or 30. Have them add words that relate to content vocabulary, find two-, three- and then four-syllable words that match the common feature provided in the prompt, or design Add-it or Find-it activities and challenge other students to figure them out.

Seeds for Sowing Skills

Seeds for Sowing Skills (SSS) is the heart of the Sourcebooks and offers plenty of opportunities to differentiate based on student needs, abilities, interests, talents, and learning styles. Your SSS can be differentiated on a whole-class level and adjusted for small group and individual activities while maintaining a well-managed word study block.

The SSS offers you a few concept choices to focus on in a unit. You will discover over time, especially once you have gathered student work samples, writing samples, and previous Skill Tests, that choosing which concepts to focus on will come quite naturally. The formative data that you gather while students are practicing skills in the Assess Words and Skills part of the unit will help you determine which concepts to reinforce with your whole class. You will also begin to see which concepts need more review with small groups and individuals.

Once you choose a concept, you will be offered a menu of activities for teaching it. These activities range in difficulty, making it easy to have small groups in which some students work on simpler activities, while others work on more challenging tasks. You may sometimes have a few groups working independently while you lead a small group that can benefit from your direct attention. The student grouping for completing SSS activities allow for all ability levels to be engaged and build on one another's strengths and needs. You may have some of your more capable spellers work in pairs or independently on a task, while your challenged spellers work with a teacher-led small group. Or perhaps the whole class can work in small groups with assigned roles such as time keeper, recorder, task-master, and presenter. This way, everyone contributes based on their own needs and abilities.

When the whole class works on an activity, students who need the review portion of the activity can contribute by recalling past word collections and class generalizations about a concept, while more capable spellers can contribute by expanding on previous discoveries. The class book activities denoted with a book icon offer plenty of opportunities to review ideas while expanding on the concepts. Here are a few other tips:

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The Challenged Speller: • The challenged speller often benefits from breaking a task into smaller, more manageable tasks. Many SSS activity options involve several steps that can be assigned one at a time. • The challenged speller might not have an easy time generating words for study and analysis. You may wish to partner the challenged speller with a small group to generate lists of words for study and analysis. Offering the challenged speller a familiar book or word lists, generated from previous SSS activities, provides support. This student may also benefit from a homework assignment the night before to find 3-5 words to contribute. • The challenged speller often benefits from using manipulatives to help sort words and build word generalizations. Magnetic or plastic letters and letter combinations such as those offered in the Touchphonics® program, letter cards, and dry erase markers and boards are all extra tools to make word analysis a success. • Providing extra opportunities to review concepts and make connections during other times of the day will also benefit the challenged speller. If word collections are generated on sticky notes, a teacher can pull the notes from the class chart and ask the challenged spellers to resort the words on the chart, perhaps as a warm-up to a guided reading lesson, during center time, and while working with a resource teacher or aide. • Challenged spellers often thrive on the skill-building activities labeled "Relating to Literature". Extensive opportunities to experience spelling and word study skills that connect to familiar literature enable students to make stronger connections, build background knowledge and vocabulary, and to become more motivated!

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The More Capable Speller: • While the more challenged speller may need an activity to be broken into smaller pieces, the more capable speller will be able to complete all sections of an activity. The part of an activity that requires further word analysis and expansion is a great place for your more capable speller to lead and share findings with the rest of the class. • The more capable speller might be challenged to contribute multisyllabic words or science and social studies content-area words to a word collection. • When grouping students to work on an activity, the more capable speller might serve as the group presenter. • The Practice Books can be a great tool for challenging your more capable spellers, who can work independently on a variety of activities related to the concepts covered in class. The on another paper activities at the bottom of each Practice Book page offer wonderful challenge activities that connect to the unit focus concepts but at a higher than typical level. • Additional supplemental materials that can challenge the capable speller include Word Skills in Rhythm and Rhyme, Word-Wise Sourcebooks™, the Core Word Activity Cards for grades 1 – 3, and the Some Words vocabulary series for grades 4 – 8. • Even though you may choose to have your entire class focus on one essential concept, you may decide to allow your more capable spellers to work independently or in small groups on different concepts from the unit. This independent practice will challenge students to make their own word discoveries.

Test Ready

Each Test Ready offers an in-class activity as well as a Take Home Task to share with families and caregivers. There are many ways to differentiate this important aspect of your Sourcebook teaching.

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The Challenged Speller: • Prior to sending home the Take Home Task on a particular concept, provide the challenged speller with in-class practice. • The challenged speller might benefit from a teacher-led, small group review of the activity, perhaps prior to participation in the whole class activity. This small group practice could easily flow into a guided reading lesson or a small group reinforcement mini-lesson led by the teacher, a parent volunteer, or the classroom aide. • Some challenged spellers may benefit from completing the Take Home Task in class, perhaps with the classroom teacher, a parent volunteer, the classroom aide, or a resource teacher. Students can then take the completed task home to share and explain.

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The More Capable Speller: • The more capable speller may benefit from an independent version of the in-class Test Ready activity. After you introduce the in-class activity to the whole group, challenge the student to think of multisyllabic words that fit the concept, or content words from social studies, science, art, sports, or music. • The more capable speller can complete the in-class Test Ready with a timer, counting only the words spelled correctly once the timer goes off. • The more capable speller will be able to complete the Take Home Task with ease, but can be challenged upon completion to design a new Take Home Task relating to the featured concept.