Dyslexia and Super Hero Spellers Grades 2-4

This class is specifically made for children that have dyslexia.  These children have difficulty seeing patterns in words, seeing letters in order (often letters flip positions), hearing sounds in order, or hearing sounds clearly.  Often, they have difficulty writing as their letters are written disproportionately and all-over-the-place. Care is taken to support children as they learn the skill of spelling.  Teaching, re-teaching, and more re-teaching is the cycle of teaching that I will use.   
There are pre-skills that your child should know.  If you are not sure if this class is for your child, I will send you a screening  spelling test.  It will give us an indication as to where your child is in their spelling ability.  Before you enroll your child, they should know
1.	All letter names and sounds
2.	How to read CVC and CVCe words
3.	Know digraphs sh, th, ch
4.	How to spell common CVC word, cat, dog
What to Expect
Students will learn to listen carefully to words and look for patterns in words.  As they notice how word patterns and families are alike, they will make conclusions and rules.  With firmly taught rules, they will be able to generalize to other words with that pattern. 
Daily Teaching Routine:
STEP 1:  Read 10-12 pre-selected words.  Discuss pronunciation and definition of unfamiliar words. Pronunciation routine looks at beginning, middle, ending and then whole word.  When teaching definitions, pictures will be used, relation of word to categories, i.e., bonnet is related to hat and cap, or comparing/contrasting the new word to words they are familiar with. 
STEP 2:  As a class, students sort the pre-selected words into patterns they can hear and see. One of the sounds that they can hear, or can’t hear, is the silent e pattern sound.  Other sounds they can hear is long vowel sounds vs short vowel sounds.  Patterns that they will be taught to look for are CVC, CVVC, CVCe, CVCing, CVCCing.  
STEP 3:  Discuss patterns looking for position of vowels and consonants, oddballs, related words they know that have the same patterns, and notice the frequency of the pattern.
STEP 4:  Make conclusions.  Is there a rule? 
STEP 5:  Game and activities will use discovered and taught patterns and rules to solidify understanding.
a.	Operation! – This game uses a word with a previously taught rule.  One student, acting as the operating surgeon, operates on the word by changing a letter in the word or adding a prefix/suffix to the word.  The other doctors in the class determine if the new word still fits the pre-taught rule and why, whether the word is a real or a nonsense word, or if another rule applies.  Points are awarded.
b.	Have-a-Go – Students take turns spelling words that follow previous taught spelling patterns/rule but is a word that they might not be familiar with.  This game helps them extend their use of spelling patterns/rules.
c.	Quartiles and Portals – In this game, students use four previously taught spelling rules/patterns (quartiles) and they are to recall words that are spelled the same way (portals) that match the quartiles.  The longer the portals, the more points received. 
d.	Showdown – Students are given a picture of a word that follows previously taught patterns/rules.  They must spell the word correctly to earn points
e.	Deep Sea Hunt – Students hunt for words in a reading that follow previously taught patterns/rules.
f.	Five in a Hive – Students are given 5 words.  They can add affixes/suffixes to the words. Then each student makes a sentence.  The number of words they use successfully in the sentence is the number of  points they earn.
STEP 6:  Reflect.  We will reflect on previously sorted words, the patterns, the rules and how our understanding can help as we attack words with the same patterns.