Where do you get your spelling words? I am looking for a "good" program to use in correlation with my basal.
Ditto. We include the dolch words but we also look at what we think the kids will want to write about or what we are learning about at the time.
If you want to teach words by rule, Word Journeys by Kathy Ganskley (spelling?) is a good resource. Words Their Way is also good.
I use the 37 rimes or word families and then make up 3 lists a week one is easy, one is more challenging and one uses more prefixes and suffixes. Kids choose their list but we practice the word family of the week together all week and I pick other words even not from the list to practice. For instance if the word family is "ack and ick" for the week some words might be pack and pick or stick and stack or stacked or unstick for the 3 levels. Then we practice trick, stick, brick, lick, cricket etc. all week on whiteboards, making words, sorts, etc. It took a lot of time but I did it on Sunday nights every week last year and now this year it is all done. Oh, also, I did 3 sentences a week using past words for review and present words. The kids had it for dictation during the week several times and on the test I only gave out 2 of the 3 sentences for dictation on back of test. I added 4 vocabulary words when we did science or social studies and kept them and definitions in pocket chart all week. Sometimes after lunch we would mix them all up and have 1-2 kids come up and put them right. Most kids got 100% on spelling and vocab. Dictation was harder but I thought worth the practice.
