Sep. 22, 2007 - Day One
September 5, 2007
Lesson 1, Part 1
Our first day of school included an SWR Diagnostic Test. (SWR Step 4) We used the first test in the series found in Appendix B. My children's scores and resutls were as follows:
JD, 8th gr.
First errors: #8 lead for led, #18 borm for born, #23 adress for address. Because of my son's age, how many years he has been working on SWR (albeit inconsistently), and the gap between these errors, I chose to ignore the first two. In addition, it was at word #23 that he began to make relatively consistent errors. Therefore, word #23 was considered his first error for determining his mastery level. According to the chart on page 198 in SWR, this places him at Section O.
Total correct:JD got a total of 24 words correct on this test. Again, using the chart on page 198, this placed him at a grade level of 4.5. *sigh*
JJ, 6th gr.
First errors: #8 lead for led, #9 speant for spent, #17 provid for provide; #24 neerly for nearly. Again, given my son's age, how many years he has been working on SWR, and the gap between words #9 & #17, I chose to ignore the first two errors. In addition, word #24 was the first of more than ten consecutive errors. We can safely conclude that I exhausted his capabilities at this time. Therefore, word #17 was considered his first error for determining his mastery level at Section M.
Total correct:JJ got a total of 20 words correct on this test, placing him at a grade level of 3.9. *sigh*
SE, 4th gr.
First error: #23 adress for address
Being my youngest, I have lost the least amount of time with this child. This is evidenced by her more accurate and consistent spelling. Based on word #23 as the first of several subsequent errors, her Mastery level would be Section O.
Total correct:SE got a total of 25 words correct on this test, placing her at a grade level of 4.7. Wow! God is certainly gracious.
Per the instructions in SWR (page 197, last line on the page), I did NOT show the tests to the children after I collected and graded them. It would probably be a blow to both my boys to discover that their younger sister surpassed them in the spelling test. In addition, I did not want to invalidate the test by showing it to them in its corrected form. This information was for my use only. Now, I needed to determine where to place them in the WISE List (SWR Step 11). Here is how I made the decision.
1. Given my inconsistent record while trying to teach the three independently, I had already decided we would have one group for our spelling lessons. There is not a large difference between Section M and O, the levels at which my children placed for Mastery, so where would it be?
2. I also took into consideration previously taught material (see SWR pg 64). JD had never gone higher than N-4, JJ no higher than M-3, and SE somewhere in Section K.
I decided to place them in Section N. The jump from K and M for either SE or JJ would not be too much of a stretch, and I would still cover the words they were never taught by doing the review activities for Sections A-L words which are automatically incorporated in the WISE activities. Section N it would be. My plan is to consider concurrently teaching from a higher section in order to give the boys words at a level closer to where they should be working, but for now we will work on being faithful and consistent with Section N. (Please see the important note at the end of this blog entry).
Lesson 1, Part 2
All three students received their Black Learning Logs, which we formatted per the instructions in SWR for Step 8 (pg 46). This consisted of folding the first five pages in the front of the Log in half vertically. We also numbered and folded the Notebook Reference Pages in the back of the book.
Lesson 1, Part 3
All three students completed a reading in McCall-Crabbs Book B, but because of an error I made with a timer, no grade level score was collected. (This activity took no longer than 8 minutes total.)
This entire session took approximately 90 minutes. This is a longer than usual time, but all students were thrilled to be doing the McCall tests again, were pleased with their Learning Logs, and actually enjoyed working together. This lesson could have been split up between two days.
Will this blog help an SWR user not starting at List N?
While your actual starting point may be a different WISE List than ours, you can get an idea of how I plan the lessons and follow the S&S and the instructions in WISE to see how SWR plays out in an actual teaching situation. While my reinforcement activities might include compound words and prepositions for a given week, and yours might be something entirely different, you can get an idea of how I pick and choose what we'll do, how I introduce lessons, and how these play a part in our overall week's plans. You'll start seeing the pattern of instruction which is difficult to explain on the Email Support Group in just short posts here and there. While our instruction is beginning in N, these blog posts are intended to be like a template for you. Plug in your level of instruction, adjust to the pace and needs of your students, and get a feel for the flow of SWR.
Comments
Jan. 7, 2009 - older students
Posted by Cari Platt
Thank you. I will get started today. I just needed a little confidence booster and you gave it.
