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May 9, 2006 |
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What's the Buzz about Spelling? Spelling bees, of course. It's that time of year when journalists focus on the hundreds of student champions, ranging from 9 to 15 years old, who travel to Washington, D.C., to compete in the National Spelling Bee each year, during the week following Memorial Day weekend. While spelling stories are a-buzz in local and national news, take advantage of the opportunity to talk about spelling with students and families by tapping these NCTE resources. Want to learn more about how spelling fits into the broader topic of learning to write? Check out "Spelling -- What's All the Fuss?" (E), chapter one from Spelling in Use (E) by Lester L. Laminack and Katie Wood Ray. Designed for teachers and families, the book features stories from real classrooms and rich examples of student writing. How can you help adolescents become accurate and independent spellers? Read the English Journal article "What I Wish I'd Known about Teaching Spelling" (M-S) for eight recommended teaching practices. To explore alternatives to teaching spelling in isolation, consider the ways that helping students to imagine themselves as writers "is much more complex than nurturing a more stable grasp of sentence clarity or spelling" in the Teaching English in the Two-Year College article "Imagine You're a Writer" (C). For additional resources on teaching spelling in context, consult the resources and strategies included in NCTE's Spelling Teaching Resource Collection (G) .
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