Spelling Tests Have Changed, But Still Part of School

By Amber Lester Kennedy Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Today’s spelling tests might not resemble the kind parents and grandparents remember from their youth. In recent years, the teaching of spelling has been tweaked by education professionals looking for a way to help students not only learn, but retain the proper spelling of words.

In some districts, that’s meant doing away with spelling tests entirely. But in Williamsburg-James City County schools, it’s evolved into an effort to contextualize spelling tests into the lesson plans, according to Dianna Lindsay, WJCC’s assistant superintendent for academic services. Lindsay said that, including vocabulary lessons, students learn spelling throughout their school years, from Kindergarten to senior year.

Parents might remember receiving a list of unrelated words at the start of the week, memorizing them and then taking a test. Their children’s spelling education doesn’t look quite the same.

In the early part of the last decade, WJCC tried a different approach when administrators noticed the traditional methods weren't effective. Spokesman Greg Davy told the Daily Press that students were being tested on spelling words on Fridays, but didn’t know how to spell the same words the following week.

To help the students have better retention, the division adopted Rebecca Sitton’s “Spelling Sourcebook” in 2002. The new method instead taught children patterns for spelling collections of words. Those lessons were connected to their writing coursework, intended to give kids a broader understanding of how words work.

In 2006-07, WJCC developed a Word Study Continuum for students to study, by grade, certain phonetic and word patterns each week. The big difference between a contemporary student’s experience, and the experience of a student just 10 years ago, is that teachers have more latitude to cater spelling lessons to their coursework and their students’ abilities.

“When I was growing up, we all got vocabulary words related to nothing, but now teachers can give ten words that could be related to social studies, science, English, mathematics – wherever they appear in the lesson,” Lindsay said. She compared the modern spelling test to learning the lingo of a particular area of study.

A sample spelling test for a second-grader might include sixteen words that all start with “th," such as "through," "throw" and "though." The students might be asked to put the words in alphabetical order, say them out loud or use them in sentences until they take a test on the words. Learning to recognize patterns helps students learn to spell unfamiliar words.

School Board member Ruth Larson said her daughter, a seventh-grader, has taken one spelling test so far this year. Over the years, her children's teachers have given spelling tests when necessary. "I believe that teachers choose how best to teach vocabulary and if a spelling test helps with the review of the vocabulary, then they give a test," she said.

There is evidence the focus placed on accurate spelling in the past has eroded, however. The Virginia Standards of Learning writing exams do not penalize for misspelled words, instead placing more emphasis on content. Lindsay said that may be due to the modern child’s accessibility to word processing software that immediately points out some misspelled words; unlike students of the past, today’s child knows in an instant if he or she has made a mistake, and then uses contextual clues to replace the wrong word with the right word. Spell-correction tools are useful, but Lindsay said she still thinks it's important students learn how to spell without the aid of computers.

“I happen to value that the word needs to be spelled correctly, but even the Commonwealth doesn’t grade it there,” she said. “At WJCC, we believe it is our professional responsibility to teach the kids to spell.”