Teaching Kids to Spell fills the need for a book to help teachers working in an integrated language arts program provide systematic, personalized spelling instruction. The authors provide a much-needed bridge between traditional spelling instruction and whole language approaches, showing teachers (and parents, too) how spelling ability begins to emerge in young children's invented spellings, how it grows as children pass through predictable stages of spelling strategies, and how eventually every student can reach a standard of correct "expert" spelling.
The text includes wordlists, tips for teaching predictable patterns, and a variety of individual activities that prepare children to meet the phonetic, semantic, historical, and visual demands of spelling, plus strategies for implementing a spelling workshop in the elementary classroom.
Teachers, school administrators, and parents who want to understand the complex process of spelling will find this book a valuable resource.
About the Author: A former struggling speller himself, J. Richard Gentry, Ph.D., has authored three books and a video on the topic with Heinemann, including My Kid Can't Spell (1996), Teaching Kids to Spell (1992), Spel...Is a Four-Letter Word (1989), and Richard Gentry on Spelling (1992), as well as numerous articles in academic journals and textbooks for school-age children. A former elementary teacher and university professor, Gentry is a Heinemann Professional Development provider and has lectured and conducted workshops on literacy and spelling throughout the world. Visit http: //JRichardGentry.com for additional information about Richard Gentry and his work.
Jean Wallace Gillet has been a classroom teacher of English, language arts and reading, an elementary reading specialist, and a teacher educator at the university level. She is the author of two widely used college textbooks on teaching language arts and reading, and numerous journal articles. She is presently an elementary reading teacher in Charlottesville, Virginia.
