You may have read Mr. Handelman’s piece in the first Moran Prairie Messenger about the new spelling program for grades 2-6 in Spokane Public Schools.

This program may be different from what you’ve come to expect as “spelling.” Instead of weekly lists of words to memorize, this program emphasizes the learning of essential words (the 1200 most frequently used words in writing), not for the Friday Test, but for a lifetime of spelling in the real world – that is, spelling correctly in writing.

This lifelong spelling ability grows over time. It grows through skills instruction (phonics, word origins, spelling rules, usage, etc.), through your child’s everyday writing, and through word study on specific words your child has not yet mastered. You can extend this teaching into your home.

To help your child learn and use essential skills:

· TAKE-HOME TASKS will be sent home on Mondays. They are skill-building activity sheets for you and your child to do together. These tasks will complement the skills we’re working on at school.

· SKILL-BUILDING EXERCISES are homework activities for you and your child to do to prepare or follow up on our class lessons.

To help your child spell and use essential words:

· WORDS TO LEARN is a list of Spelling Words your child has not yet mastered. We’ll identify these words and send them home on Mondays. Help your child study these words every other day or so to master them once and for all. That’s the goal.

We can all work together to make your child a speller for life!

The Sixth Grade Team