The Madness Begins!

So, the Words Their Way is under way in my classroom.  It took longer to get it up and going than I expected.  The testing of the students went well, but then placing them in the right sort was time consuming and at times a bit confusing.  However, with the help of my AWESOME aid, we got the program up and going in my classroom.  I am excited to see the students’ excitement with this new program.  I am not sure if this is excitement because it is something new and different or because of the mini light bulbs that are going off in their minds.

Regardless of why students are excited, I am thrilled that they are excited.  The most difficult part of initially introducing the sorts to students from the program was giving everyone their mini lesson.  In an effort to save time I gave all of the students their sorts to begin cutting out and then went to each students (again with the help of my AWESOME aid) and did a brief mini lesson about the sort with each student as they were cutting apart their sorts.  This worked will for most of my students and I knew instantly the students who were still struggling with their sort and the concept of sorting their words and will focus more intently on them tomorrow and the days to come as they complete their sort again. 

Another aspect of the program that I was extremely pleased with is the time it took to complete the activity.  On the first day, when students are cutting out their sorts, it does take more time, but once the sorts are cut out it takes most students about 3 minutes maximum to complete their sort.  I am excited that the students are all working on what they need to become better spellers at their level, and that it only takes a matter of minutes to them to work with the words.  Now, I just need to wait for the data collection to continue in determine who this program is affecting and who it is not helping. 

The best part of the program at this point is that when I told my students that we were going to be working on reading I didn’t get the “uhhh, do we have to” reaction that usually comes from the my announcements regarding spelling!