Here’s a first-grade lesson from one of the most widely used reading programs in America, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Journeys: Common Core(2014, Unit 14, Lesson 17, T103) [Spelling Lesson Words—Long e (ea, e, e_e, ee): me, be, read, feet, tree, keep, eat, mean, sea, these.]

There are numerous problems with this lesson. Some of the words such as mean are developmentally inappropriate as spelling words unless the kids are above-grade-level readers. As Noah Webster would say, it’s a “promiscuous arrangement of words in the same table.” (Webster, 1798) The lesson included the word theme in a dictation pretest for Whole Group instruction on Day 1 but none of the dictation words on the Day 1 pretest are in the spelling list! Who on earth thinks this is appropriate spelling instruction for First Grade? Why waste the whole group’s time with a dictation pretest with upper-grade level words that aren’t seen again in the lesson? Theme as a first-grade spelling word?  Seriously? Can you imagine how this impacts children’s motivation to spell and write? This is educational malpractice!”

Rhyming • Segmenting syllables & phonemes • Vowel discrimination • Alphabetic principle • Letter-sound relationships • Letter patterns & spelling rules • Vocabulary knowledge • Syllable stress identification • Letter-meaning relationships (morphological knowledge) • Semantic relationships • Storage and retrieval of mental orthographic images of words in long term memory • Spelling • Decoding • Reading fluency • Writing

Target Audience

All K–12 students:
Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Special Education, Title I, English Language Learners, students who are Speech-Language Impaired or from low-print, low-verbal homes, and students with dyslexia. Designed for one-on-one and small group instruction. Includes classroom adaptations for large group instruction and peer collaboration.