As with many teachers, I have often been both frustrated and annoyed when trying to follow a formal spelling programme. Frustrated because the programme had not been designed to cater for the students' specific needs; annoyed because there had been no real purpose or direction in the programme other than to give the students a list of unrelated words to learn in order to be tested. To overcome both of these feelings I decided to devise spelling activities that would be reinforcing, user-friendly and provide a basis for improving spelling skills. They also needed to be fun, interesting and motivating to the students.The words would have relevance to everyday use so that students would easily learn their meanings and know how and when to use the words correctly and effectively. The dictionary would become the students' key resource, and hopefully, best learning tool. To these ends I have included a variety of activities including crosswords and basic exercises to help consolidate the skills being developed. The words have been collected from a range of sources such as standardised high interest word lists. Some are what I call 'everyday' words, topic words and extension words.
- Bob Fleming (author).