Chelsea's Reflection on Graves (Ch. 18-20)

I have chosen to reflect on Chapter 19: How To Help Children Catch Up
because I feel that I could use what I have read in this chapter in the
future. This chapter is mainly about helping children with their spelling
to lead them to feel more confident in their writing. In the class that I
observe, there is a boy who is always complaining about his handwriting
and sometimes his spelling. When I read this chapter, it reminded me
of him. He is a really smart boy, but doesn't like the way he writes. He
is always telling me that his handwriting is ugly, and that he writes too
small. In writing, he seems like he doesn't really enjoy it, and after reading
this chapter, I was thinking maybe it's because he doesn't like the way he
writes. He thinks its ugly, and probably thinks that whoever reads his
paper is not going to like it because his handwriting is ugly. There are
also a couple of students in the class who constantly ask me how to spell
certain words for their writing pieces. Sometimes I just tell them how to
spell it, but I have realized that I really shouldn't tell them how. They
should just spell it the way they think it is supposed to be spelt, and find
out if that way is correct later because they are just in the drafting stage.
This chapter explained two scenarios, and a few ways in which a teacher
could help a student in that situation. I like where it says to give the child
a word bank on different words that could be used in their writing
depending on what they are writing about. For example, the teacher
provided a word bank on words used in fashion shows to help Debbie
write her paper. I didn't know spelling could be such a big deal for
children when they are writing. I didn't think that spelling words wrong
would have such a big effect on writing. Spelling is a big part of writing,
but it's interesting to know that children are pushed away from enjoying
writing because of the fact that they feel they need to spell the words
correct at all times. I think teacher's should teach their children that
spelling is not a big factor when in the beginning stages of writing. There
will always be a time towards the end of the writing where the child can
find their mistakes in spelling and fix it at that point.