The purpose of this paper is to share the effectiveness of the word study program "Words Their Way" (Bear et. al., 2008) to improve spelling retention of first graders in a regular education classroom in the Spring of 2012. After implementing a traditional spelling program and seeing students continuously spell previous spelling words…

This article describes nine tips for implementing a word study program in the K-2 classroom. These tips are based on the results of four classroom-based qualitative research projects collaboratively conducted by a university professor and four primary-grade teacher-researchers. The article suggests that through small-group word study instruction…

A team of first-grade teachers began to question their literacy/phonics program, which used a whole-class format for instruction. The teachers felt that teaching the whole class did not allow them to meet the diverse needs of all their students. One of the teachers introduced the rest of the team to developmental-spelling research (i.e., research…