UPDATE: In this post I talk about how I use my Grammar Goofs and Spelling Spoofs resource. If you would like to try before you buy, my August Grammar Goofs are a forever freebie. Try them out by clicking the picture below!
Today, I want to share with you the story behind one of my resources, the why I made it and how I use it story. In our reading series, there is a section called "Daily Proofreading Practice," where you put a few sentences on the board and the children fix the mistakes in them. I was using the ones suggested in the teacher's manual, but they didn't make sense. There would be two totally unrelated sentences, like these,
Dad sate on the mat. We like tew nap.
Well, that's nice, but what does dad sitting on the mat have to do with us napping? So I started making up my own to put on the board. Then I thought, hey, I can squeeze in some grammar practice as well with these. So I started writing sentences with no capitals and no end marks. Now, I had something that looks like this,
the fat cat sat the fat cat sat on the mat
With the advent of flippable and interactive notebooks, I designed a way to use these daily proofreading practices as part of my morning work time that would last for one week.
After the first few weeks of doing them with the whole group of first graders, the children were easily able to transition into assembling the flippables on Monday, and then completing the work themselves in the morning. We check them together Monday - Thursday, and the kids make their own corrections to their work. I believe they learn more correcting their own work than if I correct them. On Friday, I collect the booklets and check to see if they are applying the skills we practice.
I loosely follow the scope and sequence of skills laid out in our reading series. These are designed as a progressive series, so each month, I put more errors in the proofreading for the children to find and correct.
Here's a sample of what the kids were correcting in March.
And this is a sample of the last page we did in early June.
By the last few months of school, the kids are able to correct mistakes in verb tenses, subject and verb agreement mistakes, i.e. June is instead of June are, as well as spelling errors.
The design of the flippable allows them to easily refer back to the original sentence. This is much better for some of my students who really have a hard time copying off the board.
So there you have it, the story behind my Daily Grammar and Spelling Practice: Grammar Goofs and Spelling Spoofs.
I have every month completed from August through May. August is free, September through May are $2.00 each. Or you can purchase them money saving 10-month bundle for only $14,00!
Have a great day, everyone!
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