In a PD session the other day, I was talking about the importance of encoding practice in a nonpermanent form such as whiteboards. At that given moment, we were talking about word chains: asking students to spell a word on their whiteboard and then change the word to something else. Why? Our deliberate instructions lead students to isolate sounds and then delete and add graphemes to create new words. This intentional practice can help them realize that if they can spell one word, they can actually spell many other related words. We can focus on vowel combinations or spelling patterns or whatever we think is needed, developing independence in our student writers.
Anyway, as we were talking about this, I noticed a group trying to stifle their laughter. Turns out, earlier that week, one of their students made his own word chain. He started by saying… “What the heck?” then “What the huck?” then “What the —?”
We may not condone his word choice but he’s certainly demonstrating his phonological awareness!