Words Their Way: A Survey of Teachers Using the Approach as a School- wide Spelling Program

This project surveyed teachers who were in the second year of the implementation of a developmental spelling program based on Words Their Way, developed by Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston. (2004). The teachers were all from Kindergarten through second grade and had some previous experience with the program. An anonymous, electronic survey was given three times during the school year requesting teachers reflect on their practice, the support they received as they were implementing the program, and the challenges encountered in implementation. Most teachers wrote about their grade level colleagues and how much support they gave each other. When challenges arose, they often came up with solutions as a team. Teachers also wrote about many strategies they used to keep student engagement high. One challenge that teachers wrote about more than once related to grading practices and how difficult they found it to level their students for the purposes of the quarterly report card