Get a Grasp on Teaching Spelling and Punctuation Early in the Year

Do you have a plan? Get a grasp on teaching spelling and punctuation early in the year!

Sometimes, as middle school teachers, we don’t feel like we should have to teach spelling and punctuation as students have been working on these skills for several years by the time we get them as 12-14-year-olds, but unfortunately, that isn’t true.

Especially now that students do so much short writing on their phones and on social media, we have to make sure that they actually know how to use proper spelling and punctuation when it is needed.

The standards say otherwise!

One set of standards that middle school ELA teachers are responsible for teaching, reviewing, and assessing with students is the language standards (along with the Writing, Reading Literature, Nonfiction Reading, and Speaking and Listening standards… I know there are a lot of them).

Many middle school teachers approach these language standards in an immersive way, assuming that the more students are exposed to good writing, the better they’ll naturally become. However, that isn’t effective, and you aren’t clearly explaining your expectations for these skills to students.

Many students who struggle with capitalization, punctuation, and spelling at the beginning of the year will still struggle with it at the end of the year unless they are explicitly taught the skills needed to master these concepts.

In our standards-based language units, we provide a plan for explicitly teaching these standards.

Standards-Based Language Units

Each of the language units in our store is based on the specific standards stated for each grade level. Each standard is then broken up into a set of learning targets that we used to create the lessons for that unit. These units cover teaching spelling and punctuation as well as more complicated skills students need as they work on their overall language skills.

By working through the standard this way, you know that the standard is being fully fleshed out and that each learning target is getting the attention it needs.

Although we have complete units for each standard, let’s take a closer look at one of our product descriptions so you can see what you can expect from these resources.

Note: The information about the resource is pulled directly from the product description. You can take a closer look at the 6th grade L.2 resource, 7th grade L.2 resource or the 8th grade L.2 resource here!

In addition to the resources above, we’ve also written a blog post specifically about this standard and how to approach it in the middle school ELA classroom. This blog post goes into great detail providing resource and activity suggestions, learning targets, and much more. Click here to read the post!

To give you an example of what the resources include, let’s talk about the 7th-grade L.2 resource!

The 7th-grade L.2 unit is a 52-page focused plan to help teach about the conventions of standard English including teaching spelling and punctuation. Not only does it help you teach and practice the skills, but it also gives you ways to assess for mastery.

With this standards-based resource, students will have access to several instructional resources and activities centered around spelling and grammar for 7th grade.

This resource includes everything you need to check for understanding, including a summative assessment with a rubric. All answer keys and a teacher guide are also included to make implementation even easier.

This resource includes both a printable and digital version ready for Google Classroom and other distance learning platforms. You can hand out physical copies of the activities to students or assign them digitally. 

You can use this resource: 

• For extra writing practice
• For classwork, center rotations
• For assessments and test prep
• As a whole or in parts as needed

How does this resource help teachers?

• Easily assess where students are in their understanding of this standard
• Encourage students to self-assess their own growth
• Ensure standard mastery by assessing each objective within the standard

This 7.L.2  resource includes:

• Teacher Guide with Digital Version Access 
• L2 Defined Poster 
• I CAN Poster 
• Standard Self-Assessment 
• Adjectives
  • Instructional Guide
  • Coordinate Adjectives Guide
  • Mystery Object Activity
  • Oxford Comma Guide
  • Practice Worksheet
  • Paragraph Practice
• Spelling
  • General Rules
  • Vowel, Suffix/Dropping Letter, Prefix, Doubling Letter Patterns
  • Word Ladders Activity Guide
  • Write to Your Audience Instructional Guide
  • Homophones, Homographs, Homonyms Guide and Practice
• Punctuation
  • Basic Review
  • 10 Comma Rules
  • Comma Check
  • Quotation Mark Rules
  • Colon & Semi-Colon Rules
  • Quotation Mark, Colon, and Semi-Colon Check
  • Around the World Game with Practice Cards
• L2 Summative Assessment with Rubric
• Answer Keys

When you help students get a grasp on spelling and punctuation early in the year, you are setting clear expectations for them as they continue to do more writing in your class.

To make sure you are covering the standards in full, check out all of our standards-based language standards by clicking on the links and images below!

Full 6th-Grade Language Standards Bundle

Full 7th-Grade Language Standards Bundle

Full 8th-Grade Language Standards Bundle