One of my teacher friends recently told me that their district just changed their policies to outlaw traditional spelling tests. Instead they do “dictation” with a small set of spelling words (8-10 for second grade). The set of words all focus on specific sounds. For example, they might choose “kn” or  “sh” or “eigh” that week. Every day the teacher hands out a sheet (similar to the one below) and says the sounds and the students have to write the sound. Then the teacher says a sentence that includes one or more of the words for the week and the kids have to write it. The sentences are the same on Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday. Then on Friday, the teacher chooses one sentence from Monday and one sentence from Tuesday. It’ll be interesting to see how much better/worse the students are at spelling because of this new system.

Grammar dictation sheet (16 lines)- PDF

Dictation sheet PDF- 10 lines