I remember when spell check first was included in Microsoft’s documents. “What a blessing,” I thought. “Use your resources,” I told my students as they typed their papers. What I have found is that parents do not definitely agree, they defiantly agree. The word “there” is consistently misused, and an ant is not a small bug; rather, it’s your mom’s sister. I’m not sure how your mom’s sister may feel about that! Auto correct on smartphones has done little more to help young people identify words that are often misspelled. I’m sure we have all seen the funny texts gone wrong that are on social media sites.
Homophones are words that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings. Anchor charts are a great way to place the words in the classroom and provide a resource for students as they learn homophones. The anchor chart should include the homophone, its meaning, and a sentence. I suggest teachers write the sentences for the individual homophones on the anchor chart as a classroom activity. To help you get started reviewing homophones with students, I have an anchor chart and a grammar mini lesson available for download.
Use the Words Often Misspelled lesson, to review commonly misspelled words that confuse young students! This download includes a guided instruction & guided practice section for class discussion, as well as an independent grammar exercise for students to complete on their own. After students build their confidence through the guided instruction & guided practice portions of this mini lesson, task them with completing the independent grammar exercise.
The Homophone Anchor Chart I created comes from a portion of the Words Often Misspelled lesson. This anchor chart includes a list of thirteen homophones and their meanings. I've not included the sample sentences in my anchor chart download because it's important to write these sentences as a class.