GUM It!

When I first read about Daily 5 and the goal of creating independent readers and writers, I was intrigued. Of course I would love to have a structure that would promote literacy independence while enhancing student knowledge! However one idea I just didn't quite accept was that my kindergarten students would actually sit and write for 15 minutes without the need to ask their peers or me how to spell a word. "Mrs. Behne, how do you spell _____?" was as frequent in my kindergarten classroom as it had been in my fourth-grade classroom years before.

Diving in to learn more, I quickly learned how a teacher using the Daily 5 structure teaches all student expectations up front, so students always know what is expected of them. This is done through a series of foundation lessons, one of which is What to do when you come to a word you don't know how to spell.

When I brought this up in a conversation with a few colleagues, Shawna Davis, a third-grade teacher in my district, shared a way she helps her students grasp this concept. She introduces the acronym GUM to her students before launching Work on Writing. She models what she does when she comes to a word she doesn't know how to spell. She makes an educated guess, underlines the word, and moves on. She tells her students, "When I am unsure of how to spell a word, I GUM it."

G = Guess 
U = Underline 
M = Move on

Then, to make her lesson memorable, she gives each child a piece of gum and has them practice writing using the GUM strategy. Her students love this lesson, and it has put an end to the question "How do you spell___?"

Thanks, Shawna, for sharing with us!