I received an email from a teacher this week who wrote:

I work with a great group of 2nd grade students who love to write. However, their spelling needs improvement. Do you have any suggestions?  Formal programs help students to see spelling patterns and to learn spelling rules and for this reason are invaluable (up to a certain age). But as we all know, the real challenge isn't getting kids to pass the Friday test, it's getting them to apply what they are learning about spelling to their...