Here's Christopher reveling in his spelling proficiency. After his completion of this spelling list yesterday, he's down to his final list of 20 spelling words before he's officially completed the "Dolch" program.

Dolch words are high frequency words that appear in children's literature. Children who can read and spell these words by sight (without needing to stop and phoenetically figure them out) generally improve their reading fluency. All kids in Christopher's school go through the Dolch list at their own pace in terms of reading and spelling. It's the basis of the 1st and 2nd grade spelling programs. They start out with the basic words of the Dolch basic list --"the, who, how" and generally increase to more difficult words and spelling patterns found in the Dolch Challenge List #1 and Challenge List #2. Each list has probably 200-250 words on it.

Each child works with a Dolch mentor who helps them with their spelling test each week so that each child is working on a spelling list that is "just right" for them -- some kids move quickly while others take more time. Some kids can handle a large list of words each week while others have more success if they work with a shorter list each week. Everybody completes Dolch at some point -- but at different paces. Completing the program is a rite of passage for students at his school. And now Christopher has only one more week of words til he's done. He looks pretty proud of himself, doesn't he?