Happy Hump Day!
I loved reading this chapter because I love word work! I love all of the fun and creative ways you can make words and I love to see my students hard at work making words.
1. Experimenting with words for learning and practicing a spelling pattern (brainstorm a list of ways you can do this)
One way that I teach spelling patterns is through the use of Words Their Way. At my school we are required to “word study” every day. Early in the year we focus a lot on beginning sounds during word study. As the year progresses we move into word families, blends, and spelling patterns. Each day, my children have to sort their words or pictures using the small pocket charts from Target. After they sort the words, they bring it to me. If there are any confusions we discuss them. Then they write. I use regular 1 subject notebooks that are cut in half for their Word Study Notebook. Each child picks 5 of their pictures to write in their journal. They draw the picture to go with the word. The improvement in their writing from this 20-30 minute focus on word study is phenomenal. This also helps them with blending and segmenting (DIBELS anyone?!) I do differentiate my Word Study into three groups. I use the assessment that comes with Words Their Way and use that data to create my groups. Each group then works on their skill or spelling pattern at their level and we progress through the sorts until they are re-tested, usually every 6 weeks or so and new groups are formed. If you do not have access to Words Their Way, I highly reccommend you snag a copy and check it out!
2. memorize high frequency words (How often do you introduce new words? Do your students have their own lists of words that they can work on? How will you keep track of words that they already know)
My sight word instruction has evolved greatly in my 4 years in Kindergarten. At the beginning of the year we use a song to learn new words. We use the song “The Word On The Bus” to help us begin to learn our new sight words. It goes like this: The word on the bus says ______, ________, _________, the word on the bus says ______, _______, ________. All through the town! The blank lines are the words we are learning that week. The kids love this song because they’re so familiar with the tune and they’re learning through music!! After a while, this gets to be “old” so we change it up. We do games, art projects, and lots of manipulatives to learn our sight words. We do our 40 word PowerPoint every morning. This is when we read every sight word. I do this because I know that tey cannot have enough exposure to the words. No one else on my team uses this daily approach, and my students always end up knowing more sight words and they end up knowing them quicker! We also do the Word Worm which is a worm with the sight words on it’s body. There are 8 seperate worms. Each worm has more and more of the words on it. For example, worm 1 has 5 words. Worm two might have 12 words and so on. Worm 8 has all 40 sight words. The kids get tested by an older student (4th grade) once a week. If they can read all of the words on the worm, then they pass. They get to stamp a worm onto our tracking chart. Then they move on to the next worm. If they don’t pass, they keep studying those words and retake the test the next week. Once a student passes all 8 words, then they are assessed on reading, writing and making the words. If they pass worm 1, they go to worm 2.
4. Adding to our knowledge and curiosity of unique and interesting words. (What is the best way to do this?)
We use a program from Steck Vaughn to learn new vocabulary. While I don’t follow the program and use all of the pieces, I do use the 5 words each week. Each word is on a card with a picture which is great for K students. We spend the week learning the words and their meanings through lots and lots of repetition. We also use a lot of examples. On Thursday we create a graphic organizer for the word. This can be synonyms, antonyms, etc. The most fun is during the week we keep track of which of the words we used in our daily conversation. The kids love this challenge. It’s amazing to hear 5 year olds using fleet and peculiar and pounce in every day conversation!
What materials do I already have? What materials would I like to get? How will I store them?
I have a TON of materials to use for word work. I have scrabble tiles (hello freebie), magnetic letters (I think they multiply every year!), dry erase boards, IPad, wikki stix, and art supplies. I also have some great magazine letters that I bought on Etsy! The kids will use these to cut up and make words! The kids are able to choose their materials and words and find a place to work. Sometimes they write words on paper using markers, sometimes they’re building words with tiles or letters. My letters and supplies are stored in Ziploc bags with the slider on top. The kids are able to open and close them easily and they store well. Nothing fancy here!
Here are a few pictures of word work and word study in my classroom!
For a set of scrabble tile stickers and word work cards, click here! The stickers were created to fit onto the 1 inch square plastic tiles that we all have billions of!! I hope you can use them with your students!
And once again because i have boy handwriting, I created labels for anchor charts. Hopefully someone will be able to use them! Just click on the picture for your free download!
