Word Study

I have fine-tuned my Word Study program this year. For a number of years, the Word Wall and Word Study 5 Ways (from Katie Wood Ray and Lisa Cleaveland’s About the Authors: Writing Workshop with our Youngest Writers) have been at the heart of our practice of frequently used words. I am continuing that while drawing the words I use from Patricia M. Cunningham’s What Really Matters in Spelling: Research-Based Strategies and Activities. Many of the words are the same ones I have used before, but she makes some choices in order to be sure a range of consonants, blends, and vowel patterns are represented.

In addition she incorporates the study of word families (rhyming words, chunks) into the Word Wall work. While I have done this kind of work with my students, I have not connected it directly to the Word Wall before. This past week we took a break from adding five words per week to our wall (25 words so far). Instead we explored word families based on words we have added to the Word Wall so far.

Word Study 5 Ways

In Language Group we work on studying how words are put together. We cover common spelling patterns. And we practice reading and writing frequently used words. The goal is that these words become part of the children's reading and writing vocabularies, part of the words that the children can read and write without having to break them down.

I have used various approaches to studying frequently used words over the years. The one I like best is from About the Author: Writing Workshop with our Youngest Writers by Katie Ray Wood with Lisa B. Cleaveland. Each student is given a sheet each week with five words from our Word Wall along with a checklist of ways to practice those words. Students are to choose five ways to practice from the checklist. Choosing how to practice the words adds to the students' investment. The list includes everything from rainbow words (writing the words using rainbow colors) to making the words with Unifix letter cubes to back writing to stamping them with letter stamps. A couple of years ago one of the students came up with the idea of finding and pointing out the words on the Word Wall. That way was taken up by the other students and now is on the list each week. This year’s students enjoy exploring the different ways, and each is developing favorites.

Word Study

Word Study is work that we do to support both our writing and our reading. One focus in word study is finding the patterns in words. We can identify "chunks" or rimes that a group of words have in common. For example, the chunk -an is in many simple consonant-vowel-consonant words. The word "can" is on our Word Wall and knowing it can help students recognize others words, such as man and van.

We have been adding 5 words a week to our Word Wall. These are all frequently used words or popcorn words, as some call them, because they pop up a lot. The goal is that these words become part of the children's reading and writing vocabularies, part of the words that the children can read and write without having to break them down.

For practicing our Word Wall words I use an activity from About the Author: Writing Workshop with our Youngest Writers by Katie Ray Wood with Lisa B. Cleaveland. Every Monday I give each student a sheet that has five of our word wall words plus a checklist of ways to practice those words. Students get to choose which 5 ways to practice the assigned words. Choosing how to practice the words adds to the students' investment. The list includes everything from rainbow words (writing the words using different colors) to making the words with manipulatives such as letter stamps, Wikki Sticks, or Unifix letter cubes to using a pointer to find the words on the Word Wall. The students enjoy exploring the different ways, and each is developing favorites. They are becoming more comfortable with the 5 Ways routine, so that we are using this time more efficiently.

Word Wall-Encouraging its active use

We have continued to add 5 frequently used words to our Word Wall each week. Every week each student gets 5 words from the Word Wall to practice in Word Study 5 Ways.

Recently I read a post at the Stenhouse Blog as part of their Quick Tip Tuesday that talked about ways to make the children more familiar with where words are on the Word Wall, so that they are more likely to use it as a resource as they write. It was thus interesting to me when not long after that one of my students, Leo, thought of a new way to practice his words. He said he could use the pointer and find each one on the Word Wall. His idea proved popular with the other students, so now I have added it to the list of Word Study 5 Ways list, calling it "Word Wall Find."

Word Study 5 Ways

In Language Group we work on studying how words are put together. We cover common spelling patterns. And we practice reading and writing frequently used words. The goal is that these words become part of the children's reading and writing vocabularies, part of the words that the children can read and write without having to break them down.

I have used various approaches to studying frequently used words over the years. Last year I found an idea in About the Author: Writing Workshop with our Youngest Writers by Katie Ray Wood with Lisa B. Cleaveland. Each student is given a sheet each week that has a checklist of ways to practice five frequently used words from our word wall. Students are to choose 5 ways to practice from the checklist. Choosing how to practice the words adds to the students' investment. The list includes everything from rainbow words (writing the words using different colors) to play dough words to back writing to spelling with Unifix letter cubes. The students so far enjoy exploring the different ways, and each is developing favorites. This week we added a new way: Wikki Words, in which students form the words with Wikki Sticks.

Word Study 5 Ways

I have for many years included some version of word study in my program. Word study is a time when we focus on the way words work, including phonics, frequently used words, chunks that are elements of a variety of words (sometimes referred to as word families), and spelling patterns. I have drawn on resources such as Pinnell and Fountas's Word Matters. Over the years I have tried a variety of formats.

This year I am trying an approach from a book I have been reading this fall, About the Author by Katie Ray Wood with Lisa B. Cleaveland. She includes a sheet that has a checklist of ways for students to practice a group of frequently used words to help them add those words to their spelling (and reading) vocabulary. Students are to choose 5 ways to practice from the checklist. The list includes techniques I have used before. What I like is that students can choose from the list which gives them more investment. The list includes everything from rainbow words (writing the words using different colors for each letter) to play dough words to back writing. The students so far seem to be enjoying exploring the different ways and each is developing favorites. Back writing is a general favorite though initially it gave some of them pause, as they asked, "What should we use to write on people's backs?"

Hiss Joins the Party

Some years ago, a fellow teacher referred to how teachers are often like cooks. When we first try a lesson, we may follow closely a very set plan (or recipe) whether someone else's or our own. Over time we begin to vary the recipes and improvise some.

Last year I stuck pretty closely to the "recipes" I was using, both from Lucy Calkins and from others such as Stephanie Parsons(First Grade Writers) and Katie Wood Ray. This year I am starting to play around more with the basic recipes.

We have already had a Writing Workshop mini-lesson on stretching out words and writing down the sounds you hear. Today in our word study time, I used an idea I got from Deb Renner Smith's blog, Writing and Reading Lessons, to reinforce the practice of stretching out words. She featured reading ideas centered on Beanie Babies (http://www.debrennersmith.com/2008/04/fix-it-strategies-with-beanie-babies.html). I took the idea of using Hiss the Snake and flipped it around to stretching the words, hearing the sounds, and writing down the letters for those sounds. I used a format based on one described by Richard Gentry (Breaking the Code: The New Science of Beginning Reading and Writing) among others.

I began by introducing Hiss and saying I liked him to help me stretch out words because he is so good at stretching. As I stretched Hiss, I slowly said the word s-n-a-ke. (Maybe not the best word as it begins with a consonant blend, but it was so appropriate for Hiss.) As I pronounced the letters, I asked the students to raise a finger, starting with the thumb, for every sound they heard. The kids ended up with numbers from 2 to 4. I asked what was the first sound they heard, etc. until we had identified the 4 sounds. Then I asked each of them to draw 4 boxes, one for each sound we heard. Next I enunciated the sounds one at at time and asked for volunteers to tell us what letter they would use for that sound. Each ended up recording either s-n-a-k or s-n-a-c. I emphasized that we were not recording the dictionary spelling of snake, but the sounds we could hear in the word. We went on to do several c-v-c words based on pictures that I had (top, etc.)