The Adventures Of A Preservice Teacher

Words Their Way Chapter 6 

 

Literacy development of students within word pattern stage:

 

The within word pattern stage is a transitional stage of literacy development for students. It occurs between the beginning stage and intermediate stage. A way to understand what this stage is like for children is to think of it as flying a plane or kite; you can get the kit up there but you struggle to keep it up in the air. Students can read 2-3 syllable words if there is enough contextual support and students can read more from the full alphabetic phase to the consolidated alphabetic phase. It is in this process which they begin to recognize patterns and chunk to analyze unfamiliar words. Students generally are reading orally at the beginning but by the end they can read silently to themselves.

 

1st through 4th grade there are books:

• Early part: students read from basal readers, picture books, favorite poems, by the end they will be reading chapter books magic tree house

• A lot of reading experience is crucial during this stage

• Students should be reading for at least 30 minutes a day

• Both instructional and independent material

• Need the practice to prepare them for the next stage

 

Within Word Pattern Stage:

• writing becomes more fluent during this stage

 

Vocabulary:

• kids can add 10-15 words to their background knowledge each week if the teachers are helping promote this

• help the kids be curious about words, sounds and usage

• this attitude raises reading word consciousness

• don’t confuse vocab words with spelling

• read alouds help students develop skill of using context clues to determine definition of a word

• encourage class discussions and peer discussions

• students benefit from repeated exposure to words and from seeing the words in print

 

Vocab and Word Sorts:

• teacher needs to take the time to read through in a sort to be sure they know what the word means

• this is where you can introduce homophones - sound the same but spelt different and have a different meaning

• create an ongoing collection of homophones - homophone pear/pair tree: when a pair is found, write is on a pear shape and then tape it to the tree

 

Concept sorts and simple prefixes/suffixes -

• study of nonfiction texts can help benefit vocab growth

• most common prefixes in english language and un, re, in and dis

• understanding how these word so then kids can combine them with base words creates a better foundation

 

Orthographic Development:

• students are able to isolate vowel sounds in the middle of the word but learning the variety of ways they can be spelled is problematic

 

The Pattern Principle - in this stage you explore the pattern layer of english and this requires a higher degree of thinking, must isolate the phonemes to determine the sound they need to represent

 

Complexities of English Words - vowels pose a problem for letter name alphabetic spellers because they do not match a letter name

 

Influence of consonants on vowels:

• triple blend, silent initial consonants and other complex consonants:

• 3 letter blends and digraphs are studied towards the end of within word pattern stage

• they can be included in sorts throughout the stage when appropriate

• the characteristics of consonants that are related to vowel sounds are called complex consonants patterns

 

Homophones, Homographs, and Other Features:

• take a look at these at the end of the stage

• students enjoy creating a list of these

• homophones: mary, merry, marry

• homographs: read, read

 

Word Study Lesson Plan:

1. demonstrate:  

2. sort and check: after group sort, let the kids do is independently

3. reflect: declare, compare, contrasts. ask students why they sorted things the way they did

4. extend:

 

Open Sorts:

1. give them open ended sorts of about 30 words

2. introduce the sort by reading words and talking through the meaning

3. agree on keywords and underline them

4. ask students to scramble words and sort again

 

Sequences and pacing of word study within word pattern stage - students know blends and digraphs and can spell most short vowels correctly. final silent e is the most common pattern

 

Study of high frequency words:

• some studies that focuses on children learning a small core of words that they read and use the most

• this causes rote memorization and reduced students relationship between reading a spelling

• many high frequency words are considered odd balls because they don’t follow a common spelling pattern such as said and again

• some teachers use word walls

• the best way to study high frequency words is to have student use them in their own writing

 

Assess and Monitor Progress:

• weekly spelling tests of about 10 words.

• students should be getting a 90-100 in order to move on to harder words

• if they aren’t getting this, they need to be placed in another level

• weekly blind sorts have students sort the words into sound patterns, spelling patterns and meaning patterns

 

Unit Assessments and Goal Setting:

• students study for tests and then forget the words

• periodic spelling checks can be used to see if they’re retaining and monitor progress

 

ELL Word study:

• students now their first language tend to use word letter sound from that. they may spell words wrong

• some ELL’s may memorize the words but don’t know how to spell them

• this indicates the students orthographic knowledge is lacking

• you should first assess the student's first language spelling because then it will be easier to learn in english

 

Preparing ELL’s in the Classroom -

• talk about connect sounds in between the two languages

• reduce word sort so they don’t become overwhelmed

• pair words and pictures

• discuss meaning of words in lesson in the intro of lesson

• have them draw pictures w/ definitions of the words

• find your ELL a student partner who can aid them

 

Influence of Dialects - teachers need to accept the ELL’s dialects and variation of pronunciation. This can be a problem during word sorts because of the accents ELL students have.

 

Word Study Routines:

• work in whole groups with read alouds and content

• create a word study notebook

• 3 sections: word study, vocab and ongoing list of homophones

 

Activities:

1. Word-O: students are given a word and then they have to change 1 letter to create a new word

2. Turkey Feathers: the kids have cards with words on it and when they match long vowel words or short vowel words, they get the feather and if they don’t they don’t get the feather

3. Vowel Spin: tic tac toe board

4. Sheep in a Jeep: practices ee and ea pattern, one player spins a moves that number of spaces around the board

5. Long Vowel Jeopardy: just like regular jeopardy but they have to come up with a word that fits a sentence