Word Study in First Grade

Earlier in the year I sent home a newsletter regarding words their way which is my spelling program I use in first grade.  Words Their Way is phonics, spelling, and vocabulary instruction through daily word study.   One focus of word study is to teach students how to spell and decode new words and to improve their word recognition speed in general.  To accomplish this, I teach the students how to examine words to learn the regularities that exist in the spelling system.  The students will also be taught some irregularities of spelling.  The simple process of sorting words into categories is the basic structure of our word study program.  When the students sort words, they are engaged in the active process of searching, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing.  Word sorts help students organize what they know about words and to form generalizations that they can apply to new words they encounter in their reading. 

On Monday, the students are given a word study book.  Each word study book has a list of ten words that the students will work on for the week.  Students in my class will NOT be given the same generic spelling list.  The students took the primary spelling inventory earlier in the year.  This inventory allowed me to see your child's specific spelling needs.  Therefore, your child's spelling list will be differentiated based on his/her needs.  During our small group instruction, students will learn about their words.  Then, during our work on words time in the afternoon the students will cut apart their words and place them in a baggie.  They will use these words throughout the whole week.  On Tuesday, they use the words to sort them into categories.  On Wednesday, the students use their words to do a speed sort.  This is where the sand timers come into play.  On Thursday, the students use their words cards to sort and then create a graph on their sort.  On Friday, they sort the words again and this time they glue the word sort onto a word mat.  The following are some pictures of our words sort practice.

These are the books used to assess the students as well as the books used to find the appropriate word sorts for each child.

http://www.amazon.com/Words-Their-Way-Pattern-Spellers/dp/013514843X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1412369835&sr=8-2&keywords=Words+Their+Way

Daily 5

You've probably heard me mention the daily 5 more than once.  Let me give you some background on what the daily 5 entails.  Daily 5 is simply a way to set up literacy stations in the classroom.  It consists of daily literacy activities that the students are involved in:  Read to Self, Read to Someone, Work with Words, Work on Computers, and Listen to Reading.  These five stations are the rotation of our literacy work station or daily 5.  Depending on the day, the students will also work in a guided reading group with Mrs. Dusenberg or myself.  During read to self, students are doing just that....reading to themselves.  It takes a long time to build our reading stamina so that the entire class is reading for the whole time.  During this time, I meet individually with the students.  I listen to them read, coach them, and give them reading goals to work towards.  I love this time of the day because I get to see all the strategies your child employs while reading.  During read to someone, students are doing just that....reading to someone.  We've talked a lot about partner reading in our class and what that should look like and sound like.  Students have different partners daily.  During this time, students get to share the books they've been working on with someone in class.  They get to coach them as well.  If a child can teach/coach another child with a word that gives them an even better understanding of the strategy.  During work with words students are using their spelling patterns to learn to spell.  All spelling lists are differentiated according to the primary spelling inventory the students took at the beginning of the year.  They work on their words for 2 weeks, are assessed, and then given a new list of words to work on.  During work on computers, students are working on the computers we have in the classroom.  They might be reading on Raz-Kids, playing a reading game on the Promethean board, building words on Starfall, etc.  There are so many reading programs and games out there and I try to utilize what fits the needs of my students at that particular time.  Listen to reading is when a group of students listen to books on CD players that I have in my classroom.  Later in the year, it will be when students record and listen to themselves read on the iPods.  All of these literacy stations are going on while the teachers in the room are pulling small differentiated reading groups back to work on reading skills that are at their just-right levels.  I hope this gives you a better understanding the literacy stations in our classroom.  Below are some pictures of the stations in our room.