While I read about and blogged about Making Words activities last week, this article, also focused on Making Words, added to my understanding of the benefits of this manipulative. This reading also provided me with a more detailed, comprehensive understanding of what goes into planning and executing a Making Words lesson.
The authors discussed the importance of including a discussion on spelling patterns and rhyming patterns within each Making Words lesson. Teachers must explicitly discuss spelling patterns and rhyming patterns to develop children's learning abilities. Before this course, I was unaware of the significance of explicit, direct instruction when it comes to teaching children to read. These readings have enlightened me and I now know that I, as a future teacher, must provide this direct instruction in my lesson plans. It is imperative that children realize these relationships between words in order to grow as readers.
The authors noted that Making Words activities are fast-past as children catch on quickly and are eager to discover the long word. I feel like sometimes, during fast-paced lessons, children can get lost. How do teachers ensure that all students are following along with the lesson?
How can teachers keep the focus on recognizing spelling patterns, ryhming patterns, and letter combinations if children are distracted by the sole task of discovering the long word?
I agree it could be hard to keep students focused on building smaller words instead of figuring out the final big word.
ReplyDeleteOne idea I had is to have some sort of goal or reward after the 2/3/4/etc letter words. A way to do this could be 'unlocking the next level'. Once the class finishes all of the 3-letter words, she could put a picture of a key on the board, saying they've unlocked the door to the 4-letter words.
This idea really doesn't change the game at all, but it adds some short-term goals to keep the students interested in the smaller words before discovering the final word and the end of the game.
I do agree with you that some students can get lost during fast paced activities. In the Making Words activity, I feel that in a way it might be difficult for students to get lost, especially if the lessons start off as slow, and the pace increases as students become more focused on the task. As the pace increases, I feel that the students assurance that they can complete the task increases as well, which is why many catch on so quickly.
ReplyDeleteI think in order for the focus to be kept on recognizing spelling patterns, the teacher should constantly reinforce the importance of the task. For example, after the number of letters in a word is increased, the teacher should stop and discuss the patterns. If there are a group of words that end in "s", the teacher should talk about why "s" is added to words to mean more than one. Or if there is a group of words that end in "ed" those words usually mean something in the past, and etc.
Whole class participation concerned me as well because the game is so fast-paced and I'm sure it's easy for some students to get lost and fall behind. I think one way to ensure that all of the students are following along with the lesson is to call on the slower students for the 2 and 3 letter words. When the words get longer, that's when it's time to call on the quicker students. This way, everyone participates and learns from one another.
ReplyDeleteI too had never considered the importance of explicitly studying spelling and rhyming patterns. It does make sense however because this is a really important component of reading.
ReplyDeleteTo make students focus on learning the smaller words and not skipping ahead and trying to find the larger word I believe it may be a good idea to structure the activity as a challenge to see how many words the class can come up with from the letters. This way the children would be trying to get more and more words out, including smaller words with repetitive patterns, instead of instantly going for the large word using all of the letters.
I think you bring up some great questions on how you, as a teacher, make sure that all of your students are on the same page during the making words lesson and also how you keep them from just trying to figure out the long word and not focusing on the other words being spelled. I feel like for this activity I might start off saying that we are just going to spell a lot of different words with the letters I have given them and then as we get closer to being done with the activity tell them that all the different words we have been spelling come from one long word using all the letters. This way, the students are focused on the activity at hand and won't know to look for the longer word until closer to the end of the activity.
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