Chapter Six
Work on writing and word work
In helping students tune ears-and mouths and eyes, even their fingertips, their nerve endings-to the glorious range of ways they can string words together, we need to encourage them to fool around, to experiment, to break rules even before they know all the rules. Whoever knows all the rules, anyway?
Judith Rowe Michaels
Working on writing provides students with time to spend on writing that really matters to them:
- Persuasive writing, convincing to read a favourite book.
- Friendly letters to a classmate or pen pail.
- Recount of a lost tooth or the loss of a beloved pet.
- Reports on topics of current interest.
- Poetry
- Narrative about a sport game.
Focus lessons for work on writing
- Model what to do when writing words they can’t spell (underline and go on).
- Brainstorm what materials to use during writing. For example, notebook, pen, pencil, drawing
- What to write about> make a list of topics, make a list of forms.
Word Work
Creating and maintaining a time during each literacy block to focus on words is critical to developing readers, writers and communicators. Word study takes up a portion of the literacy block, allowing time for the following:
- Experimenting with words for learning and practicing spelling patterns.
- Memorising high frequency words.
- Generalising spelling patterns.
- Adding to our knowledge and curiosity of unique and interesting words.
Materials to practice spelling
- Whiteboards
- Magnetic letters
- Wiki sticks
- Clay
- Letter stamps
- Coloured markers
Day 1- Focus lessons for word work
- Introduce optional materials and their location to students.
- Brainstorm
- Model finding the materials, materials placement in the room and setup materials.
- Brainstorm chart of how to clean up.
- Model material placement in the room.
Day 2
- Model and practice materials set up and placement.
- Brainstorm how to use materials.
- Model and practice student behaviours of how to use materials.
- Continue building stamina of working with materials adding one to two minutes each day.
Other Focus lessons
- Word sorts
- Adding words to their collection.
- Add words to their word study notebooks.
- Practicing basic words most often misspelled.
- List words that belong to a pattern and add to notebook.
- Set up notebook.
Some questions to think about:
This year I found that with Kindy we do a lot of word work with them in our literacy centres, however I have found that at the beginning of the year the students do not know any words except for their names to make with magnetic letters and lego boards and because of this they just sit there un-engaged.
How could word work be done with Kindy in term one and two when they have little knowledge of words?
How do we go about placing materials for writing and word work when we have limited amounts of shelving in the classrooms?
Fay
1 comment:
Hi Fay, interesting question about Kindy word work early in the year. I have seen it done in my previous school using themed pages which have little pictures next to the words so the students have assistance when they are beginning reading. Eg. At the park. Swing (pic) slippery dip (pic). Only thing is I guess they also need the high frequency words. Did help though in our writing stations. We also had writing trolleys which helped with the lack of space. We used a variety of writing equipment to interest the young students, like textas, gel pens, envelopes, stamps, crayons, a massive range of paper. The students loved it and your could see their writing improve. I'll have a look for those laminated sheets with the words and pictures. Georgia
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