Making Words 3-7-13

This week in our making words activity, I chose one that had a few plural words as we were dealing with those endings.  The students are getting much more efficient with the routines of this activity.  Again, they responded with a cheer when I informed them that they could use partners for this activity, though it cracks me up because they don't confer with a partner at all.  Nate had a few hiccups with some of the words, especially the ones with blends at the beginning such as class, stale, and scale.  Those have always been hard for him to segment.  One more thing about Nate worth noting is that he was constantly giving me words that he thought we could make, but most of the words contained letters that we did not have to work with.  What does that say about his knowledge of letters and the sounds they make to construct words?  Or was he just excited and saying things before thinking?  Becca was on target during this activity, she was busy making sure her partner had everything right as well.  Not only were the kids very successful at making the words, they are also getting really good at finding the patterns and commonalities within the words that we make.  Jack stated that sale, stale, scale, scales all followed the vowel, consonant, e pattern.  Connor said that eat, seat, least, all followed ea spelling pattern for the long e sound.  Eric pointed out that eats, scales, and castles were plural.  I had to correct about eats and then we got into that discussion, but what a good teaching point!  I really feel good about their progress.

Plural Ending Word Sorts

Word Sort 5
This week we worked on plural endings of words.  There were three main rules that the phonics book outlined for use. 
Rule 1:  If a word ends in ch, sh, s, or x you add es
Rule 2:  If a word ends in a consonant and y, change the y to i and add es.  If a word ends in a vowel and y, just add s.
Rule 3:  If a word ends in f or fe, you usually change the f or fe to v and add es.  If a word ends in ff, just add s.
The kids did really well with remembering these rules, but words that end in silent e really threw them off.  They would put words like place, pages, and badges in the es category instead of recognizing that the base word ends in silent e, so only an s is added to make it plural.  I tried to teach them to recognize the base word and then determine the ending, but they couldn't grasp it.  This leads me to think that I may need to go back and review vowel, consonant, e spelling patterns once again.  We have been doing these in our sorts for some time now, but I think they are used to seeing that e as a final letter and the s after it is what was confusing them. 
We had a snow day on Wednesday, so we combined two days worth of work into one.  Thursday when we did our partner sorts, we also recorded them in our word study notebooks.  The kids weren't going above and beyond like they did last week because we didn't have the time for it.  They still very much enjoyed working with a partner and helping their partner with the spelling patterns.  I like this partner activity in particular because it allows each partner to be successful even if the student doesn't have much knowledge on the words because he has the words right in front of him to refer to the spelling pattern to correct his partner if needed.  This really boosts self-esteem, which some of my students need in order to gain the confidence to be successful.  I have noticed that Emily has come a long way.  She used to be so cautious when she read for fear that she would read a word incorrectly.  Now, she has a much faster reading rate and reads more words correctly.  I would gather that these hands on phonics activities and confidence building collaborative learning play a big role in her improvement.  I also notice that Nate's reading fluency has much improved and I feel that he enjoys reading more now.  I will find out soon enough when I give the student progress and attitude surveys this week.

Partner Sort 2-28

During their partner sort, I was excited to hear the students distinguishing between week and weak.  Their knowledge of homophones is increasing.  They were very successful remembering ee, ea, short e spelling patterns without looking at the words.  This should increase their spelling abilities.  Partners correct each other if the other is incorrect.  Becca asked me how to read the words team and teach.  I don't know why.  She is perfectly capable.  I think that she didn't want to take the time to think about how the spelling is related to the sound.  I have noticed this in her reading as well.  Overall, the partners were all engaged and focused on the task at hand. 

Making Words and Themes 2-28

I am so excited!!  All the kids were so enthusiastic this week about the "mystery word."  Also, they are getting the concept of homophones because they can identify them without prompting.  I don't know that this has anything to do with the phonics instruction and their fluency, but they do have some useful information to help them understand what they are reading.  Success again when I told them they could have partners during this activity.  It's weird, though, because they don't actually use them.  Just the thought of a partner activity excites them. One theme I am finding is that having social interaction/cooperative learning motivates them and they perform better, going above and beyond my expectations.  One example is when several students add more words to their word sort categories in their word study notebooks. Nate was successful again.  I showed him hw to just switch the begining letter in pale to sale instead of moving all the letters.  He didn't make that connection that they rhymed so they probably have the same ending letters.  All the students were focused and engaged.  I had to redirect only Becca a couple of times.

Word Sort Success!!!

Today's word sort went very well.  After some of the students had some trouble last week with long o spelling patterns, I thought they would have an equally difficult time, but Nate did awesome.  It was the first week that he got all correct and finished in average time.  I can't figure out why he was so much more successful with this one than others.  Could it be that having double letters /ee/ helped him?  Since there aren't as many different letters to get mixed up.  Ken's mix up was an organizational issue and not a confusion between letters and sounds.  I can really tell that in the last couple of weeks, their fluency has improved greatly, except for Becca's for some unknown reason.

Word Sort recording sheet