WORD WORK.
What is Word Work? Word work is a choice offered during Reader’s Workshop. When a child elects to do Word Work, s/he will engage in several different types of independent practice reading and writing words. A continuing focus are the spelling/word wall words that come home each week, including the word family words. These words are ones that students need to read and write quickly and easily.
Students manipulate these words in various ways during the week at school and should practice reading or writing them daily at home also. Help your child begin to notice these words when they appear in texts your child reads.
How does word work look during Reader’s Workshop? Children highlight word wall words in their personal dictionary. This teaches students to become adept at quickly locating words on the classroom word wall. A knowledge of alphabetical order develops quickly this way.
Early in the school year students might... practice writing the word on a whiteboard or magnadoodle make the word with magnetic letters—play mix and fix with a partner make the word with Wikki sticks use rubber stamps to stamp and write the words write word family words
As the year progresses we tackle more complex activities during Word Work... write sentences using those words unscramble cut up sentences spill and spell alphabetizing words complete word sorts—categorize words by particular features child determines or can be predetermined categories Ordering cut-up lines of poetry to make a poem read correctly
Tying it all together… The goal of these varied activities is to help the students become aware of how letters work in words and to help them learn how to accurately record the sounds they hear. When writing, we encourage students to stretch out the word by saying the word very s-l-o-w-l-y, then write each sound in order. The visual and auditory channels must work together. When a child reads, in a split second s/he reverses this process and says the sounds that are represented on the page.