I really enjoyed reading the Making Words article. It describes a fun, interactive classroom activity that teaches students about building words and learning word patterns. Each child is given a set cards with letters printed on them. With the teacher's directions, they manipulate and arrange the cards to form multiple 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-letter words. At the end, the teacher goes through all of the words the class has made, highlighting letter patterns and sorting words that have similarities. I've listed some examples of things a teacher might discuss with her class after the activity:
1. Words that rhyme often have the same spelling pattern:
ride/side pies/dies
2. Find the words that begin the same:
bag/bad/band
3. Find the words that have 2+ letters before the vowel (blends):
snip/spin/spring
4. For words with 2 vowels sound different than the vowel alone:
bat/sat or bet/set
beat or seat
5. Some words' letters can be rearranged to make new words:
nip/snip/pins/spin
6. Changing one consonant sound can change the word:
ride/ripe/rise
I think that this activity would be really beneficial to students because it puts them in control of making the words- letting them experiment and use different strategies to come up with the answer. It also teaches them about letter patterns, which is hugely helpful in learning to spell. A big part of this is getting students to realize that changing or adding a different letter makes words change in predictable ways. The more aware students are about these patterns, the better they will be able to read and write new words.
 |
| http://4.bp.blogspot.com/ |
2. Do you think there are any flaws or negatives about this activity?
I LOVE your example of Making Words for every month. Not only does this incorporate the educational part of this lesson, but this makes it fun for the children as well. I think by having a word that goes along with each month would make it easier for the child to recognize what the "big word" is in the end. It also would help a child recognize what holidays or events fall into a certain month as well.
ReplyDeleteThe only way I could see making this more advance for older students would be to increase the number of letters in the final word. This would leave room for the teacher to come up with more word patterns in the shorter words.
I agree with Aneisha about adding more letters to the final word to make it more difficult. Another way to increase the difficulty for older students might switching the activity a little so it is more similar to the game, Boggle. In this game you shake up all the letters then form as many words as you can from the letters that are touching. I'm sure there is a way to make an activity similar to this that builds on the principles of the "Making Words" activity. And plus it would be more challenging for the older students which is always more fun!
ReplyDeleteI really like the "A Year of MAKING WORDS" document that you found. regarding your question about the age range for children and completing this activity I think it could be used in late second and up. I remember when i was in third grade we did "jumbles" and these were just words that had the letters mixed around. I remember some of them being challenging but also fun and able to complete, and this activity seems to be along the same line.
ReplyDelete