Word Family Wall
Building Literacy Skills using Spelling Patterns in Words (Virtual Tour)
Stage of Literacy Development:
Stage 1: Beginning LiteracyStage 2: Consolidation / Fluency
Ages:
4-8
Grade Range:
K 1st 2ndFood Groups:
Primary: Letter-Sounds & Phonics, Spelling & Word Work Secondary: Phonemic Awareness, Vocabulary
Transcript
One of the things that I also use in my classroom is Word Families. Word Families allows students to discover patterns in words. They can use that information to write new words or read new words that they haven't read before or haven't written before. The way I introduce this is I tell them, this is the word family we are going to be working on this week. Word Family "oke", and I show them the card showing "oke". Start thinking of words that you think that might belong in this word family. They start telling me all the words that they come up with. Most of the words belong to this Word Family and sometimes some of them don't. Then I show them the cards that I have and then if they actually told me the words that I have on the cards, they get a marble for each one of them. I ask them to put that in a sentence now to make sure they understand the meaning of the word. Once that Word Family has been presented, I have another session in the week where I dictate the words and the kids can write sentences using those words so they do activities with it. Then, the list of cards with the Word Family comes up here. I have two different levels. These are the ones that are level one. These are easier word families. In the middle of the year, we'll stop the level ones and move on to the level two words. As you can see, these ones are a little bit more complex. Even, some of them have the silent E and other things that the level one words don't have. My students can use them when they are writing too. They have a pattern, so sometimes I tell them, have you looked at the word families? Because that word that you want to spell belongs to one of those Word Families. It's not there, but you can use it. The way my students figured out if a word belongs to that word family is the rhyming. They start looking for words that rhyme with the words that I'm presenting or the Word Family and thats how they discover that a word may belong to a Word family. Again, sometimes they come up with ones that are close enough but not quite, and then I write those words. Oh, thats actually a different Word Family. Look at how that one is spelled. This is very useful and they love this. It's just one of those things that you see in the first grade when you actually have a system in place that they can get engaged with.
Related References
Additional Links:
Reading Rockets: Meet the Word Families http://www.readingrockets.org/article/meet-word-families
Activity Objective
The goal of Word Family Wall: Building Literacy Skills using Spelling Patterns in Words (Virtual Tour) is to help students discover patterns in words so they can use that information to read or write new words. This teacher introduces a different word family at the beginning of every week, progressing from the simpler ones to the more complex, and uses rhyming to brainstorm different related words with the class. Students must then use each of these words in a sentence to ensure that they understand the word meaning. Later in the week, students begin to do activities with these words and they are added to the word family wall.
Quick Tips
Additional Comments:
- Allow your students to brainstorm a variety of words, even if they invent their own rhyming nonsense words. This is part of recognizing patterns using the target word family. - Students are more likely to remember these words if they put them into a meaningful context, such as writing their own rhymes, poems and stories using the words.
Other Recipes by this Teacher
What are We Doing in Class Today?: Motivating Beginning Readers with a Daily Schedule (Virtual Tour)
K - 6th
Literacy CAFE in First Grade: Fostering Independence using a Menu of Strategies (Virtual Tour)
1st - 3rd
The Daily 5 in First Grade: Engaging Students with a Balanced Literacy Approach (Virtual Tour)
1st - 3rd
Predicting and Inferring: Scaffolding Comprehension Strategies using an Explicit Framework (Virtual Tour)
1st - 3rd
Revising and Editing in First Grade: Using Success Criteria to Focus the Writing Process (Virtual Tour)
K - 6th
