Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Spelling words
I used several different techniques discussed in the book to teach my vocabulary words for my 5th grade reading class today. First, I passed out a set of spelling flashcards to each of my students. They were given the task of sorting them and categorizing them. They could do this by any means they thought was a category that made sense. We are studying affixes and Greek and Latin base words. When they had finished sorting their flashcards, they were to write them in the categories they had made, and draw a picture of any of the words they had a hard time understanding the meaning. We then discussed the different groups they had chosen. Finally they came to the front of the room and sat on the floor. We went over the word and its definition, then they would tell a sentence to the partner sitting next to them. When most of the students had a sentence, I had 2 or 3 of them give their sentences to the group. Then we went to the next word.
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I'm impressed that your 5th graders were sorting based on Latin and Greek. Those are some smart 5th graders. Must be the teacher!
ReplyDeleteThanks, but they are some class, also. I have been amazed at how well that have caught on to the words and what they mean.
ReplyDeleteI have used Words Their Way for the past 5 years, but this year I also decided to teach spelling/vocabulary using Greek and Latin prefixes, suffixes, and roots. I was worried at first if my fifth graders would be able to handle the words, some of which were not easy, but they rose to the occasion! The best part was that they remembered what the word parts stood for and would point out other words in our reading which had the same roots, affixes. I still used a word sort like Word Their Way, but I think their understanding of the way words are composed really sunk in. They didn't remember them all of course, but the raw scores on the vocabulary core test were really good this year. I think students need a framework they have come up with to remember spelling/vocabulary words. Every week when we would discuss the words after sorting them, students would offer up suggestions to the rest of the class about how to remember the meaning and spelling of certain words. It really got them thinking, not just memorizing. I'm glad to see someone else had success with this idea. Just think, instead of teaching 300 words this year, you probably gave them a framework for learning thousands!
ReplyDeleteMarianne,
ReplyDeleteWe are going to be using Words Their Way next year? I'll have to admit that I'm not too excited. Are you using the Greek and Latin words from Words Their Way?
What do you use to teach your greek and latin roots? We are looking to use this more next year and want to find the best resources.
ReplyDeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteWe will have to talk to Marianne on the trip. I am looking in to Tim Rasinski's Latin and Root words.
I use our reading program, which is SRA Imagine It. They also have a great section in Words Their Way that I have used before. In Words Their Way you need to test each student and see if they are ready for that difficult of words.
ReplyDelete