Working with words
According to Cunningham (2007), the purpose of this component is to ensure that children read, spell, and use high-frequency words correctly, and that they learn the patterns necessary for decoding and spelling. Reading new texts and rereading familiar texts ensure that students in these programs engage in meaningful, connected reading. These programs also include activities that help students focus on and become familiar with printed words. Students are presented with the letters that form a word from a selection they read. Words are selected for "word studies" because of their interest and because they contain word identification elements that will be useful to the students
According to Rog (2003), the field of "word study" provides students an opportunity to manipulate words (and parts of words) in meaningful and enjoyable activities and games. Reading ability can develop dramatically as word study lessons develop experience with:
- Letters and their corresponding sounds.
- Components of words, such as roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
- Patterns of how words are spelled, such as word families.
- How parts of words often will give hints to the meaning of a word, as well as its spelling or pronunciation.
Word study activities call for active problem solving. Students are encouraged to look for spelling patterns, form hypotheses, predict outcomes, and test them. These activities require students to continually monitor ans question new words and how they are connected.
References:
Cunningham, P. (2007). Working with words: The four blocks literacy model. http://www.four-blocks.com/wwwords.htm retrieved on November 10, 2007.
Rog, L. (2003). Guided reading basics. Portlans ME: Stenhouse
1 comment:
Hi William,
Your blog was a wonderful and informative read on the Balanced Literacy approach. My district uses this approach in all of its Integrated Language Arts classes. It has helped many of our students turn on to reading and writing. I have observed many guided reading lessons, independent readings, read-alouds, etc. Thank you for bringing some meaning to all of the terms. It has been about five years since I attended a workshop on Balanced Literacy and now I feel much better informed. Jeanette
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