[nc3teacher]

This is my second year and I’m busy coming up with lots of things that I would like to do this year- things that need to change and also things I want to add to the classroom. My question is, if you do “word study” using “Words their Way” or something of the sort, what types of things do you have the kids do during their “word study” block? I’m trying to set up centers/workstations during our “Workshop” time (we use Imagine it and they have about an hour of independent work time), and I didn’t know what I should have my kids do during this part of the day. I would like to be able to use the words they use during “word study” as their spelling words for the week. Also, do you have a “word study notebook/folder” I’d like to have the backbone of this notebook together before the kids come back in a month, so any help you can give me would be GREAT! Thanks in advance!

[Ms. J]

The link below has a ton of word study center ideas. Feel free to use as they are or adapt to your needs.

http://www.fcrr.org/Curriculum/stude...tivities23.htm

A great book that discusses all kinds of centers is called Practice with Purpose by Debbie Diller. Included is a section on Word Study activities. I read this book last summer, and I got a ton of ideas to use during my workshop time! I highly recommend it. Below is a link to the book, so you can see the table of contents, but I think it's cheaper through Amazon.
http://www.stenhouse.com/shop/pc/vie...idproduct=8957

Hope these ideas help! I'll try to post more later, but I need to work on dinner now.

[Kermit]

Here is what I did:

I had 3 spelling/word study groups that I met with. They were leveled (like you will have using words their way, if you do it that way) and they worked in small groups while I met with kids in small groups.

So I would begin by doing the assessment for the week before. The kids did buddy tests and tested each other. We did this on Monday. After they had finished their tests, they would get their words for the next week and work on a word sort. I also had them highlight the parts of the word that might be confusing, like the E in have, or the TIO in information.

I would pull kids from their independent work to work with the first group. The first group was the on grade level group and it went pretty fast. I usually could meet with them quickly, going through the words and teaching the rule. Then, they would put away their HW (as much as they had started) and would play a game or do a center based on my lesson that day.

Then I would give instructions to my highest group for their center for the day. They would put their HW away and get started on something like a game pertaining to vocab. I would meet with them more later, but they usually finished their first activity by this point.

I would pull the lowest kids, who needed more time for the sort and the highlighting anyway. We would go over the words, the sort, the pattern, and do some more activities with the pattern, like using words you know, rhyming, changing it by adding endings, etc. Then they would go and play a game and I would meet with the high group, which did vocab and not spelling. For them, I went over the prefix, suffix or root of the week and then the meanings of the vocab words.

On the other days I met with each group or just 1 of the groups and did an activity with them. For example, with the lowest group I would do making words. With the highest groups, they would make words with prefix, suffix and root tiles.