Early Literacy Series #6: Teaching Word Solving through Shared & Guided Reading

This is the sixth of seven posts about early literacy.

Guided Reading in Kindergarten

Teaching Sight Words

1. Provide students with a classroom word wall so that they have a mental anchor to sight words.
2. Add several sight words a week to the wall and regularly interact with the wall. I found Pat Cunningham's Phonics They Use to be a great resource in how to make sure the wall remains interactive. Also this ppt is helpful. 
3. Encourage students to find word wall words in the text during small and whole group lessons.
4. Explain that sight words help make reading easier because we can use them.
5. Use an individual-size and/or full-size word wall to help build a sight word vocabulary or provide students with a portable word wall the children can use when they are writing as Lenore Furman, a kindergarten teacher at Abington School in Newark designed.  See video below.

6. Look at the books you'll be using for guided reading during Levels A through C and make sure that you have all of the sights words identified for teaching. I do this rather than rely on a list from a program.  Individual Word Wall Template.

7. If an unknown word is on the word wall, refer to it as a student comes to a sight word she does not recall. Say, That word is on the word wall, can you find it? What is that word? Okay, reread the sentence now that you remember the word. If the word is not on the word wall, use context clues to help the child figure it out (skip it and reread, look at the letters) and add it to the wall. 

1st grader using the app, Sight Words.

8. My favorite app for teaching sight words is Sight Words by Teacher Created Materials.

A small group interactive writing lesson with kindergarten children. They were writing in response to a read aloud.

9. Make sure to include taught sight words during interactive writing.  As one students is writing the whole sight word in text, the other students can write the word on the carpet or on individual whiteboards.

The cut apart sentence, focusing on specific letter and word learning in grade 1.

10. Cut apart a sentence into individual words and have students reassemble it.

11. Use highlighter tape and highlight sight words (you are studying) in shared reading texts. Wide tape.

12. Build the words with letter tiles or magnetic letters. 

13. Stamp the words using alphabet rubber stamps. 

14. Use alphabet cookie cutters or play dough letter stamps to stamp the words into play dough.

15. Determine a procedure to teach sight words and stick to it. I like Jan Richardson's 4-part process. (What's Missing? Mix and Fix. Finger Spell. Table Writing)

What Do I Do When I Come to A Word I Don't Know: Word Solving

1. Use prompts to cue student to use first sounds as she solves for unknown words, such as, What sound does that word start with?

2. Prompt students by saying, Get your mouth ready for the first sound.

3. Prompt students to Look at the beginning of the word.

4. Prompt students to Look through the whole word.

5. Encourage cross-checking and self-correcting behaviors by prompting student to look at pictures and words as she solves for the unknown.
6. Also, prompt student to reread and fix miscues when her reading doesn't make sense, sound right, or look right (words and pictures don't match).
7. Instruct student that reading always makes sense, sounds right, and looks right. If reading does not make sense, sound right, or look right, she needs to reread and make changes.
8. After child reads through a miscue, guide him back to the point of miscue and ask, Did that make sense? or Did that sound right? or Does that look like what you read? Ask child to reread and fix error.

from http://www.teachingace.com/reading-strategies-anchor-chart/

9 While reading with a student in instructional text, prompt student at the point of word-solving to, Look for parts you know. Do you know a word like that? Do you know any other word that has the same letters at the end/beginning?
10. Add one word from each word family/rime to the word wall. Use that word to help write and read other words.
11. Indicate the special word family words/rimes by placing a star next to them on the word wall.
12. Prompt child to use the word wall as a resource for these words: That word looks like one of our word wall helper words. Can you find the one it looks like? What is the word wall word? If that's____, what is the word in the book? 

13. Capture strategies on an anchor chart the children can use.

Early Literacy Series #1: Shared Reading & Writing and CAP
Early Literacy Series #2: Shared Reading Resources for Preschool and Kindergarten
Early Literacy Series #3: Teaching Rhyming and Initial Sound Instruction
Early Literacy Series #4: Teaching Sound and Letter Identification in Kindergarten
Early Literacy Series #5: Teaching Blending & Segmenting through Books and Poetry
Books to Teach the 37 Most Common Rimes: The Rime Poetry Book. 
Early Literacy Series #7: Teaching Comprehension & Fluency

This Is What Education Reform Looks Like, Part II

2 first graders' writing and illustrations for Wall Story.

After I published the post, This is What Education Reform Looks Like, I received by email this description of education reform in action in a first grade classroom in New York. The writer is a literacy professor in New York. 

One of the saddest things I saw this semester was a 1st grade boy who, in October knew about 4 letters and about 3 sounds. An undergraduate worked with him throughout the semester, using used the Jan Richardson personal alphabet book and by December he knew all his sounds and most of his letters (mixing up q and p and b, which is understandable).

On the wall hangs a "data chart." Every time a child gained a sight word, he or she gained a sticker. Some had a hundred. He had one. Can you imagine coming into that class each day from his perspective? Here he had made great gains with little recognition.

The state, school officials say, require the data charts. 

After reading this I wondered for whom the data chart is really intended. What's its purpose? Surely there is no actual need to use extrinsic motivation for 1st graders to learn sight words. This happens all the tim with nary a chart in sight.

I recommend keeping a private chart as children are learning sight words so that the teacher can see the progress, make use of words children know, and support children to learn new words.

2. A little addendum...

My husband told me this story:

Years ago when his grandfather was in business in Hell's Kitchen (Manhattan) it was a common practice to post on a blackboard your delinquent customers so every one could see who owed you money.  The goal here was to use shame to 'motivate' payment.  A law was passed that prohibited publicly naming delinquent customers and the practice stopped.

Too bad such safeguards don't apply to children in New York.

3. Methods for Teaching Sight Words

1. Here's a link to a video that shows a four-step method to teach sight words.  I routinely use this during guided reading at levels A - E.

2. I also have used this app, Sight Words 1-300: Kids Learn, quite successfully with 1st graders. The children love the variety of games and the pace.



3. Link to Recommended Apps.