I felt the Making Words activity was a very constructive approach to teaching literacy. It appealed to many different levels of students. More advanced students will be reinforced and engaged when creating larger words typically. Whereas, the students who may be struggling can see words broken down and sounded out. Understanding word endings and root words is essential to reading fluently and for meaning. Can allowing students to misspell words initially create incorrect spelling habits in the long term?
I also really enjoyed reading the Ten Important Words Plus article. It seems to be a great way to teach reading explicitly without dulling down the instruction. The bigger picture was focused on which is all about connecting key words and ideas. This strategy seems to be a long term ability that will help students derive meaning from texts at an appropriate rate. Even the struggling readers can use this strategy to help confirm the main points they took away from the reading were truly the main points the writer was trying to convey. Giving the students actual prompts to discuss seems to be a subtle way of getting everyone thinking on the same page yet still divergent. These prompts and discussions may serve as reinforcement to some students and learning moments for others. How are some ways this reading strategy could be beneficial to English language learners or students with reading disabilities? Could this be confusing for some students ultimately?
I really liked the Ten Words Plus Strategy too. You are right. Not only does it teach word meaning, but it also helps with comprehension. I think the part where they discuss the words could be beneficial to children with reading disabilities because they can gain insight from their peers.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this is a strategy that could be very beneficial for ELL students and students with disabilities, as long as the teacher ensures that the words in the passage are understood. I feel it would be easy for an ELL student to gravitate to words they recognize most rather than the ones that are most important because they feel more confident with them.
ReplyDeleteI wrote about this in my post, but I always question whether or not I should let my 7 year old son write stories without correcting his spelling. He gets extremely immersed into his stories while he's writing, and his spelling skills go out the window. I do recognize, however, that the writing seems to be calming for him, so I have decided, for the time being, to let him write creatively without correcting his spelling. I do help him correct his school work though.
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