Week 7- Assignment #3

1.     Explain the three levels of words and how you can use word levels to decide which words to teach.

There are familiar words like bed and run, which we may not need to teach and kids may already know. Then there are words that may appear often like in the news that may need to be explained like hurricane or democracy. Finally, there can be words that are highly technical and difficult such as words drawn from chemistry or biology and are more unique. The focus would be on the second level of words, the words that may not be common enough that most kids just already know them.

2.     How do you teach your students to "chunk" words as a strategy for decoding unfamiliar words? When do you provide this instruction?

Students, when using this strategies , begin to use what they know abut other words to figure out the new word. To have other knowledge of words , we have to understand that the more kids read, the more exposure they have to other words . We teach them to then use the other words to read the new word they haven’t encountered before. We present the larger new word and have students ‘tear off’ the front and back and see if they can pronounce the middle. If not, chunk the word in half and see if  they can read the parts then. Put the words together and see if  the students can figure out the new word. This can always be pre-taught and implemented during reading time as well, when its most used and necessary.


3.     Based on Professor Allington's comments and the classroom examples, what are some ways you might foster word study in your classroom?

Word study can be fostered just by reading and examining words throughout the students’ literature, from their history books to their science books and whatever may interest them from the library. Rather than providing an external list of words, which can be done as well, it is probably better to foster word student within context so students can actually comprehend the word and how its properly used. Modeling the word and reading aloud from their text will help with the word study as well and group discussion and question/answer sessions should be intermittent as well to allow for students’ participation. Fluency and word study do not have to be separate lessons and can be drawn from the materials used in the classroom.

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