Cathy York

Word Study Minilesson

Done on 4/9

For this week, the students were working on al and au words. This activity consisted of,

first sorting the words based on whether it was an al or an au word. This is usually the first thing

they do to introduce word study. Then, we had a die with numbers 1-6 on each side. The

student was asked to pick two words from the pile once the words were flipped over. The

student would role the die and tell me what number they rolled and I would read directions based

on what they rolled. The corresponding questions are as follows:

1. Use your word in a sentence.

2. Tell what your word means and have your friends guess the word.

3. Say your word, spell it, and say he word again.

4. Describe something that is the opposite of your word.

5. Describe something similar to your word or something your word is used for.

6. Say your word and tell us what it means.

Without showing their friends the word, they would do what they were asked based on the

number they roll.

In my class, there are generally two groups. My teacher gave me the names of the

students in each group. The first group, the remedial group, consisted of only four students.

Half of the students were pulled out to work with a resource teacher, so I only worked with two

of the students in the group. These two students worked really well. I did the same with the

second group which consisted of ten students. This was a bit harder as the students in this group

are probably able to be split into another group of higher students. We did the same activity but

with the different words. After each round, we sorted again based on the al or au.
 For this lesson, I knew the appropriate words because my cooperating teacher sent me the

words prior to the lesson. This word study (al, au) was in the sequence at this point in the year.

This was a fun activity idea, but it was difficult for the students because they do not do word

study in groups usually. This was also difficult for the students because my cooperating teacher

planned for this to be done on the introductory day of the word study. This means the students

were not already familiar with the words, so they struggled to describe the meanings of the

words when they chose them. If I do this again in the future, I would definitely use this as a

review center before the spelling quiz. I liked doing it in groups, but I think making this a center

activity with three rotations would be better.

In my classroom, I would like to do activities like this because I think it is a fun way to

get students engaged with the material while still getting a lot out of it. As I mentioned before, I

think this activity would have worked well if it were part of a center rotation, something I will be

using in my classroom. In order to group students, I will have to do a preliminary assessment to

figure out the grouping. In my classroom, I would work Monday as the introductory day,

Tuesday through Thursday as the practice days, and Friday as the quiz day. My schedule would

look like this:

Monday: introduce the words and go over meanings

Tuesday: Buddy spell and blind sort centers

Wednesday: Use words in a sentence

Thursday: centers with dice activity, spell with magnetic letters, and buddy spell

Friday: spelling quiz

Materials needed for this would be the words for the week, pictures to go with the words to show

what the words mean, scissors to cut out the words, a pencil and a journal, dice, questions,

magnetic letters, and the spelling quiz.