Word Wednesday - Reading Vocabulary

Sorry for the absence.  My mother and Princess' grandmother had a cataract removed and wouldn't you know it, she is the 1 in 1000th person who developed complications.  We are now helping her with eye drops every 30 minutes...around the clock! 

Today;'s post is about vocabulary.  As an SLP, one of the things I have tweaked and retweaked and retweaked and retweaked year after year is vocabulary work.  I have no problem with the activities, but I  question myself, have internal debates, research and debate some more when it comes to what words to teach.  I have looked at academic word lists, Marzano's Vocabulary Project  (which is incredibly overwhelming) and used commercial products.  What I want is vocabulary that makes a difference to my students in the classroom.   One of my fellow teachers suggested I check out Jan Richardson's book The Next Step in Guided Reading. She has a list of words commonly found in texts for reading levels A through H.  Lady A and I looked over the list and liked it.  There is always this assumption that if a student can read or decode the word, they comprehend it.  Surprisingly not always the case.

Lady A and I created vocabulary cards for these words using Boardmaker.  It was quite laborious.

We made sets with pictures and text, sets with pictures only and sets with text only.  I thought we would never finish,

 

They aren't perfect because by the time we finished, our eyes were permanently crossed and we were convinced we teach kids to read using vocabulary that could not be pictured.  However, if you would like to use them, here they are:

Reading Level B & C Vowel A

Reading Level B & C Vowel E

Reading Level B & C Vowel I

Reading Level B & C Vowel O

Reading Level B & C Vowel U

Reading Level D Diagraphs

Reading Level E Initial

Reading Level E Blends

Reading Level F Final Blends

Reading Level G & H Initial Blends

Reading Level G & H Final Blends

Reading Level G & H Silent e Rule

By the way, Jan Richardson has a website with a ton of guided reading resources.  You can explore it here.

 

Word Wednesday - Affixes and Roots Bingo

Remember this vintage Bingo game Princess found in an antique store?

She knew she wanted it in her classroom.  However she did not want it relegated to a party game.  She had read that students who know and understand root words and their prefixes and suffixes did significantly better in not only standardized test skills, but also overall reading skills.  She asked me to create a bingo game for word study.  We came up with this.  This is not your grandmother's bingo!

Each day her class would take some time to spin the cage and get one or two bingo balls.  They would then mark off the square they drew and discuss the affix or root.  She was pleasantly surprised how much fun her class had trying to come up with words that had the prefix, suffix or root.  They often even referred to it if a word came up during the day.  She said it was very interesting to watch them try to figure out the meanings of the affixes by listening to words in which they occurred.

We decided to make two boards.  Here is the grades 3 through 5 board and the kindergarten through grade 3 board.  You can download and print theme here and here.

Here is the breakdown of affixes and roots by grade level that we used to help create the boards.  Because this was an enrichment activity, we included several grades on a board.

Princess rewarded her class with an extra few minutes of recess or a favorite game when they completed a Bingo.  However, she said they really enjoyed the bingo game more than the reward. 

Word Wednesday

    I added a center component to the speech room about five years ago because I was so tired of passive students sitting at my table.  Since then the challenge has been to find resources for them to use for self practice and practice with a buddy.  Many of my fellow SLPs have wonderful blogs and have created a wealth of great activities.  The one thing I have found missing is pictures.  I love all the great activities, but they are often just with text.  I don't know about you, but my caseload is heavy on the K-2 end.  Many of my kiddos are also struggling readers.  If they are going to do self practice, I have got to have pictures....so what does a techy SLP do?  Make her own, of course.

   For work on synonyms and antonyms, I created this Cherry Pie game ( Have you seen the cute Synonym rolls pins on Pinterest?  I guess I just had food on the brain!)

  Each of the cherry pairs has either a set of synonyms or antonyms.  My students sort them into the correct pie plate.  They get practice with antonyms and synonyms as well as knowing the difference between the two concepts.  It is great for my kids who do great with synonyms only to get confused when I switch to antonyms and heaven forbid I should do a mixed drill!

  I also had single cherries that the must use to match up a pair and decide if they are synonyms or antonyms before dropping them in the pan.

 

 You can download the set here.  I printed them on cardstock, laminated and then cut them out (okay, let's me real...I had m SLP-As cut them out....I am quite sure cutting out a hundred little cherries is in there job description.)  I purchased the pie pans from the dollar store.  I thought about printing blank cherries so my kiddos would also have to create their own....but let's be real, there is not an elementary school student alive who could write small enough to fit on those cherries!