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What does word work look like in first grade and second grade?
Word work is such an important time for students. What they learn during this time is essential to both reading and writing.
What do we do here in Pecatonica?
At our school we use a program called Fundations by Wilson Language. "Wilson Fundations for K-3 is a phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling program for the general education classroom." (http://www.fundations.com/) It gives a nice framework to what skills we teach throughout each grade level. However, this is not the only part to word work in first grade and second grade, it is mearly a jumping off point.
We also hunt for words with specific word patters, do word tackles (term created by Julie Wilkins), word sorts, and word building. All these activities are designed to instruct students in specific phonics skills and to allow students to discover different sounds and "rules" about language.
We do Fundations daily and switch between word tackles, word sorts, and word building. Each is 20 minutes long, totaling 40 minutes of word work daily.
Fundations by Wilson Language
During the Fundations portion of Word Work time, students learn many different phonetic skills. Students learn how to read and write words with these features.
Phonetic skills taught in first grade...
Unit 1-2: letter sounds and words with three sounds
Unit 3: digraphs
Unit 4: bonus letters (f, l, s, doubled at the end of words)
Unit 5: glued sounds (am, an, all)
Unit 6: suffix (s)
Unit 7: glued sounds (ang, ing, ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, unk)
Unit 8: blends, digraphs blends, and blends + suffix s
Unit 9: closed syllable
Unit 10: blend and segment up to five sounds
Unit 11: sounds and syllables
Unit 12: suffix (es)
Unit 13: suffix (ing, ed)
Unit 14: vowel consonante-e
Phonetic skills taught in second grade...
Each unit is divided up into weeks and each week students are introduced to three high frequency words. These words go on the word wall and are practiced daily.
Fundations does a variety of activities that allow visual, kinesthetic, and auditory learners to succeed. Activities such as making words with letter tiles, writing words and sentences on white boards, tapping out words, and sky writing high frequency words just to name a few.
Fundations has a test at the end of each unit. However, students are not given a list of words to practice for the test, in fact, no study guide is sent home. For the test students are asked to write sounds, words with current and previously taught skills, and some high frequency words. This will test students' understanding of concepts and not their ability to memorize a list of words. The goal is to teach students skills not words.
Beyond Fundations
I like to take time to extend my student's learning beyond the Fundations program. When I determine what specific phonics skill we will be working on based on what my students need. I design a lesson from a picture books, big book, or from a word that we found at some other point in time. We examine words with different spelling patterns. Such as "bossy r", "magic e" (vc-e), ight, etc.
After we have examined a specific type of word, students search their books for words with the same concepts we just examined. When students find a word the try to read it with their new found knowledge.
For every lesson we design a chart/poster with key words to remember the sound and sample words that students found when searching their books. The posters are then displayed on the ceiling for the remainder of the year. Students refer to these charts during reading, writing, conferencing, and guided reading time.
 Word Tackle (Idea by Julie Wilkins)
are done after students have finished their silent reading. I start off by asking students to hold up any book where they were stuck on a word. (I only pick 3-4 books.) Student's show me the word they are stuck on. I read the sentence to the class with that word omitted. I then write the omitted word on the board. I ask the students to share with me what they notice about the word. As they share this information I mark the word accordingly. When the students are done sharing what they notice, if needed I share information about the word. Once the word is marked and all parts of the word have been examined, together we decode the word.
For a more detailed explanation and a specific example of how to do this, please visit the Teacher Safari page. Click on Lesson Ideas, Misc., and then Example of a Word Tackle.
Word Building and Word Sorts
I feel that word building is a very valuable activity to do with students and a great way to differentiate instruction. I choose word building activities that reinforces the same skill taught with our Word Tackle.
My favorite book to get great word building activities is, Systematic Sequential Phonics They Use by Pat Cunningham, Joey Bland, and tracy Soles.
For more information about what a word building activity is, visit the following website.
Word Sorts is another way that I reinforce or introduce a new word tackle. I also use word sorts to coordinate with Fundations. Word sorts can be open or closed. (Open is when the kids decide how to sort the words, closed is where the teacher tells the students how the words will be sorted.)
For more information about what a word sort is visit the following website.
There are many books and activities online for word sorts. My favorite is the Words Their Way Series. These books are divided up by the different stages of spelling. Check out the website below to learn more about Words Their Way.
Game Day
I feel that it is important to have FUN in school. I have designated Thursday as our word game day. On this day we play different games that either I or other teachers have made-up. These games reinforce the skills that we have been working on along with our trick words.
Games include...
Sparkle
Be a Mind Reader
Doggy Doggy
Spellpardy
Basketball
Shaving Cream
Reading Roller coaster
Word Work Website and Resources
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Mrs. Wanke's Wonderful Whales Web Page!
