How do you say this word?

Okay teachers, let's think about this.  How often do you hear a student ask, "what is this word?" / "how do you say this word?" / "can you tell me what this says?".

All-the-TIME!  As if we aren't asked a million questions a day already, we also have basic learning barriers to deal with.  Don't get me wrong, I love my students and one of my main purposes as their teacher is to be there to answer questions - whatever they may be.  

Something I've been working on lately with my kiddos is teaching them to be self-reliant.  There are a few areas I have been targeting the most that relate to these questions:

(1) Schedule: What are we doing today?  What are we doing next? 

(2) Tattling: Can you ask (name) to stop doing this?  Can you tell (name) that I don't like them when they do that?

(3) Preparedness: What am I supposed to be doing?  What do I need?  How do I do (this)?

(4) Unfamiliar Words: What is this word?

At this point, I'm sure some of you are smiling, thinking about how often you hear these questions or these questions in some form or another.  I first decided to tackle #4 - Unfamiliar Words.  As I've told you, one of the small intervention groups I teach is with basic-minimal readers.  I also teach reading to my after-school program students.  In addition to the learning barriers I work with, I have many ESL/ELL students also.  

So, I needed to help my kiddos, and fast.  I noticed that many of my students were either falling behind or at a road block.  I wanted to teach them a sort of weapon they can use to arm themselves for the future, so they can be more self-reliant and not so dependent on teachers/peers.

The result: my Word Strategy Packet that you see below.  It is a packet that teaches three strategies kids can use to identify new and unfamiliar words - in their terms, BIG words.  The three strategies I included were: (1) chunking, (2) sounding it out, and (3) word within a word.  Through a bunch of research, I found these three strategies to be the most commonly used and accepted.

To purchase it, go to my TpT store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Ms-Rothering

This packet worked out really well for my needs and the needs of my kiddos.  Each page gave an explanation of the strategy, an example, a walk-through, and a lot of practice.  In addition, I had a full page of "big words" for students to identify and choose which strategy that helped them figure the word out.  The results were very positive - with my struggling readers, students with learning barriers, and my ESL/ELL students.

Okay, so I planned and executed a strategy for ONE of those areas.  There are three more to go.  I know teaching is a constant process of evaluating, planning, implementing, and re-assessing, so I know this isn't the last of word strategy problem-solving.  For now, I'll check this off my list and move on to the next hurdle.  Hope this helps if you're finding yourself in a similar situation!

Emily  :)