This is a guest blog post by Marcy Godesa, a first-grade teacher from Oregon who blogs over at Searching for Teacher Balance . If you like what you read here, be sure to check back here for more of her guest blog posts!
Word Study is one of my favorite times of the day. It is that beautiful point in the day when I get to watch my students learn new words right in front of my eyes. My kiddos are excellent at using their
good reading habits
to work through new words, but explicit teaching of new vocabulary, on my part, is still extremely important.
I love taking my kiddos' leveled readers and pulling specific vocabulary to not only support that current book, but to support their development of background knowledge. Hameray Publishing came to the rescue yet again with their amazing books.
Big Wheels at Work
has been the perfect addition to my readers' book bags.
During our sneak peek of the book, we explored the tricky words. Throughout our small group, kiddos matched the "stretched out sounds" (word attack strategy) of each word to the correct spelling of the word. They placed the cards in the different parking spots as they matched them up. This activity allowed my students to use the visual representation of the sounds to practice each word.
Students then drove their monster trucks into the parking spots of each tricky word found throughout the book. They loved being able to "drive" into each word, thus practicing each word again.
You can grab this parking lot and sound matching cards here .
As you can see, I love working on words with my kiddos. Do you love working on words with your students? What is your favorite time of day teaching your students?
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Click the image below to read about the Kaleidoscope Collection , which includes Big Wheels At Work .
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