Word Study, Week One and other Updates

Word Study, Week One!

We’re learning! Both students and teachers that is!

Celebrations:
Kids said that they really understood patterns of their words. We noticed that the words were mostly on their level from the initial assessment, making the list appropriate for their orthographic developmental stage. We will continue to monitor and adjust. Most students spelled their words correctly.

Challenges:
We discovered that time constraint was our biggest challenge. We had planned a week of activities working with their words. We discovered that in this place in our journey, we needed to slow down, and pare down the practice piece.

Test Day:
The process goes like this; review the words and the pattern, teachers say the words, and students write the words correctly in the correct column to show they understand the spelling of the word and the pattern. Then students correct (with the teacher) their own work immediately in order to understand any mistakes. All things considered, it went pretty well! That said, some groups didn’t get to self-correct their words and one group didn’t get their take-home list for next week.

Volunteers:
Volunteers will certainly help move this process along. If you signed up at open house or indicated to us that you would like to help, we’ll be in touch to see if you can help.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks so much for your patience and support as we work through the bugs.

BOOK ORDERS
Some classes didn’t get their Scholastic book order forms until today. We will happily accept orders through Wednesday. Hope this helps!

READING HANDOUTS
Some students are bringing home "guided reading" worksheets today. They are just for your information. We work through them as a group. Not all parts are written if we are short on time. Spelling is not corrected at this point in the year if we are looking for ideas about a story. They don’t need to be finished. They are simply to let you know what your child worked on in his/her reading group. Use them to ask about the story if you like!

Have a great weekend!

As always, be in touch with questions.