Sunday, January 16, 2011

Word Attack!

We won't let those hard words stop us in our reading or writing. Oh no, we'll use our "Word Attack" strategies to tackle unknown words! This was the teaching point of my mini-lesson last Thursday, which is something we've actually been working on all year with a different spin to it. I've taught students various ways to figure out unknown words, such as find a chunk of the word you know (Chunky Monkey), think of another word that looks like the unknown word (Detective Roo), and stretch it out (Stretchy Snake). But, until Thursday, I had never used the term, "Word Attack." They loved it! Several students said it reminded them of having "Fact Power" (say that in a superhero voice), which is a skill we are building in math. If they can figure out really tricky words, then they'll have "Word Power!" I told them Word Power is a combination of using Word Attack strategies and knowing many sight words. I am so proud of the great conversations we have about reading. Wow!

After Read to Self time, some students demonstrated how they used Word Attack strategies in their reading that day.
Sami found two parts of the word snowing: snow and ing and then put them together. 
Olivia figured out a tricky word, bandicoot, by taking it apart in chunks and then blending it back together.
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