It's just Word Study to me

   Today was not a pool day so Gianluca and I decided to make our own fun with some chalk and bubbles.

    I thought it was supposed to rain but didn't feel that it was coming (I can usually predict the weather with my sinus pressure).  So... I decided to water some of my plants, most importantly: my lovely hydrangeas.  (They are still alive by the way.) I was talking about hydrangeas to my friend Katie - how they always die on me!  I'm on my 3rd plant and in order to plant more, my goal is to keep at least one alive.  She told me they need LOTS of water.

I thought about the word HYDRANGEA and started laughing uncontrollably at myself.  See what I'm getting at?  "Hydra" meaning water!?!?!

Wow, I couldn't believe I didn't see that before!

Then, I thought back to word study...

Did you know that one of the most effective decoding strategies for students in grades 3-5 is to chunk words into parts?

The word parts are meaningful (hello!!! "Hydra" is meaningful!!!) and can easily be read by these little youngsters.  That is why this strategy sticks.

And... teaching word parts will help the students easily understand those crazy long vocabulary words!  

Here's how I do it.

Before I begin teaching any type of word parts to my students, I think about what kinds of word parts there are.

1. Compound Words - 2 words that combine to form a new word.  Examples are words like butterfly, firefly, baseball (can you tell it is summer based on my examples?).

2. Onsets - All consonants that precede the vowel in a syllable or word. An example would be "STR" as in the word string.

3.  Rimes - The vowel and all consonants after it in a syllable or word until the next vowel.  An example would be "it" in the word "sit".  The onset would be "s" and the "it" would be the rime.  If the word was "split".  The onset would be "spl" and the rime would still be "it".  Get the idea?

4.  Prefixes - any syllable attached to the beginning of a word that changes the meaning of that word.  An example would be "re" in the word "restart".  I would also teach the students what each prefix means.  It will help them with those more challenging vocabulary words! (CCSS wink, wink)

5.  Suffixes - any syllable with meaning attached to the end of a word that changes the meaning of that word. An example would be "flavorful" as in the food is full of flavor.

6.   Inflectional Endings - this is a special set of suffixes that change the number when added to nouns.  It changes the tense when added to verbs. (I also teach the double consonant rule here)

7.   Possession - I added this one here only because it causes my little kiddos so much frustration!  If only the English language were as simple as say French or Italian, we could just say "the pen of my aunt" instead of "my aunt's pen".  This little apostrophe causes much confusion for readers and writers alike.  It is sooo important to teach! So, I added it to my list.

~How do you help your students chunk words?

~What charts do you think will be useful for the students?  I can think of so many I'd make and use but my room is so teeny tiny! (I have the old principal's office)

~What tasks have you assigned in groups to helps students follow through with this strategy?

~How do you document students' understanding and use of this strategy?
(I'm VERY interested to hear about this last one so please respond!)


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Thanks for reading!

~*Gina*~