cdyer31_journal5

Corinne Dyer EDC 452 Friday, March 27, 2009

I come in every Friday morning and watch the students at their centers. This week, the reading center was focused on “oa” words. Mrs. Moniz often gives the students strips of paper that she puts together and staples down the middle to make small booklets, and that’s what she did this week. Every child gets a worksheet with pictures of boats, throats, goats, etc. as well as random pictures, such as mice. The children don’t see the word, so they need to figure out which words have “oa” and which do not, based on the vowel sound. They then can color the pictures, write the words on them, and glue any six “oa” pictures of their choosing into their “oa” booklets.

According to Wiggins, this task could be considered reasonably authentic. This task isn’t about having all the right answers necessarily, but being able to justify one’s answers (writing the words below the pictures to show they all contain “oa”). Students are able to self-correct because if a word is out of place, they still have extra pictures to glue in their books. Also, this is not a “gotcha!” experience, but one where the students learn about “oa” words many times in advance and are then able to independently create their own books to look at and review in the future. I really like how they make these books all year long so they can review the sounds and letter combinations whenever they want. I think this is a great approach to spelling. Similarly, the students each have a purple word book that they keep in their desks for times when they are unsure of the spellings of common words. Often, they ask me how to spell something, and I ask them, “Where’s your purple book?” and they take it out, turn to the page just like a dictionary, and are able to find it on the page. If not, I write in the word for them in the extra spaces. I like how Mrs. Moniz gives them words to memorize and study for spelling tests but also gives them resources to find words they need in the future. This method could also be called authentic because they are becoming more familiar with the words over time and are understanding the patterns and spellings on their own.

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