Monday, April 6, 2009
Tompkins Chapter 5
In the reading for this week, one thing that I saw that related well to my field experience is the use of word walls and how Tompkins applies the use of word walls to the understanding of fluency for both reading and writing. What my CT does with her word wall, is that she slowly introduces words based on degree of difficulty, and once the word is introduced and practiced, it is placed on the word wall where students are constantly referencing it for when they are reading books or looking for how to spell words. This is how the word wall is being used for the writing and reading literacy. I think it is important to keep the words at a level that the students will understand. My CT does this by first only having 2-letter and 3-letter words on the word wall. Now, three quarters of the way through the year, they now have some 4-letter and 5-letter words on the wall that the students are all comfortable with. They also use the sounds that they know from these words to help them apply it to when they are learning new words as well.
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Joey,
ReplyDeleteI feel that your CT's use of the word wall is very good technique for introducing more difficult words, especially with Kindergarten where they are not as familiar with sound/letter recognition and spelling. My CT too uses the word wall, however I have not seen a reason or technique behind it like yours uses. When there is a common word that the students repeatedly ask my CT, then she puts it on the word wall. TO help with fluency my CT have the students read the same book more then once. This helps them first become familiar with the words, then when reading it again, fluency is more recognizable. I think that the more a student is familiar with the words and structure, the more fluent reading will be produced by the student. Therefore, I think repeating books is important in helping fluency.