Making Words
The Making Words strategy is a fun and highly engaging way to involve students in actively thinking about letter-sound relationships while they use letters to spell various words. This strategy uses phonics as the main focus as students use their knowledge of phonics patterns to spell different words from a bigger word (Caldwell, Jennings, and Lerner, 2014). By using spelling, the students practice creating phonics patterns. As part of the closure of the activity, students can note the similarities and differences between the words they have made during the activity. This strategy can be used with an individual, small group, or whole class. If using the whole class, it may be beneficial to pair students up with a partner. Ask student volunteers to come up and arrange the large letters on the pocket chart to showcase their word.
Awareness of phonics patterns help students develop fluency, letter-sound relationships, and become better readers and writers. It also helps them recognize how changing one letter in a word does in fact change the word and word meaning. Making Words strategy also helps students develop their decoding skills, which is an important part of becoming a proficient reader and reading for meaning. Another benefit of using this strategy is that is provides students with a tangible way of making words using the letter cards. This is beneficial for tactile and visual learners. This activity is like a puzzle in which students can add a letter; change a letter, or moving around letters to make a new word (Cox, 2015).
Awareness of phonics patterns help students develop fluency, letter-sound relationships, and become better readers and writers. It also helps them recognize how changing one letter in a word does in fact change the word and word meaning. Making Words strategy also helps students develop their decoding skills, which is an important part of becoming a proficient reader and reading for meaning. Another benefit of using this strategy is that is provides students with a tangible way of making words using the letter cards. This is beneficial for tactile and visual learners. This activity is like a puzzle in which students can add a letter; change a letter, or moving around letters to make a new word (Cox, 2015).
To use the making words activity, Caldwell, Jennings, and Lerner suggest using a word such as thunder. Ask students to identify all of the words that can be made from that word. Make seven cards; each card should contain one letter from the chosen word. Make larger cards to use for yourself along with a pocket chart. Next, ask the students to make the words that you say. Start with the smallest words and slowly move to larger words, finally ending with the chosen word (thunder). Now, you will have a sequence of words like: red, Ted, Ned, den, end, her, hut, herd, turn, hunt, hurt, under, hunted, turned, and thunder.
After each word is made, the teacher will write the word on an index card. That way you will have a list of words to use in a word sort or to sort based on phonics patterns.