Week 7: Assignment 3

1.     Explain the three levels of words and how you can use word levels to decide which words to teach.

         The first levels of words are familiar words, which helps teach students any connections or words that are in their basic vocabulary. The second tier words would be words that are made up in print or other outside resource and example of this would be like election or democracy because of the news discussion with the current election. The last tier words would be high technical words that are outside words that core content teachers are able to define.

2.    How do you teach your students to "chunk" words as a strategy for decoding unfamiliar words? When do you provide this instruction?

         To teach students how to “chunk” words as a reading strategy for decoding unfamiliar words is how in my observation classroom we go ahead in our learning. This weeks word we have been reading the social studies term “specialization” and students had a tough time looking at the word because of how big it was. The way I handled it was writing it on the Smart Board and blocking the part of the –ization only uncovering special, which students were familiar with. The students are always assigned reading and we instruct them to write down the words they were confused in the text.

3. Based on Professor Allington's comments and the classroom examples, what are some ways you might foster word study in your classroom?

         A way to foster word study in the classroom provided from the film and my experience in the classroom is the construction of a word wall. This would provide students to build it on the four dry erase boards we have in our classroom in order for them to construct vocabulary. Having students to take risk is what provides them to build confidence and fluency. These are ways I would provide word study in my own classroom once I begin to have my own classroom.