Strategies for Word Building

This weeks readings were filled with word building strategies. In the Yopp and Yopp article, Ten Important Words Plus, gave strategies for including word building into the classroom environment. They emphasized the need for discussion among the teacher and students. Open the classroom up to discussion about new words the students may have learned from a book they were reading, from a T.V. show, or any from other situations. By doing this, the other students learn a new vocabulary word as well. The article also included the activity ten important words. The students are asked to read a passage and pick the ten words that they believe are the most important in the passage. This activity requires the students to exhibit their comprehension skills and allows for discussion afterwards to see what other students thought were the most important words and why. In the other article, Making Words, the activity making words allowed for an interactive way of learning to build words. The teacher gives the students letters and they are to make different combinations to form different words. This is a great way to practice spelling and helps the students learn spelling functions of the English language that are difficult to learn (e.g. whether the i comes before or after the e). The making words activity reminded me of the Bananagrams game. I think Bananagrams would be a fun and interactive way to work on word building strategies in the classroom. It allows students the opportunity to experiment with forming different words in a similar way the making words game does.