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Teacher friends, I was so excited to test out some of the Reading Olympians’ program with my third graders! I know my students have a hard time using context clues to understand words {even though they can word call beautifully, ha!}. Working with prefixes and suffixes helps some, but I really felt like I could make a difference if I could get to the root of their word work. I hoped that would help them make connections to new words. I may have been successful at Latin in high school, but it was going to take a lot of research on my part to find the right tools for my third graders.
I tested the Nike set out with my class before spring break. Unfortunately, we lost time due to snow and I was out sick two days due to my complete lack of immune system an ugly bug. I’m not a huge rule follower, but the kit lays out a basic guide for how to work with each set. Copies are kind of a big deal, so I reduced the amount of paper by printing only what I absolutely needed. Here’s how it looked in our room.
Day One: pump students up about roots. I chose to use the Nike Raps for this. We beat boxed and chanted the rhymes. Honestly? It was fun! Then we cut the raps out and added them to little dog tags. I‘m thinking each set would go on a its own chain and then we could keep all of them together on a necklace. Easy peasy.
Day Two: Words, Words, Words that fit with the set. I used the graphic organizers. {To save copies, I’m thinking I’d shrink it down and put two on each page next time.} We brain stormed together and completed one organizer on the document camera. Then I let students start creating their own organizers. We used dictionaries to look for more words that fit in each group.
Day Three: More organizers (there are 10 total roots to map). When they’re finished, we’ll staple them into mini books for future reference.
Day Four: Memory match in the word work center. I typed up the roots and meanings onto game cards and was hoping to have students play a matching game with them. We do this with our reading vocabulary words often and the students love it!
Day Five: Quiz day. I was going to assess the week’s roots and see how many students had mastered Nike.
So… overall, I think it went really well! I’m eager to see how well the word work will transfer over into reading workshop and my students’ independent reading once we finish it.
Discover the program IN ACTION in more K-6th grade classrooms as you Pass the Torch!! Get ideas, discover the progression of the program, and enter the Raffle for a chance to win ONE of the three prizes listed below!!
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Love your ideas Christi! Hope you had as much fun as I did!
Teresa
Confessions of a Teaching Junkie