Sarah Burleson

READ 436: Literacy Learning in the Primary Grades

Word Study Minilesson Reflection

In order to plan this word study lesson for my fifth grade students, I consulted with the
Cooperating Teacher whose classroom I would be teaching this lesson in on Tuesday, October
31st 2017. When I consulted with the teacher, she informed me that she wanted me to conduct
this lesson with the first reading group of the day, a group of students who read on a second,
third, or fourth grade reading level. She also informed me that I would be able to use the
students weekly spelling words in the word study lesson, which would allow me to complete the
lesson and help them to work on their word study skills while completing an assignment
associated with the weekly spelling lists.
On the day before I taught my lesson, the teacher provided me with the spelling words
the students would be using that week along with a list of the four students I would be working
with for this assignment the following day. The students I was to work with are reading on a
fourth grade reading level and the spelling features that this group of students would be working
with this week was the concept of long and short E and its placement in the word in reference to
whether it was the first or second vowel in the sentence. The CT informed me that this spelling
feature was appropriate because it was the next spelling feature when looking at vowels. In the
lesson, the students would be conducting a word sort to place twenty-four words into the
appropriate location of these three features. I would be guiding these students by reading each
of the words to them and seeing if they were able to discern the feature and sort it on their own,
individual papers before I reread the words and attempted to emphasize the feature for the
students. The students all had their own paper where they had created three columns and were
writing these words into a particular column. After the students had finished the sort, they were
to pick an activity on the spelling menu that had to do with the feature and complete it with my
assistance.
The students responded to the lesson differently than I was originally expecting when I
planned out this lesson with the reading teacher. I had expected that a majority of the students
would be able to hear the feature the first time I read the word, and then would just need the
conformation of the rereading of the word with the feature emphasized to be able to sort the
word. I also expected that this feature sort for word study would only take a few minutes and
then the students would be able to move onto another activity for word study that also used the
same feature. However, the students actually had a very hard time sorting the words by the
associated feature. The students did not seem to hear the feature anytime I read the word and
waited until they heard where a peer sorted the word before they wrote it down themselves. The
students also seemed to have trouble attempting to discern and emphasize the feature when I
asked them to read the word aloud themselves. Finally, after the four students and myself had
sorted all twenty-four of the words into the three categories, there was not enough time left for
the students to complete another word study activity.
If I had the chance to redo this word study lesson with the same group of students, I
would make sure that I am more familiar with the feature and the words associated with that
feature before I attempted to go teach the feature to the students. In my own classroom, I know
I will be more aware of the typical way that the students learn best and I will be the specific
person who is preparing the word study lessons for the students, so I will be more intimately
familiar with the activities I am assigning to my students and will not feel as if I am not aware of
what I am teaching to my students. I also think I would make sure that the students had more
time to interact with the words rather than just simply sort them by pattern. I would also allow
students to interact with the words by sorting them by meaning and be allowed to sort the words
using manipulatives so that they have a better hands-on experience with the words to make
their own generalizations and discoveries.
As I am planning word study for my own classroom, I will first learn of the students ability
and level of spelling using the Developmental Spelling Analysis (DSA) assessment. This
assessment will tell me, as the teacher, which of the five spelling levels students are in for their
word study. The grouping arrangement I will use in my classroom for word study will be
homogenous with the students split into groups with other students at the same spelling level
based on the results of the DSA. While the students will be broken up into different groups, they
will all still be working on word study instruction at the same time during the literacy block, just
working on different and more appropriate words and features for their particular spelling level. I
will at least 25% percent of the literacy block using materials like the word lists themselves,
various pattern and word sorts, and spelling assessments to have the students work on word
study so that they can become better writers, readers, and spellers as they generalize the rules
and understand the patterns of the words they use each and every day.

Word List:
 Feature:
First Long E
First Short E
Second Long E
Examples Words
Needle
Feather
Succeed
Sorting Words
Increase
Healthy
Thirteen
Freedom
Sweater
Indeed
Reader
Leather
Defeat
Meaning
Steady
Fifteen
People
Heavy
Repeat
Compete
Season
Extreme
Feature
Pleasant
Eastern