Word Analysis/Decoding

How to Teach Reading Lesson Plans: Uses the process of word analysis/decoding to identify and comprehend words in context.

1) Utilizes prior knowledge
Use a clozed sentence, such as “We walked into the school just as the rang.”
Using a writing/publishing tool create a passage that students can read. Have students fill in the missing words and save as part of an electronic student portfolio.
Read the title of a story, look at the pictures, and share connections to real-life as students make predictions. Use a graphics/drawing tool to illustrate predictions.

2) Extends word patterns (e.g., prefixes, suffixes, inflectional endings)
Have the students find word patterns in a paragraph or poem and make new sentences.
Have students make word-search puzzles using prefixes, suffixes, and inflectional endings.
Have the students use index cards to form new words by adding prefixes, suffixes, and inflectional endings to base words. Students can work with a partner and state an original sentence using the new word. (Cards can be color-coded.)
Emphasize that the students learn a root word sight vocabulary in order to be able to add various prefixes and suffixes to develop word attack skills.

3) Identifies/spells frequently-used words correctly
Develop crossword puzzles, which contain only frequently-used words, and have the students complete them. See Technology Resource Guide for suggested software and online resources.
Have student keep a list of frequently-used words in journal.
Have a list of frequently-used words taped to the students’ desk with the requirement that the words be practiced whenever the students have time.
Have students spend time each day engaged in drill activities with other students on their frequently-used words.
Use a Word Wall. Each week, add five (5) new words to the wall that students need for that week’s reading/writing activities. Write words on colored paper and arrange alphabetically by first letter. Each day select five words for practice.
Teach letter – sound (grapheme/phoneme) relationships.

4) Expands sight vocabulary
Make vocabulary flash cards. Be sure the students have seen and heard the vocabulary words in context before working with the flash cards.
To create basic flash cards, have the student write the vocabulary word on one side of the card, and on the other side write the meaning in own words.
Have the students group the flash cards by categories or word families. Use a writing/publishing tool to create a basic sight word list.

5) Identifies multiple meanings of words
Allow the students to work in small groups, using a dictionary to find multiple meanings of a teacher-selected word.
Give examples like the following for the students to match:
Early settlers often built log cabins.
We found the story in the captain’s log.
Sue will receive a pilot’s card, after logging 50 more hours in the air.
A. Large, fallen tree trunk
B. To travel
C. A book on a ship

6) Recognizes synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, and compound words
Have students make word-search puzzles. To begin, have students brainstorm a list of compound words from a selected poem, story, song, lyrics, etc. Talk about compound words and other words that are used together. Group students to make word-search puzzles with compound words from the selected material. Then have groups exchange and solve each other’s puzzles.
Demonstrate compound words. Example: Be a book. Be a mark. Be a bookmark.
Divide students into pairs and create movements to demonstrate homonyms.
Have the students create a song using synonyms.
Have the students create a song using antonyms.
Use a tape recorder, karaoke, or video recorder for students to demonstrate their creations.

7) Uses figurative language/sound devices (e.g., rhyming, alliteration, onomatopoeia)
Read a poem aloud, leaving out a word from each line. The students will guess the missing word. Encourage logical answers. Have students read the entire poem to check their predictions.
Have the students locate words in a newspaper or magazine that have repeated vowels, consonants, and blends, or word families.
Use a tape recorder in a listening center.

8) Recognizes spelling patterns and phonetic generalizations
Teach “families” of words with similar sounds together (e.g., make, cake, take rake). Print the target sounds in color. Use one color for each family.
Collect word families on note cards in individual student word boxes. Highlight the target sound with a particular color to reinforce the visual image of the family pattern.
Use rhythm cues to teach sounds and syllables. The student can punch the air with his/her fist or clap each time they hear a syllable in a word. As the teacher and the student say the word “pizza” together, fists go up on “piz” and “za”.

9) Differentiates between contractions and possessives
Make a flip book from contractions found in a story. Have students write contractions on front flap; then lift flap to write the two words that make up the contraction.
Have students read sentence from text containing a contraction. Write contraction on board. Ask for two (2) words that make up the contraction (e.g., I’m—I am). Elicit that the apostrophe replaces the letter missing. In groups of three (3), have students skim other parts of the story to find other contractions.
Ask students to make a list and write the two (2) words from which each is formed. Differentiate between contractions and possessives. Have volunteers suggest other examples and use them in sentences. Have students call on classmates to identify the two (2) words that make up each contraction.
Use a presentation tool to demonstrate contractions.

10) Decodes unknown words using the three-cueing system (e.g., semantics/context meaning, syntax/sentence structure, graphophonic/sound-symbol correspondence)
Make certain the students know the sounds that letters make. Use a tape recorder in a listening center to demonstrate letter sounds.
Have the students make up sentences with given verbs and subjects.
Give the students a series of sentences with both incorrect and correct usage of verbs and ask the students to identify which are correct and which are incorrect.
Have the student connect a series of phrases by making each a complete sentence. Suggestion: Put these on index cards for student manipulation.
Make certain the student develops an awareness of seeing letter combinations that produce sounds.
Select a paragraph for the students to read; then have students choose the correct word that would make a simple sentence according to the context.
Read a newspaper article and identify new word to tell the meaning of the word from context. May use an article from a news web site. See Technology Resource Guide for suggested online resources.
Identify words the student does not recognize in different contexts and place the words on index cards. Have the student match these words to the same words in sentences or paragraphs.
Assist the students in decoding unknown words by using the syntactic/grammar structure cues through grammatical questioning techniques that utilize sentence patterns.

Example: The boy gave the dog a bone.

Questions: What is the action? (gave)

Who is doing the action? (boy)

Who or what received the action? (dog)

or

What was given? (bone)

To whom was it given? (dog)

 

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