Day 6: Vocabulary (and decoding)

I have been looking forward to this particular session on vocabulary, and pleasingly I got a lot from it. 

It was interesting hearing Dorothy speak about her preferred apps for vocabulary, those being Wordwall, vocabulary.com, and Quizlet. The only one of these that I am familiar with as of recently, is Wordwall. I find this really effective as a follow-up activity when planning The Code.  I did learn that I need to explore Google more, as I have no idea about Smartchips.

I did get a lot from the session about tier 2 and 3 words and appreciated the resources to use and adapt. It is always very useful to try these activities ourselves, and appreciate the time to do so. 

Sharon's morphology session was also excellent. I will be taking the time to look through the shared resources before our next session, but I did think the Matrix Maker, with the Latin root words all there looked very appropriate for my students who are graduating from Years 7 and 8 of The Code. I am on the lookout for resourcing this group, and I believe that will come in handy.

'Morphemes have meanings, phonemes do not.'

When asked to reflect on what we want to plan for and achieve in the coming weeks, this took a bit of thought and prioritising as there is so much I want to, and will, implement. Baby steps! So the word wall, and accompanying game (yet to be dreamt up) is my immediate priority. As well, of course, fitting everything into a very hectic timetable!

Changes to my literacy timetabling

While again, the reading programme in my class has not gone to plan, which seems to be a theme this term,  I have had time to reflect and decide on how I would like my literacy to look.

Until now, my reading and writing have had different blocks allocated. This term this has been due to the fact we have been doing speeches, however in the near future (next week) I will be combining the two as was in the example timetables. This means swapping maths out of the first (and only) 90 minute block and timetabling literacy into that spot Monday-Thursday.

Secondly, I will be giving the students more empowerment, allowing them to make choices. While I do plan for this usually, it isn't consistent. 

I also created a tracking sheet, digitally, for the class to access. The feedback from this is that they have a great deal of pleasure from completing and linking their work. This will definitely be something I continue with, consistently!

I have discussed this with my mentor teacher, and she is looking forward to seeing this plan in action to see how it goes.

Sharon