Word Making Strategies

Word Wall - create a "temporary" word wall to record the words for the skills for the current focus of the class. For example, if you are working on the rime of /ow/, you may have a list of all found and created words with /ow/, like how, bow, now, cow, brow, vow, pow, sow, wow; along with the list of "ow" words that are not part of the rime /ow/ like low, row, sow, tow, mow, bow.

Magnetic letters for word play

Games and materials that encourage capital and lower case letter learning

Practice activities that involve word families and rhyming patterns.

Practice activities that involve blending together the components of sounded-out words.

"Word play" activities in which children change beginning, middle, or ending letters of related words, thus changing the words they decode and spell.

Language games that teach children to identify rhyming words and to create rhymes on  their own.

Activities that help children understand that spoken sentences are made up of groups of separate words, that words are made up of syllables, and that words can be broken down  into separate sounds.

Alphabetic awareness activities in which children learn that printed words are made up of patterns of letters.

Lessons in sound-letter relationships that are organized systematically and that provide as much practice and review as is needed.

Activities in which children combine and manipulate letters to change words and spelling patterns.

As children exhibit behaviors indicative of emergent literacy, parents and teachers can seize the teachable moments, and provide developmentally appropriate materials and interactions to further literacy development.

Alphabetic knowledge activities in which children learn the names of letters and learn to  identify them rapidly and accurately.

Activities that are related to the words that children are reading and writing.

An emphasis on pride in correct spelling

Lessons that help children attend to spelling conventions in a systematic way

Early support of letter knowledge and phonemic awareness.

Instruction on letter-sound correspondences and spelling conventions.

Alphabetic awareness activities in which children learn that printed words are made up of patterns of letters.

Lessons in sound-letter relationships that are organized systematically and that provide as much practice and review as is needed.

Activities in which children combine and manipulate letters to change words and spelling patterns.

Practice in decoding and identifying words that contain the letter-sound relationships children are learning to read and need for reading and writing.

Opportunity and encouragement to use spelling-sound knowledge in reading and writing.