5.5 Demonstrate research based instructional practices for developing phonics skills and word recognition
A way to develop phonics skills and word recognition is to teach and model prefixes, suffixes and root words. In the beginning I thought this was skill that was for 1st or 2nd graders, but I was surprised to find out that my 4th graders didn't know what a root word was. One week all the spelling words had prefixes in them, I took this opportunity to do a mini lesson on root words and suffixes. I explained to the students what a root word was, showed them some examples and then continued to explain what a prefix was and how it changed a root word. I gave them some examples by writing words on the board and then slashing them between the prefix and root word. Next as a whole group we used the spelling words and talked about where the prefix and the root words were. We discussed the root words and their meanings and then added the prefix and discussed how the meaning changed. I also had them brainstorm what other prefixes they could use which each word. At the end I drew a chart on the board with all the prefixes at the top and called on students to come up. I gave each student a spelling word and they had to write it in the appropriate column. This activity helped them identify the prefixes while reviewing their spelling words; it’s always good to be practicing two skills at once. On the previous week’s assessment they did not do so well on root words but after this mini lesson they did great on this week’s assessment that also had questions about root words.