Word Lists

I first got the idea for “Word Lists” when I was getting trained in Orton Gillingham almost three years ago. Orton Gillingham, for those that don’t know, is an approach to teaching language that was developed for children with language based learning disabilities. In the Orton Gillingham lesson plan, the second section is called “Words To Read.” When you use Orton Gillingham to teach reading you give the student words that have elements that he or she needs to learn and/or review. So for example, if you are teaching a child about “ar” words, you might put the words cart, hard and far on the word list, along with some words that include review topics from previous sessions. It is all very individualized. Since Orton Gillingham is 1:1, there is no way for me to do it exactly in my classroom but I still use the idea of “Words to Read” with my kids in small groups.

In Kindergarten, we do a lot of practice with consonant-vowel-consonant words (CVC), such as bat, mop and ten. The hardest part of reading these words for most kids is the vowel, so I will often give the kids a word list of several words with the same vowel.

WordList-ShortA

WordList-ShortE

WordList-ShortI

WordList-Short0

WordList-ShortU

*Note- Documents must be cut in half vertically after printing.

Then, I will ask them to highlight the vowels (kids love highlighters and my school got these awesome “erasable” ones this year). After, they highlight the vowels I ask them what sound will be in the middle of all of the words. Once, they know that, they are ready to read the words on their own. Depending on the independence level of the group I will either have each kid whisper read the words (and I listen to as many as I can) or I will have them take turns each reading a word.

When they get good at reading words with all the same vowel, I start to change the vowels, but follow the same procedure. Now, they have to focus more on what sound is in the middle:

WordList-ShortA&I

WordList-ShortE&I

WordList-ShortE&O

WordList-ShortA&U

WordList-ShortO&U

Our new intervention specialist tells us that kindergarten kids should be reading decodable text without pictures, because the kids get too dependent on the pictures. Personally, I think boring decodable text with no pictures is a great way to make sure our kids hate reading when they go to first grade. I think Word Lists are a good compromise because they allow students to practice reading words without pictures, but they can still read real text after. I incorporate word lists into my guided reading lessons. The schedule for my lessons usually looks like:

Phonemic Awareness or Phonics Work

Word Lists (often related to Phonics topic & some review words)

Guided Reading- book introduction, strategy lesson, independent reading, comprehension questions/summary

Word lists can be adapted depending on the needs of your students. If they are having difficulty reading ending sounds, you can have them focus on the ending sounds for a couple of weeks, highlighting the letter they see at the end of the word. Often you will have students in Kindergarten or Grade 1 who are ready to move beyond CVC words. Here are some examples of word lists for more advanced students. I still have these students highlight a concept we are working on, and I often throw in a couple of review words from previous concepts.

WordList-DigraphsMixed

WordList-BeginningBlends

WordList-EndingBlends

WordList-ASilentE

WordList-SilentEMixed

Do you use Word Lists, or anything similar, in your classroom? If not, are they something you may want to try?