Strategy Sunday: Creating Nonsense Words

I looked EVERYWHERE this week for the book Horton Hears a Who but I could not find it.  I was planning on doing this super cute glyph on Friday: 

I asked teachers at 2 different schools, libraries, Barnes & Noble...the list goes on but nobody had it.  I finally ordered it on Amazon but it didn't come until after school on Friday :(  Oh well, I plan on doing Dr. Seuss activities all month BUT I had to quickly come up with something to do on Friday that was Dr. Seuss related.  I had my students search through Dr. Seuss books and look for nonsense words. 

They used context clues to figure out what the nonsense word means.  Next, we listed the spelling patterns we know on the board (blends, vowel digraphs, word endings like tion etc..).  I had the students use the spelling patterns to create a nonsense word of their own.  They wrote as many as they could on a post it.

Then the students wrote a few sentences using their chosen nonsense word.  The group had to guess what each nonsense word meant using the context clues in the sentences.
I really liked this activity because it reinforces spelling patterns/phonics as well as using context clues to comprehend or infer word meanings, AND show, don't tell writing.  Next year, I will introduce this activity in September and we will use it throughout the year.

On a side note, I updated my Lesson Objective Stripes Posters (only the stripes one so far) to include spelling and language arts posters.  I also added a new Literature Circle packet (it's the same as the space one but with a Woodland Creature theme).

Strategy Sunday: Error Detection

I have been going through all of my grad school notes and finding a lot of reading strategies that I had forgotten about.  I thought I would share some of the strategies here in case any of you could use them.  

Today's strategy is called Error Detection.  

Purpose: To help students develop self-correction strategies - the words need to look right AND make sense. 

Materials: 

-Familiar Text

-Pocket Chart

-Sentence Strips

-Word Cards

How to do it: 

1. Rewrite the familiar text (or part of it) on sentence strips.

2. Cut each word apart and put them in order in the pocket chart.

3. Replace a few words from the familiar text with new words that wouldn't make sense in context.  For example, replace cat with chicken.  

4. Read it with the class and model how to read for understanding.  "Chicken doesn't make sense in this story! What should be there?"  As the students get used to this activity, they will find the errors on their own.  

I haven't used this strategy yet so no pictures.  I am going to introduce this strategy this week with a very simple snowman poem that I found on Deanna Jump's site.  I will add pictures after the lesson!