Word+Work+1st+Semester

Word study is the study of words. In some classrooms it becomes simply a spelling test on Fridays, but here we will use what we know to study how words work. We will look at patterns with in words, connect them to words we already know, explore the meanings and roots of word parts and expand our vocabulary. A list of words will usually be given out on a Friday and we will look at discussing those words and others the kids have found over a two week period before another list is given out. Students have a list of activities they should be doing with the words at home.

For **September and October** we will work with the following word skills:

1. the suffixes -ent, ence, -ant, -ance, The rule the students will work with is that if they know the spelling of a word such as independence, then independent is -ent to match.. The same is true or -ant and -ance, such as brilliant and brilliance. 2. The second list will follow the same rule, adding the suffixes -ency and -ancy.

For **November:** Homonyms Each student has gone to a self checking homonym quiz web site (http://a4esl.org/q/h/homonyms.html) and found the words s/he doesn't know well and made an individualized list. If they had fewer than ten words, they also got the list found here: http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/Materials/ndakota/spelling/lesson1.html. They will study these words for 2 weeks, at which time we'll reassess (using the same self-checking homonym web site) and gather more words or move to another skill.

For the homonyms, they need to do 6 activities:
 * 1) find antonyms
 * 2) find synonyms
 * 3) make sentences with them
 * 4) reword the definitions given to their own words
 * 5) sort them into verbs and nouns
 * 6) make up another sort

They will devise a new list on November 18.

For **December**,

1. the suffixes - -able, -ible

2. adding -able--when do you drop the e?

For **January**: accent and doubling

(We'll retest word study levels in January for our mid year check and regroup based on those assessments.)