Come and Join in the Reading Circle: Balancing Top and Bottom

The most important message this article reiterates for me is the central value of starting with meaningful context. When planning how to introduce new theme vocabulary for a unit, I try to gather realia that will engage one or more of the students’ basic senses (e.g. touch, taste, sight, smell, or sound). I place the realia in a suitcase, green Rubbermaid box, bag or box to take to class. I introduce the new theme vocabulary as realia in a “Warm-Up” circle. We engage with the realia as a way to elicit schema, encourage input from students, and practice pronouncing new vocabulary. We move from a 3 dimensional presentation to each item’s 2 dimensional representation (8.5 X 11 colour picture in plastic sleeves) and stick them on the board (again, oral practice for each item). At this point, we would work on some basic phonemic skills (e.g. Ss guess first/last letters; letter-sound chants; count the chants). Depending on the group, we might also identify any common or previously practiced spelling patterns as we get the written word for each item on the board. After a short focus on “Part”, we would then move back into “Whole” texts. We continue to integrate short “bottom-up instruction” activities throughout the unit while building in student-generated text. One of the students’ favourite phonics games at the end of a unit is team spelling drawn from theme vocabulary. Each team (3 or 4 students) is given a set of letter tiles (similar to Scrabble) and a novelty “squeaker” (e.g. I use a plastic banana, shoe, fish, rat-all purchased from the dollar store- that make different squeak sounds when squeezed). The team who can spell the word correctly first “squeaks”. The team spells their word out loud and we check it together as a class. This is a great multi-level class activity that always generates a vibrant scene of camaraderie, competition, and many laughs!