Nifty Thrifty Fifty

Today was my first official day back to work, but I've been working on my room for about a week. I thought I'd be finished by now, but additional things keep popping up that are extremely distracting. I also took on the task of reorganizing my classroom library, which is taking forever. It is almost finished, however I need shelves. (I was delivered a book case with no shelves today.) SO FRUSTRATING!!!

Anyway, I wanted to share something that I have completed before my big reveal next week.

Nifty Thrifty Fifty

I read about this amazing concept this summer in this book that I received at a Balanced Literacy workshop.

The purpose is to teach various roots, affixes, and spelling patterns. These fifty words contain most of the most common roots, affixes, and spelling patterns that kids will encounter while reading and writing. Patricia Cunningham suggests that five words are introduced and posted each week so that around the end of first quarter the students have learned all of them. They will then be left up the rest of the year so that students can use them to reference. So if a student asks how to spell a word, you could tell them to refer to a specific word on the list for assistance.

For example: One of the words is underweight. You could have the following teaching points:
1. The prefix under meaning below
2. The long a spelling - eigh
3. The r enforced vowel - /er/
4. The base word weigh

That's four teaching points in one word. Amazing!

The picture above shows the completed chart. I have taken all the cards down to prepare for the beginning of the year.

If you would like a copy of the list of words and teaching points for each, follow my blog and leave a comment below with your email address and I will be happy to share.

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