Each First Grade classroom has a Word Wall: a bulletin board where high-frequency words, priority words, words from reading, color words, and student names are displayed alphabetically. The children are encouraged to access the wall for reading practice as well as for their daily writing.
A couple weeks into the start of the school year, we will be adding approximately eight words to our Word Wall every other week. These words will be sent home in your child's folder. You will receive two sheets: paper flash cards to be cut apart and short stories that contain the words. We encourage you to work with your child on reading and writing these words once they are reading at a level 4. Please note that these are not spelling words.
Your child will be building a collection of these words throughout the year. Have your child store their flash cards in a special container (i.e. shoe box, recipe card box, etc.) so that they can be used again and again. Twenty minutes of weekly practice is very beneficial in helping your child become a reader and writer. You may want them to "build" sentences using the words since using the words in context is more meaningful for the children. Your child may want to add words of his/her own to the Word Wall collection. This is highly encouraged! By the end of the year, your First Grader should feel very confident reading all the words collected.
The short stories are for you and your child to read at home. The difficulty with high-frequency words is that they are usually abstract words that may have irregular spellings and pronunciations. Many of these words are connecting words and have little meaning out of context (i.e. have, of, are, said, etc.). Using the sight words in context (in the stories) will hopefully help your child.
Please remember that learning to read is a developmental process, much like learning to walk and talk. We ask that you use the word wall words in the manner that best meets your child's changing needs throughout the year.
| 