High Frequency Word Stress!

[Guest]

JMorning all

 

ust wondering what others do with regrards to sending home high frequency words.

 

Our current practice is to send home a book of all the high frequency words. These would be revised daily and an observer notes down ch who are and are not recognising words. In addition to this an assessment is carried out half termly to 'mop up 'those ch who have not been caught in observational assessments in whole class situations or reading groups.

 

However this system has caused such stress this year. Parents would come in daily saying that their child can read all the words and so should be moved onto year 1 words.

 

We would point out to parents that their child can read them in the order they are in the book but is not recogniseing them in books, sentences and on signs etc.. We have stressed so many times that the child needs to be reading and writing the words very very confidently in a wide variety of situations.

 

Parents have not understood that we want their child to become confident in reading and using the words they know before we move them on. Also year 1 teacher obviously do not want us to push them on to soon.

 

In order to try and ease this pressure from parents next year we are looking at using a different method of giving the words out. We think that by giving the words all at once parents have just seen it has a book to race through and tick off.

 

I have shown the other staff the power point that i think Lorna (sorry if it was someone else!) posted on here with her flower power high frequency words. We were thinking of maybe sending the words out in these groups from the power point on coloured card. Once ch could read the words we would give some games to play using those words and some sentences. Once children were doing this confidently we would move hem onto the next set. What do people think to this?

 

How do others do it?

 

We really really want to get it right this year and so would really welcome your comments!!

 

Lola

[Guest]

When we send books home we include a set of words that will make a sentence, eg 'he is going to play' which are checked and changed each week. We also do a rolling programme of checking which of the HF words each child knows on a tick list.

[Guest]

When we send books home we include a set of words that will make a sentence, eg 'he is going to play' which are checked and changed each week. We also do a rolling programme of checking which of the HF words each child knows on a tick list.

52942[/snapback]

At the moment - we send about 10 words each half term holiday for chdn to learn as homework and these are then built upon with sentence building activities/games when school starts up again.

When we send the words home they are as laminated flash cards and i give the parents guidance about simple games to play with them eg getting the child to jump on a word/hiding them around the house/using Look,cover write,check etc.

I know it may be bit annoying parents hassling you and all but at least yours are bothered - alot of ours are apathetic and leave everything to us which is also just as annoying!

Jacqui

[Guest Miss Molly]

Hi. After trying different methods over the past 4 yrs of being in Rec I have found this the most effective system....

Each child has a tin of laminated words, individually hole-punched and kept at school. On the child's reading record we attach about 5 new words to learn to read on a treasury tag. Where possible we match these to words in the book. When they are able to recognise these words easily they move to the treasury tag on the back of their reading record for regular review and new words are added to the front. Every time the child reads in school or at home the words are reviewed and/or practiced. We keep a weekly record of words known for most of the year and this helps us to identify the children needing daily prac with TA, extra morning 'bag' activities etc. The system works well, allowing all the children to progress at their own rate. When we here the children read we ask them to also bring their tin from the keyword drawer, in case new words are needed. If children can read keywords but not the same words in other contexts we encourage the parents to show the child how to match keywords to their book, make little sentences etc. At the end of each term we do an assessment of all the words retained (they often pick up words from class teaching/books/shared writing experiences etc) that are not on their strings. Of course we too get parents who say that they know all they words. We have a box in the classroom where children can put their reading record with attached words and reading book if they feel that they need words added or books changed. During the day we can then prioritise these children to read with/check words etc. Hope this helps.

[Guest]

We've split the 45 words into 5 sets and the children take a bag of words home to learn. They work thrtrough them at their own pace with the more able ones learning to read and spell the words before they get the next bag - they keep all the bags until July. We only check HFW once per week and tell parents the day we normally do this so they don't hassle us about it. Last year we used to check them when the parents said they were ready and spent so much time checking children that weren't ready and explaining the need to conolidate to parents. The problem is that they practice at home and at the end can write them but when we check them at school they have no practice beforehand and sometimes can't get them all right.

 

When they have had all 5 sets we do a random check of the hardest ones and they usually realise that they need to go back through them again and stop asking for the Y1 words until they are really ready. We also look at their independent writing and if children aren't spelling their words correctly then we use that to put parents off moving them on to soon. We have some really competitive parents!

 

We've made bingo games for each set so parents who come in to class to help can do really simple tasks that are quick but focussed - it really helps those that get no support at home to get a few minutes more each day on it.

[Guest]

Hi

I use the Action Words Resource.

www.actionwords.co.uk

The words are split into nine groups in the scheme.

I send home five words a week to children working at this level, the others continue with phonics.

Our school encourages reading, writing and spelling these words, so we only move on to Year 1 HFW when the children have a sound knowledge of these 45 HFW.

Each word has an action with it much like Jolly Phonics, and because the children have had a lot of experence with these words they use them in their sentence writing independently, or I will dictate simple sentences.

I feel parents should attend a meeting at the beginning of the year so you have the opportunity to explain your systems for phonics and HFW. Even though our children have reading records with HFW and all phonemes the parents are aware of our systems.

Parents are given advice and tips for HFW games they can play with their children, but I think you need to get across that it's not a race or a competition much like reading books!!!

[Marion]

I work very much the same as Becky. I send home 5 Action Words per week and in the summer term I begin to send these home as a look say cover write activity to promote spelling. The Action Word book has a number of activities which can be used at home to reinforce the words. Only a very few of my children will progress onto Y1 words.