Managing and Organizing the Words Their Way Classroom

The question is, "How do I manage and organize a program that is based on the individual spelling developmental levels of my students?"

Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary and Spelling Instruction from Pearson Education is a hands-on approach to word study and teaches students to look closely at words to discover spelling patterns, syllable structures, and spelling-meaning connections needed for reading and writing.  The heart of the program is the sort and the process of grouping words or pictures that represent sounds into specific categories.  

Tip #1: Color-Code Everything!

My Managing and Organizing Words Their Way product on Teachers Pay Teachers includes all of the background knowledge that you need plus sort posters, group posters, basket tags, and word study notebook templates.

Tip #2: Review the Program Assessments and Progress Monitoring

Review your grade level Spelling Inventory, the Spell Checks and the Qualitative Checklists. Familiarize yourself with the individual spelling features to assist you during observations.

Tip #3: Organize for Success

There are five developmental spelling stages.  First make a master copy of all the sorts for each of the 5 spelling stages and store them in sheet protectors in a large binder.  Next, before starting the program but after administering the first student inventory, determine which spelling stages you will be focusing on throughout the school year.  For instance, by grade 3 most of your students will not need Alphabetic Letter Name.  Then, designate one color of file folder for each stage you will be utilizing in your class.  Print a class set of each sort for every stage you will be utilizing and label each folder.  For example, WWP16 means Within Word Patterns, Sort 16.

Tip #4: Create a Words Their Way Weekly Routine

      

Every teacher needs to set up a 5-day weekly routine that always includes sorting, writing and reading the weekly words in context.  

Tip #5: Empower student ownership of the program and their spelling development with Student Word Study Notebooks

Students store their weekly word sorts along with with their Word Study Notebook in their Word Study Folder.  The Word Study Notebook spiral records students' sorts, and weekly reading and writing assignments.

Increase Cognitive Rigor in Your Classroom

I have just revised and reposted my product, Increase Cognitive Rigor in Your Classroom to TPT.  My BLOOM’s and Depth of Knowledge posters and accompanying double-sided bookmark provide a quick reference for teacher lesson planning and for student questioning and choice of tasks. 

This product includes:

BLOOM’s Taxonomy Posters

WEBB’s Depth of Knowledge Posters

Bookmark with the BLOOM’s Taxonomy Posters on front and WEBB’s Depth of Knowledge Posters on back.

Bonus: My BLOOM with Questioning Product

This product is based on the research of Anderson and Krathwohl’s Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and the Cognitive Rigor Matrix of Karin Hess, Dennis Carlock, Ben Jones and John R. Walkup   I want their research to be accessible to you when you are planning your lessons and delivering those lessons and to your students during the learning process.  

Check it out at www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Penny-Lund if you think you can use this product in your classroom.   

Statements to remember when planning future lessons that are rigorous:

• Plan with Blooms but assess with DOK (Depth of Knowledge.
• Determine which CCSS your lessons meet but also evaluate where each lesson falls within the four levels of the Depth of Knowledge.
• When you can, plan tasks at the DOK 3 Level because DOK 3 incorporates DOK Levels 1 and 2.  The same goes for question.  Quickly ask questions at Levels 1 and 2 and move quickly into questions at Levels 3 and 4.
• Plan your progression of lessons throughout a unit or topic across all four DOK levels and always reference your lessons with the Big Ideas and the Essential Questions of the unit.
• Post Webb’s Depth of Knowledge chart with possible tasks at each level and students could determine their own grade by the tasks that they choose. 
• Plan where learning could possibly have a breakdown and move to Level 3 questioning and tasks and provide scaffolding if necessary. 
• Assess students by providing options from each of the DOK levels.

What Does Rigor Look Like? (Depth of Knowledge DOK Resources)

Everyone is talking about RIGOR.  The Common Core Standards call for a more rigorous curriculum, instructon and assessment.  Rigor is the kind and level of thinking required of students to successfully engage with and solve a task.  Rigor is not about difficulty, it's about complexity of understanding. 

What does rigor look like in a classroom?  Two widely accepted measures of cognitive rigor are Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge Levels.  Bloom's Taxonomy focuses on the verbs and indicate the level of performance or the level of higher-level questions.   Depth of Knowledge focuses of complexity of content standards to successfully complete an assessment or a task.  When you unpack the standards, first look at the verb and align it with Bloom's levels for the level of performance.  Then look beyond the verb to determine the level of understanding required to meet the standard.  

Karen Hess created a Cognitive Rigor Matrix that integrates Bloom's Taxonomy with Webb's Depth of Knowledge for analyzing teacher lesson planning and assessments.  In my district, we have been "mapping" out the learning events in our UbD units to ensure a balance of lessons and assessments across all levels from simple to complex.  Teachers are seeing that they can "tweak" some of their lessons and assessments to make them more rigorous.  For example, 

DOK 1 Describe three characteristics of metamorphic rocks.

DOK 2 Describe the difference between metamorphic and igneous rocks.

DOK 3 Describe a model you might use to represent the relationships that exist in the rock cycle  

All three tasks begin with the word describe but each task is at a different depth of knowledge. Check out what comes after the verb!  What comes after the verb is more important than the verb itself.  

I have updated my DOK posters product on TPT.  The Depth of Knowledge Resources now include:

You can see the bunting flags in the photo above.  The flags that I made for the vocabulary words are appropriate to each of the four DOK levels and they are color-coded.  I have included the photo below of a different set of vocabulary flags because I wanted you to see how they actually look before you hang them on the board.  These are actually vocabulary cards that are coded by grade level to align with Marilee Sprenger's book titled, Teaching the Critical Vocabulary of the Common Core: 55 Words That Make or Break Student Understanding.  

Specially Priced at $2 for a limited time.

Please check them out at www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Penny-Lund