Super Sleuth Blog Hop - Stop #27

Hello my fellow detective!  You made it!  This is stop #27.  You are almost there!  If you are starting here, you will want to go to stop #1.  Otherwise you are going to miss some VERY important clues, and that's where you will download the all important recording sheet!

I think that being a detective is all about finding patterns and being observant.  I know that you know this, but students sometimes have to be reminded that most of the words that we use when we read and write have patterns (except those "jail" words).  If you are explicit with your teaching of those patterns, students will pick them up.  They may just have to put their detective skills to work!

I used this strategy all the time when I taught third grade and have been using it with my small reading groups. This blog hop gave me a chance to clean and spice it up!

The nice thing about this freebie is that it is great to use with any grade!  The students start by making sure that they have their detective hat on.  The detective hat is just the hat provided for you copied onto card stock and laminated.  I then attach construction paper strips to it to make a "hat" that wraps around their head, but also looks like a detective's hat.  I then make sure that they have their magnifying glass.  This helps them examine the words that they are studying more closely!  Every little gimmick helps right?

I then tell the children that hey are going to hear me say some words.  Their job is to guess which column the word I am saying goes in.  At first, they have no idea which column the word goes in and are just merely guessing.  As more words are up on the board and on their papers, they start to detect (pun intended) some patterns within each column.  Here are some of the organizers.

They are also in black and white.  They would be great for a Smart or Promethean Board.  Then the students could use the black and white ones to have their own copy as you go through the lesson.

Here is an example, I recently used this with one of my first grade groups.  My word-work target was for them to notice and hear the "sh," "ch," and "th" sounds.  I started naming words and the students were guessing the columns.  They knew what the rule was before I even had the 3rd word in each column!  I then challenged them to each give me a word of their own to put in each column.  I had every hand raised.  It was awesome!

It also works for some of the older students.  In my third grade group, we were differentiating and sorting for the short a and long a sounds.  I used a Words Their Way sort for this.  Once they were pretty proficient at hearing the difference between the two, I told them they were now going to be a word detective.  They have been studying mysteries in the classroom, so being a detective was right up their alley!  I used 4 columns and had them guessing which column the words went in.  My sort was:  column 1 a-e, column 2 ai, column 3 ay, and column 4 oddball.  They started to understand by about the 3rd or 4th word in each column.  We then named each column with the rule.

Their job was not done!  Now they had to look for anything else they noticed about the columns.  One student detected (there I go again) that "ay" was always at the end of a word (all were one syllable words at this time).  "Yes!" I said, "What else?"  One of my quiet girls said that she was not sure of tail and tale because both were right and you needed to know the definition to know which one you were talking about.  "Yes, yes!"  I said.  Well, I could keep going, but this post is getting long and you have one more stop!

Anyhoo, where do I get the words or ideas for sorting?  From a few sources actually.  I do make some up as I go.  When in doubt, I turn to the experts.  Here are a few:

I love the assessments in the Words Their Way books and the Phonics From A to Z is a really good tool for understanding different patterns.

Well, that's it!  Click on the picture below to grab your freebie!

Here is your letter:

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And finally, here is your next stop!

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1. Comprehension Connection

2. Dont Let the Teacher Stay Up Late

3. The Reading Tutor/ OG

4. Learning Fundamentals

5. Reading and Writing Redhead

6. Ms. Ds Literacy Lab

7. Conversations in Literacy

8. Teacher Mom of Three

9. A Day in the Life of a Title 1 Teacher

10. Luckeyfrog"s Lilypad

11. Curious Firsties

12. All Four Reading

13. Thinking Out Loud

14. Ms. Jordan Reads

15. Big Time Literacy

16. Read with Me ABC

17. Teaching With Nancy

18. This Little Piggy Reads

19. The Literacy Minute

20. Book Units Teacher

21. Reading Toward the Stars

22. The Literacy Garden

23. Im Lovin Lit

24. Ripper Resources

25. Teachers Take-Out

26. Sweet Integrations

27. Reading is Elementary

28. The Rungs of Reading

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