Tompkins Chapter 5--Jessica Thelen

The topics covered in this chapter are what we just covered in CEP 301. We talked about the importance of teaching students to become fluent readers before they reach third grade. We also talked about how it takes a struggling reader much more exposure to a word before they can recognize it. I think it is important for all classrooms to have a word wall especially for struggling readers/writers. It is just another place they can find needed words.
In the kindergarten class I'm in they have two word walls. One that has seasonal or unit words on it. For example for Valentine's Day they had Valentine, cards, hearts, etc. They other words wall has removeable words so the students can take them off the wall and bring them back to their desks to copy them on their paper. This has helped a lot of the students write complete sentences because they are not worried about how to spell or stretch out words they should have already learned. After the students know how to spell the words on the word wall they no longer walk over and get them. I have noticed a decrease in the amount of students that need to take words from the word wall when they write.