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"A good education for every child
does not mean the same education for every child. " Please use what works for you and your
child and ignore the rest. Every
child is different. If this
information does not seem to be a good fit for your particular child, then
keep looking and experimenting until you find what works. This Web Page by Pauline
Harding for Art Nurk, hardingpj@yahoo.com |
Make Your Own Magnetic Word Wall No matter what method
you use to teach reading, one thing is the same – kids need lots of
practice. This can be difficult
to provide when kids know only a handful of words. There are some
phonics-based books which may be useful, but what you really need at the very
beginning is a more or less endless supply of things to read that include all
of the words your child already knows, plus can grow to include new words as
they are learned. One method
I’ve found really useful is to create a set of magnetic words (like the
Magnetic Poetry™ sets), for the refrigerator. (School teachers call this a “word wall”.) There are lots of ways
you can use your word wall. Of
course, you can just practice reading with individual words. But our family’s favorite is to make
what we call “wacky sentences” and read them aloud. These are sentences that are silly but grammatically
correct. “Mom sat on the cat.” “The pig is in the van.” “Mike can sit on the car.” Other ideas are: --Group words that
rhyme – at, fat, cat, hat, mat, bat, rat, sat, pat, that -- and ask
your child to read them. Later
on, you can ask your child to find all the words that rhyme with a given
word. --Show how ending punctuation
changes a sentence by reading aloud.
Susan can. Susan
can? Susan can! --Make an “apostrophe
s” magnet and show how to use it.
“Mike” becomes “Mike’s”, as in “Mike’s cat is in the hat.” --Make a “silent e”
magnet, and show how it changes the vowel sound: hat to hate, can to cane. “A silent e makes the vowel say it’s
name.” --Find out what words
make grammatical sense in a sentence.
For example, words that fit in “The _____ is in the car.” will
be nouns. --Begin to talk about
verb tense. “Mike are in the
car.” doesn’t sound right, but “Mike and Matt are in the car.” is
just fine. You can buy a Magnetic
Poetry™ set for beginning readers, but it’s fun, easy, and cheap to make your
own customized set. I’ve experimented a bit
with different methods. Word
wall sets sold in teacher supply stores often use laminated words with
Velcro™ on the back, and a large piece of fabric to stick the words on. This gets expensive and you need
somewhere to hang the fabric.
I’ve had some success using small pieces of mat board with magnetic
strips glued to the back.
However, cutting the mat board is difficult and requires a sharp blade
– not always a good idea around younger children! Here’s the best method I’ve found. It’s easy, and produces great results! You will need a magnetic sheet, an
adhesive, and some paper. Home improvement stores
(like Home Depot) sell large magnetic sheets, about the size of two sheets of
paper. They’re designed to cover
unneeded heating vents, and cost about $10. Craft stores sometimes sell these too, but they tend to be
smaller and more expensive. My favorite adhesive is
a spray called “Super 77”. It
comes in a can, like spray paint.
It works really well. You
can get it at a home improvement store, or you may be able to find it in a
smaller can at a craft store.
It’s not cheap, but a little goes a long way. I usually use my
computer to print out the words I want to use. The disadvantage is they can smear if they get wet. You can also use rubber stamps or
just write them neatly with a marker.
I use 36 point type, so the words are about ½” high. You’ll want to consider your font
choices carefully – Times New Roman is good, since many books use a similar
typeface, but some of the letters may be confusing – “g” is an example of
this. Arial or another simple
font may be a better choice. I
put three spaces between each word – this gives enough room to cut them out. You’ll want to put some
thought into the words you use.
(Sylvia Ashton-Warner, an influential educator who taught and wrote in
New Zealand in the early 1960’s, advocated using a “key vocabulary” for early
readers, using words that were important to the individual child.) Here are some ideas: --Family names (the
child’s name, Mom, Dad, and sibling names) --Pet words (dog,
cat, fish) and the names of your pets. --Common words (the,
and, is, are, on, at, can, a, an).
I made several copies of each of these. --Word families (an,
can, fan, ran, man, pan, tan, van, Dan, Nan) (make, take, cake, bake, rake, take, fake, Jake, quake,
wake) (all, ball, hall,
tall, wall, mall, call, fall). --Punctuation marks (.
, ! ?) --Names of friends. --Words from favorite
books, either the names of characters or words that are often repeated in the
book. --Any other words the child
knows or is learning (stop). --Any word the child
would like you to include. I also found it useful
to look up the Dolch sight words on the web. Some of these were useful (said, my, your), some
were less so (seven, yellow, because). Find the whole list at http://www.createdbyteachers.com/dolchlist.html (This list of “beginner words” was
developed in the 1940’s by Edward W. Dolch.) A more modern list is at http://www.usu.edu/teachall/text/reading/Frylist.pdf
. Thirteen very frequently used words are a, and, for, he,
is, in, it, of, that, the, to,
was, and you. You’ll probably want to
start out with about half a sheet of paper full of words – you can always add
more later. It’s better to
introduce this activity with only a few words – too many can be overwhelming
and defeat the purpose. Once you’ve got a sheet
of words to use, trim carefully around the edges so you won’t waste any of
the magnet on the blank parts of the page. (Don’t cut apart the words yet, though!) Take your supplies outside, and lay
out a sheet of newspaper. Put
the word sheet upside down on the newspaper, and spray the back with
adhesive. Use a back-and-forth
motion like you would with spray paint.
Carefully pick it up and place it onto the magnet sheet. While the paper is drying, don’t
forget to turn the adhesive can upside down and spray until nothing comes
out. (This cleans the nozzle.) Once the adhesive is dry, you can cut
apart the words. Voila! A custom-made word wall set! Your words can even travel with you –
just take your words along on a cookie sheet! Once you’ve made a set,
you’ll come up with lots of other ideas. Why not make a personalized set as a birthday
present? Make a portable set, with
smaller words, to fit in a tin box – you can make sentences on the lid. Make a set of tangrams! Do a math set with numbers, + - =,
and things to count. Make a
quilt design set by making color copies of a few fabrics and cutting them
into squares and triangles. Make
refrigerator magnets as gifts, using pictures from seed catalogs. You could
even try magnetic paper dolls!
Have fun! |
