Building Words with Year 1 Pupils at SKJJ
Teacher Faraliza used a series of 'jig-saw' letters in a group work activity designed to engage the pupils in a spelling and vocabulary task. Each group received two alphabet sets and they were just told to make words. Some students in some groups were more focused than others. After ten minutes or so, the mentor wrote the class group names on the board and the teacher told the pupils to write down their words and to try and make more words than the other groups. Now we started to see a lot more engagement from a lot more pupils. We counted up the words each group had made and added the tally to their group name on the chalk board. Next, Teacher Fara told the students they would get points for the longest words they could make; engagement reached a high point as pupils flicked through their books to find long words. The teacher and mentor moved around the groups giving hints ('What day is it today? "Tuesday"? That's a long word, isn't it'. / 'If you add an 's' that makes a new, longer word, doesn't it'). It was interesting to see the children pulling out a wide range of words from their own vocabularies, and watching them make word associations as their friends' suggestions reminded them of other English words they knew.
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| Team work is more effective when everyone has a clearly defined role. |
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| Working together is fun. |
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| Some pupils built more than just words. The teacher and mentor both encouraged this boy's creativity, even if it was not a part of the lesson plan. |
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| Some pupils preferred to work alone - and that was OK. |
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| Solo work can produce great results, too. |
Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)
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