Grade 2 Literacy Stations
The Big Idea: Playing with language helps us discover how language works
Curricular Competency: Use phonics, word patterns, and sight words to spell words.
Content: Phonemic awareness, letter-sound relationships, and strategies for reading unfamiliar words
Long Vowel, Short Vowel Dice Game
For my literacy station with the grade 2 Gordon Terrace Elementary class, I created a dice game for students to practice identifying, saying, and spelling words with the CVCe structure. Pictured on the left was one of the two variations I created. In this game, students would take turns rolling the dice which would indicate the number of spaces they would travel. Whatever word they would land on they would need to say or sound out. Before we began, I reminded students about the ‘CVCe’ rule, where the E at the end of a word will make the vowel say its name. I told the students that this is also referred to as a long vowel! For spaces that had the pictures, students would say the word and as a challenge, try to spell it.
The second variation of the game was created as an extension for students when they played the first game and had successfully identified the CVCe word pattern by sounding out and spelling words correctly with their peer. In the second game, I asked students what was different about the board, to which they responded that there were no words! On this board, students will identify each of the pictures they see by saying its name and then trying to spell it. But be careful! This game board has both short and long vowels. I asked students to remind me how they can identify which is which. Once students could successfully articulate how to identify what a long vowel sounds like, they were ready to play.
Grade 3 Reader’s Theatre
Reader’s Theatre is a fun and collaborative way for both thriving and striving readers to practicing reading aloud to build fluency and practice expression. Many short stories adapted for elementary reader’s theatre have a variety of parts that are applicable for readers of all levels (Bright, 2021, p. 80). Pictured below are the four books we read together with a grade 3 class at Gordon Terrace Elementary School.
Connection to the BC Curriculum
The Big Idea: Using language in creative and playful ways helps
us understand how language works.
Curricular Competency: Use developmentally appropriate reading, listening, and viewing strategies to make meaning
Content: Reading strategies, oral language strategies, and features of oral language
For this Reader’s Theatre, our group read the classic Little Red Riding Hood, a story about a young girl who goes to visit her sick grandmother, but is met instead with the big bad wolf. Our group of third graders were all eager and ready to take on challenging roles and explore how to tie in elements of drama and theatre into their rendition. During our practice session, we encouraged the students to move around their space and act out what their characters were doing. For example, in the story when the grandmother went to hide from the wolf, the young actress said her line while crouching and making herself smaller. Little Red Riding Hood made use of the Wolf’s mask during our reading session by pointing to each body part when saying “What big ears you have!”
On the day of our presentations, the students had one more chance to practice projecting their voice, speaking with expression, and adding a little bit of movement into their reading. Students once again were engaged and ready to share their story to the class.
