*Lenaya, a rising 7th grader, is spending the summer with Steinbeck, reading The Red Pony now (and The Pearl later). While she is driven to improve her reading fluency and vocabulary, these short stories are a stretch. The vocabulary and sentence structure are unfamiliar, as are the experiences of horses (and pearl diving). The conversations we have include not only word study (the 4 questions of Structured Word Inquiry), but online searches for photos and videos to help immerse my budding scholar in the world of horses while she reads this book. To get started, we are reading The Red Pony in Kindle format. I set the font size a bit larger, and used the OpenDyslexic font with a sepia background. In the last few tutoring sessions, we've been introduced to the cowhand Billy Buck, the disciplinarian father, the sometimes angry, yet secretly proud mother, and Jody, a young boy of ten who, in the beginning of the story seems to have some anger-management issues. He is evolving into a responsible young man in this story. Lenaya has been highlighting the traits of each character, trying to get a sense of how this family functions. Today's session introduces us to the red pony . "Its tense ears were forward and a light of disobedience was in its eyes. Its coat was rough and thick as an Airedale's fur." Jody has been combing and currying the young pony in anticipation of the day when it is old enough for him to ride. One part of this session includes compound words. I am currently taking a Real Spelling class on Hyphens, Hybrids, and Blends, so the hyphenated compound words just popped off of the page. Lenaya knows that a compound word includes more than one base element used together to create a new meaning. Today she learns about different kinds of compounds. Below are 4 types with examples from The Red Pony: Closed Compound:
Open Compound: There is one stress (a big clue that you have an open compound).
Hyphenated Compound:
Connected Compound (base elements with a connecting vowel letter):
The vocabulary in this short story is so juicy, both for delight and investigation, that we dive right in! We look up a few pictures in Google (the Morocco saddle, a bridle and bit, and a horse drinking from a trough), we look up a few videos (and listen to a horse whinnying), and, of course, head over to Etymonline to learn more about <incipient> and <spirited> among other words. The word <trough> with its <ugh> trigraph and /f/ phoneme merits a quick review. The words <shepherd> and <embers> and <burro> are a surprise. Lenaya knows the word <burrow> and is surprised that a <burro> is actually a donkey, not a hole in the ground! A quick Google photograph brings her up to speed. The following bullets summarize a rich lesson, and leave us wanting more next week! Interesting Vocabulary:
Complex sentences and unfamiliar phrases (we practiced reading these several times and discussed their meaning):
Unfamiliar experiences or concepts (we looked at a photograph negative and talked about "breaking" a horse so that it could be ridden. Lenaya talked about teaching her puppy to tolerate a leash):
The depth of knowledge I've developed in Real Spelling and SWI are invaluable to the work I do with Lenaya and my other student scholars. I have taken all of the Spellinars offered by Real Spelling several times and attended a number of SWI workshops with WordsWorkKingston. I also participate in ongoing scholarship with a community of scholars in the Facebook groups "Structured Word Inquiry" and "Structured Word Inquiry in the Classroom" to name just a few. If you are interested in learning more, you are welcome to join these communities. I encourage you to take online classes and attend workshops, and most importantly to wonder about words and investigate them! This is an invigorating, welcoming community. Resources: The Red Pony, by John Steinbeck etymonline Word Searcher by Neil Ramsden Mini Matrix-Maker Type IPA Real Spelling Spellinars Title pony image courtesy of Jim Pickett, ©, 2015 *A pseudonym
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
July 2019
|