Daily Word Routines (DWR)

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Home : 2003 : January : 9

Daily Word Routines (DWR)
By Joy

Hi Lona,

I'd like to tell you a little bit about my Daily Word Routines that I complete with my children everyday before we start Reading/Language Arts. I love this time of day and my kids look forward to DWR.

Each child in my class has a large spiral notebook where they record the daily word activities. As I record the activities on the chalkboard, the children write in their notebooks. The activities that I currently use were developed by the Scott Foresman Reading program, but you could easily develop your own activities. Before we began using the series, I developed my own. Here is how the

mini lessons are set up:

There are 3 mini lessons each day. Each activity is directly related to our weekly spelling words, guided reading story and grammar.

Activity 1- Phonics and Word Study
Activity 2- Vocabulary Development
Activity 3- Grammar/Language Review

Here is an example of what a typical day's lessons might look like:

Activity 1- Words with ge
The words page, huge and hinge all end in ge. Listen to the ending sound in each word. Now, make a list of as many words as you can that end with/j/ spelled as ge.
Examples: age, cage, plunge, change, range etc.

Activity 2- Categories (picture a word web for this one!)
Think of a title for the words in this web: ocean,lake, river. Then add other words to the category word web.
"Bodies of Water"- creek, bay, sea, pond etc.

Activity 3- Form Irregular Plurals
Change each singular noun into a plural noun.

a child two___________
one mouse many_______________
a foot several_____________
this man those ____________

*** The children record each activity title and mini lesson in their notebooks. We draw a line between each activity. You should see their notebooks. They are really terrific and I find that the children often use them as a resource when completing other tasks.***

Now, once you introduce the grammar mini lesson, the children should be able to complete some independent practice activities so that you can assess their level of understanding. If I am introducing a new grammar concept, I generally have a whole week's worth of mini lessons prepared.

Does this make any sense to you? I have found it to be very helpful in my classroom. Prior to using this routine in my class, I found the transitioning to be difficult also. Good Luck!