Word Wall Words Homework Tips
You will need to set aside time each day (10 minutes) with your child
to practice these word wall words and to daily spell them. Doing a different
activity each day of the week gives your child and yourself some variety to
the routine. Below is a suggested guide for the week. As you and your child
get into the routine of reviewing word wall words daily, you will begin to
think of new ways to help your child. One activity that can always be done is
to take a newspaper, a child’s magazine, or a read aloud story and see how
many of these word wall words you and your child can find on a given page.
This can even be done while waiting in line at the grocery store, reading a
menu at a restaurant, etc. Continuous review allows your child to develop
mastery. Whenever you have 5 minutes, you can review all of the word wall
words with flash cards or have your child spell them.
Monday: Make flash cards by writing each word on a 3” x 5” index card.
Help your child to read each new word wall word. It may be helpful for your
child to use his/her finger to trace over each letter of the word wall word and
say the word.
Tuesday: Begin by using flash cards to review this weeks word wall words.
Ask your child to spell each word wall word by using his/her body to form
the letters, saying the letters as they are made. I often have my class clap,
snap, and pat their legs to the letters as they are spelling them. I do have the
children look at the word wall word to spell it at this point in the week.
You can mix up the letters of the word wall words and see if your
child can unscramble it. Don’t tell your child what the word wall word is.
Just give him/her the letters to unscramble. It’s fun to use magnetic letters or
the spongy letters that are played with in the bathtub. If you don’t have
either, put letters on small pieces of paper for your child to use. It doesn’t
have to be fancy!
Wednesday: Have your child use crayons, markers, or even a glitter pen to
practice writing the word wall words, and rhyming words that can be made
from the word wall word. (ex. at, hat, sat, bat). At this point focus on your
child developing the ability to correctly spell this week’s word wall words
on his/her own.
Thursday: Ask your child to make up sentences using this week’s word
wall words. Have him or her write out the words in the sentence. Then
review this week’s words and spell them.
Friday: Review all the word wall words introduced. If you are continuingly
using flash cards to review word wall words, this will not take more than 5
minutes, even with 100 words!
Saturday/Sunday: Play Hang-Man using the word wall words that have
been introduced since the start of school. And review all the word wall
words with flash cards.
Your goal is to help your child develop instant recognition of the word
wall words not only on the flash cards, but also, instant recognition of these
words anywhere he or she finds it in print. Just setting aside 10 minutes a
day will greatly benefit your child.