Literacy Stations and Word Work

Nearly every day after our last recess, our class has Literacy Stations. During this time we work on writing independently, catch up work, reading alone or with someone, listening to reading via Raz-Kids on the iPads, literacy work with an adult, and working on our spelling work called Word Work.

We have nine Word Work stations with each based on using a different intelligence. Howard Gardener, an American developmental psychologist, identified nine types of intelligence years ago, and educational practice has shown that learning using a variety of types of intelligence helps our brains make more connections between ideas and skills. Miss Cichosz created the stations after reading Dr. Jennifer Katz's book, Teaching to Diversity, and discussing ideas with our divisional literacy coach. Our nine Word Work stations include:

- Naturalist (Nature Smart): students find letter tiles in a sand bin using tools, like archaeologists, to spell their practice words

- Musical-Rhythmic (Music and Rhythm Smart): students use their spelling words to write a song or rap

- Logical-Mathematical (Number and Reasoning Smart): students make a word code using numbers to represent each letter and solve a message by adding or multiplying the numbers for each letter

- Existential (Big Question/Meaning and Life Smart): students find the meaning of the words by using a dictionary site on the iPads and writing the definition on the window and then on their dictionary pages

- Interpersonal (People Smart): students work together to guess their spelling words and to spell them by playing charades or hangman with a partner

- Intrapersonal (Self Smart): students create a story or comic about their own lives using their spelling words

- Bodily-Kinesthetic (Body and Movement Smart): students carve their spelling words into Play-Doh

- Visual-Spatial (Art and Picture Smart): students create word art using their spelling words, such as word graffiti or words including letter characters with arms and legs

- Verbal-Linguistic (Word Smart): students write a short story, poem, letter, etc. using their spelling words

We enjoy learning our spelling words in such diverse ways!