Miss Nelson is Missing!

Topic: Use word parts to determine the meaning of words.

After morning meeting in second grade, we have time for a read aloud session. One of my favorite read aloud lessons was the last one I taught as a Methods I student this spring. I was told that the students had no experience with prefixes, but they knew a little bit about suffixes; so I brought out my Slinky Dog picture analogy that I used in my phonics lesson previously.

Skinky Dog was a perfect way to introduce this concept!

After the introduction to the parts of a word, I brought out the prefix and suffix index cards that I created in order to help me teach the meanings of the word parts to the students. I started by asking them what they thought the part of the word meant, and I gave them a few examples of words that have those parts in them. I was blown away by some of the students' answers - they were spot on!

(Forgive my iPhone quality pictures. There was no natural light in the room.)

I began reading the book Miss Nelson is Missing! by Harry Allard, which some of the students had read previously, but no one was complaining! Once I explained the different word parts we would be working with, I instructed the students to put their thumbs up every time they heard a word with one of those parts while I was reading. I have to say: it went really well! While I was reading, I saw little thumbs jutting up into the air each time I said a word with these prefixes/suffixes.I loved how engaged they were while I was reading!

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While prepping for this lesson, I took the time to create flashcards of words in the story that had prefixes and suffixes that I wanted to address with the class. I wrote the root words in green, and the prefixes/suffixes in pink, so that students could see the difference between the word parts. Once I got to a page with a flashcard paper clipped to it, I read the sentence with the word, and then stopped to hold up the flash card and ask students to break it apart to figure out its meaning. This was a huge hit!

(Forgive my iPhone quality pictures. There was no natural light in the room.)

Students were able to break apart the words and define them on their own, which was fabulous. I reinforced the idea that students should use this strategy while they are reading during The Daily 5, and then sent the students off to snack time.

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As an added bonus, one of the students that I work with during RTI time loved the book so much that we worked on reading the story Miss Nelson Has A Field Day - where we continued to work on prefixes and suffixes. Just perfect!