A teaching tool that I found effective in my Literacy/ CLB 1 class is the use of dry-erase boards. I give each student a dry-erase board and markers. Some students, depending on their level, prefer the dry-erase boards with the alphabet printed on top so they can remember the shape of each letter. For example, in one lesson I was teaching them to spell the days of the week and months of the year. So, I would start by saying the word “Tuesday” and all the students would spell the word using their dry-erase boards.
Once they finished, they all held up their whiteboards. This was a fun game for them because as they showed me their whiteboard, they had a chance to look around at how other students spelled the word. Surprisingly, some students spelled the word incorrectly using the exact same letters. It was interesting because they were thinking the same way. I also noticed when I said the word Tuesday, one student added a “Th” at the beginning of the word. After everyone wrote the word, I turned the card around so they could see the correct spelling.
Shortly after, I heard a collaborative “ohhh, ahh, ok…” reaction from all the students, and they corrected the word on their board. Regarding the word Tuesday, one student interpreted it as having a “th” sound at the beginning. Well, that soon became a lesson in pronunciation. I had them look at my mouth and I talked about the difference in producing the “th” sound and the “t” sound. I showed them how my tongue, lips, and teeth are placed, and I had them produce the sound with me so they could feel the difference.
And this is why the white boards are so effective. You could spend 15 minutes saying words, and you will notice the same students making similar mistakes. The use of the white– board allows me to isolate those students that have trouble with certain letters of the alphabet.
Another spelling game I play is saying the word and then reading out each letter in that word for them to spell. This is also very helpful because it tests if students know the alphabet. For example, I would say the word January, and then I would read out each letter slowly as the students wrote the word on the board. I would repeat the letters a couple of times, and often they would interrupt me to re–say a letter. This was amazing because I noticed after the exercise, I had one student write the letter “u” when I would say “y” and write the letter “y” when I would say the letter “u”. I’m not sure how I would pick this out if I didn’t do the whiteboard exercise. So, as you can see whiteboards help isolate each student’s weaknesses and allow me as a teacher to focus on that with them the next time around.
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