Abstract of

Strategy Instruction During Word Study and Interactive Writing Activities

Cheri Williams

Ruth P. Lundstrom

In this project, a teacher researcher and a university researcher used qualitative data collection and analysis procedures to collaboratively investigate the efficacy of interactive writing as a context for guided practice in the use of specific spelling strategies that had been taught during daily word study lessons. The researchers also examined first-grade, Title I children's use of those strategies during independent writing events.

Findings of the project indicated that the teacher researcher taught a number of fundamental spelling strategies during word study instruction, which were categorized as Tools of the Trade and Tools of the Mind. Results also demonstrated the ways in which interactive writing provided meaningful opportunities for the teacher to scaffold the children's use of the strategies that were taught. Finally, the project suggested that students appropriated a number of those strategies and used them independently during writing activities in the regular classroom. The project supports the use of both word study and interactive writing instruction in the early literacy program.

Abstract from Williams, C., & Lundstrom, R.P. (2007, November). Strategy Instruction During Word Study and Interactive Writing Activities. The Reading Teacher, 61(3), 204–212. doi: 10.1598/RT.61.3.1

Related ReadWriteThink.org lesson plans:

    Weekend News! A Weekly Writing Activity

    Sort, Hunt, Write: A Weekly Spelling Program

    Spelling Cheerleading: Integrating Movement and Spelling Generalizations