Cassey Jones

Name of strategy
Word Text Clues

Common Core State Standard(s) met with this strategy

Reading Foundational Skills, Phonics and Word Recognition
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.3.3.a Identify and know the meaning of the most
common prefixes and derivational suffixes.

Anticipatory Set:
Have students turn and talk with a partner about what suffixes do to words
and suffixes theyre familiar with.
Have students raise their hand and share some suffixes theyve learned
about and their meaning.

Description of procedures for the strategy

Begin by reading aloud Ations from Shel Silversteins A Light in the Attic.
After reading, show students the Words I wonder about poster.
Discuss with students what patterns they noticed among the words. When
students identify the pattern of the suffix ation, underline the suffix -ation
in each word in red.
Explicitly tell students that the suffix ation means an act or a process.
Write this on a poster for the students to reference later.
Discuss the root words in each word from the Words I wonder about
poster. If students do not recognize the words, provide them with the
definitions below.
salutation
salute
greeting somebody
altercation
altercate
arguing with someone

reconciliation
reconcile
settling arguments
exaggeration
exaggerate
saying something is better or worse than it really is
Explicitly tell the students to put together the meaning of the root word
and the meaning of the suffix ation to find the meaning of the whole
word. Model filling out the graphic organizer for the words salutation and
altercation by thinking aloud.
Students will continue to apply this strategy by filling out the graphic
organizer provided. They will work with a partner to identify the word parts
of each of the words from the poem with the suffix ation.

Include one involvement strategy

Students will turn and share with a partner what they know about suffixes.
The students will turn and share with a partner any patterns that they
notice in the words from the Words I wonder about poster. The students
will work in partners to complete their graphic organizers.

Modeling you will provide for your students to increase understanding.

Using the words salutation and altercation from the Words I wonder
about poster, fill out the graphic organizer with students. Begin by
identifying and writing the root word in the appropriate column. Next,
write the root word + suffix in the appropriate column. Lastly, write the
meaning of the whole word in the appropriate column.
While filling out the graphic organizer, be thinking aloud for the students.
Tell them that since you know that the root word salute means to greet
someone, and you know that the suffix ation means an act or a process,
then you can put them together to form the meaning of salutation: the
act of greeting someone.

An example of how you would assess the students understanding of the

strategy
I would use the students graphic organizers to assess for understanding of
the strategy. I would look for a word meaning that includes the phrases
the act of _________ or the process of _________ followed by the root

word definition.

Childrens Text Information

Ations from Shel Silversteins A Light in the Attic, 1981, Harper & Row, ISBN:
0-06-025673-7

References
The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo. Heinemann 2015.
Page 307, 314, and 302.

Two other strategies from your strategy text

Strategy 1
Context + Clues = Clarity
This would be an excellent strategy to use with Ations from Shel Silversteins
A Light in the Attic. In the poem, Ations, the author explicitly states
definitions of each word. For example,
If we stop and talk awhile,
Thats a conversation.
If we understand each other,
Thats communication.
Using context clues would be a very powerful strategy for this specific text.
The rich descriptions in the text help the reader to understand the
meaning of the longer, more difficult words. This strategy could also be
used in conjunction with Word Part Clues. Context + Clues = Clarity
focuses on the use of clues from the text, and context clues are abundant
in Ations.
Strategy 2
Insert a Synonym
This strategy would help students to break down the meaning of the
longer, more difficult words in Ations. For example, the text says,
If we meet and I say, Hi,

Thats a salutation.
Salutation could be a tricky word for third graders. Inserting a synonym for
salutation, such as greeting, could help them to better understand the
text. You could provide the students with a thesaurus to help them find a
synonym, but this text lends itself to providing the reader with the word
meaning.
You could use a sticky note to cover the word that is being described in
the text and ask students to write the word they think is being described to
help them identify synonyms.