Chapter 13: Word Recognition, Fluency, and Spelling

Hop on Pop
This was the book that my dad used to teach me to read. We read it every night because I liked the rhyming. Little did I know, my dad was teaching me a skill I would need for my future teaching career. For those unfamiliar with the book I have pasted a video of the book being read below.

During reading if I came to a word I struggled with like mouse but I was fine with house my dad would point out the spelling to me and ask if they looked the same. We would perform the compare and contrast method mentioned from this chapter. Along with improving my word recognition skills this book helped me with my fluency. What my dad and I were performing was repeated readings which gave my confidence a boost. This is a very easy read so it would be better to use this in the early years but as I moved on to harder books my dad could still go back and reference Hop on Pop to scaffold me while reading. I'm not saying that this is the only Dr. Seuss book that is good for this, it's just the one that sticks with me because it was used in my reading instruction, but most of Dr. Seuss's books would work for the strategies listed in this chapter. You could use them for word sorts, for sounds, or families, and his books could inspire integration of other content areas like math and science.

     The way I would extend this as a teacher is to have the students do word ladders. This gives them the opportunity to manipulate the words and play with different spellings but gives them that connection between different words.
Questions that popped up while reading:
The end of the chapter mentions creating spelling lists that are appropriate and that students can read. If a teacher is using multiple Dr. Seuss books for word study could they create a list of spelling words from this theme?
Is there some type of technology that has been developed to support these skills?
How many teachers actually follow the guidelines and strategies described in this chapter?
Do all basal readers support the development of these skills and have ways of adapting for students who are struggling?