What to do when you don’t know a word?

One of the skills you can focus on in a Balanced Literacy Program involves what to do when you are reading and you encounter a word that you don’t know. I have had lots of students tell me that they just skip the word and keep reading (which can present problems when trying to determine the meaning of the story or passage). I have also had several students tell me that they stop and focus on that figuring out that word so much that they forget what they were reading. To help students fall in the middle of those two extreme, I have used the Guess the Covered Word activity. I have used this activity as a whole group activity during a Teacher Directed reading time, but it has worked better when working with small groups during Guided Reading time. During the Guided Reading time, I could moves students between groups so I was able to work with the ones who specifically needed this skill. This could also be a great activity to use during Working With Words time in the Balanced Literacy Program.

Here is a detailed PowerPoint (good for younger students) about Guess the Covered Word from Cheryl Dick. This presentation goes over each step in the process. (I tried to embed it here but it wouldn’t work)

Here are some resources you might find helpful for Guess the Covered Word:

• Templates and PowerPoint Examples
• Cloze activity from LEARN NC
• Creating Guess the Covered Work PowerPoints
• Our Guess the Covered Word