Today I’m sharing more details about my word study schedule and how I make it run more smoothly. If you didn't catch the previous post about my 7, 8, or 9 day word study routine and the word study activities I include, you may want to visit that post first before reading about how I set up my schedule. Today I’ll share my best tips for making any differentiated word study routine work like a finely-tuned orchestra!

This post was originally written in 2013, updated in 2017, and now up to date for 2022. I have to admit, I was being a little sneaky in my post about my word study routine and I left out some of the details that really make my word study block work magically! So, today I'm going to give away my 2 best tips for any word study schedule (no matter what program you are implementing). These tips will help make your word study time more enjoyable and impactful for you and your students!

FIRST, DITCH MONDAY-FRIDAY BASED-ROUTINES

My first tip is to stop planning your word study activities based on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday routine. Instead, I recommend that you think of your word study tasks and activities as a cycle of activities that are not dependent upon what day of the week it happens to be.

Why make this shift? When I planned our schedule based on Monday-Friday routines, I was often frustrated by how often our days got interrupted and word study got pushed aside. Some years, it began to feel like a joke to try to maintain a regular word study block (can you relate?!). Year after year, I found that training students with a "This is what we do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday..." did not work and I decided to stop the insanity with a cyclical approach.

Shifting my thinking from having students do something specific each day of the week allowed me to expand our word study schedule into a 7, 8, or 9 day cycle and so many scheduling issues were alleviated! Through a cyclical approach, students have plenty of time to do all of the activities that I've built into the word study routine for each new word list. In the image below, I’ve shown the day by day of my current word study routine (You can get more information about each of our activities in this post).

With a 7, 8, or 9 day cycle, I have more flexibility and less stress about the unavoidable interruptions that pop up in a school-based schedule. We take about two weeks to complete our seven activities, including one or two whole-group days that I've built into the schedule where everyone works on the same task at the same time (one is a vocabulary day and the other is a "writer's notebook" spelling revision day.)

Although it takes longer to cycle through the activities for one word list than it would with a Monday-Friday routine, my students and I are more invested in our word study time because we know ALL of the routines are going to happen for that word list.

NEXT, STAGGER YOUR GROUPS AND ACTIVITIES

Now that you are no longer planning through a Monday - Friday routine, you can apply the second and most helpful tip - - - stagger each word study group so that students are NOT doing the same thing on the same days. (This was another remnant from the old "We do this on Monday, this on Tuesday..." approach.)

After deciding on the activities my students will complete during a word study cycle (2 days for word searches, meet with the teacher, 2 days of hands on centers or partner games, writer’s notebook day, word study notebook activities, word sorting/self-quizzing/catch up time, and assessment), I can build a schedule where each word study group completes those tasks on different days.

A staggered schedule is a great way to use yourself, resources, and classroom space effectively. If you are limited on space or materials, you can make it so that each group completes their games/centers on a different day. If you incorporate computers or technology that students must share, you can stagger that activity so that students use devices on different days. Staggering my students “Meet with the Teacher” time is most important to me. This is where I can give my students more personal attention, so it’s important to me to design a schedule where I only meet with one group per word study block.

Staggered scheduling is really where the magic happens in my word study block! 🧚‍♂️

A CLOSER LOOK AT MY WORD STUDY SCHEDULE

You can see here that I try to have only one "meet with the teacher" group scheduled each day. The two groups on Day 7 are my higher groups so I can manage moving back and forth between them as I train students to lead the discussion. This also gives me the much-needed flexibility to meet with my lowest group a second time.

Staggering groups has helped me more adequately manage the needs of each group by allowing me to focus most of my attention on one group at a time on their “teacher” day. Once everyone is settled into their activity for the day, I can give that group my full attention for 15 minutes.

Staggering the activities for each group has also allowed me to further differentiate and tweak student activities without stigmatizing certain groups (usually needed for the highest and lowest groups). For example, in the schedule shown above, the Letter Name-Alphabetic group meets with me on the first day of their rotation. During this meeting, we sort words and I introduce their hands on/partner game so that they can play it independently and successfully on day 2. This meeting helps expose students to the words on their word list before they complete their word study word search. However, my other groups “discover” their word study words by completing the Discovery Word Search on their first and second word study days.

At the beginning of the year when you are launching your staggered routine, an additional group starts word study each day. To get this routine going, I've allowed students to read independently until their word study rotation begins. You can see each group's start day noted by the red arrows. Everyone except the lower group begins with their word study word searches on their first rotation day.

You may be asking why you would even need to worry about starting students' schedules on different days. When you start plugging in your "meet with the teacher" time, it becomes necessary. I also want students to have two word search days before meeting with me to discuss the words they have found.

I start by putting each group's "meet with the teacher" day on the schedule, then plug in the activities in the order that I would like students to progress through them. Tech day can really come any time during their sequence, but Blind Assessment needs to come at the end of their rotation.

Would you like to customize your own word study schedule using the template above?

I’ve created a schedule that you can customize in Google Slides. Just click here or the button below to grab your own copy of this schedule. The link will prompt you to make a copy for yourself.

download your free word study scheduling template

YOUR CUSTOMIZABLE WORD STUDY SCHEDULE

How do I help myself and students remember where we are in our schedule?

I post our schedule that shows each groups' assignment for the day. We move the sticky note that says "We are on..." each day.

This amazing staggered schedule approach gives us the freedom to have "off" days where we do something else with our word study schedule.

A student or I rotate the sticky note each day that we have word study. Then, students know which group they are in and they check which activity they are supposed to work on.

After you have introduced the different rotations, students know what they should be doing. Posting the schedule on the smartboard, either the full schedule chart or by breaking each day down on to a separate slide (after you have developed the master schedule) is also a great idea!

Wish you could have a copy of my schedule? You can grab my word study schedule template from google docs! Make sure you go to FILE and SAVE A COPY to save an EDITABLE version into your own google docs!

Changing my mindset from a Mon-Fri routine to more of a cycle of activities and staggering my word study groups so that resource-intensive activities (like needing the teacher or needing a computer) really helped me simplify my word study routines and turn that time of our day into something that I was able to enjoy a whole lot more!

In my next post, I share additional tips and suggestions for getting started, getting ahead and organizing your materials, and a way to share students with a colleague.

WHAT WORD STUDY RESOURCES DO I USE AND RECOMMEND?

Note: Links to the Words Their Way books are affiliate links. This means that I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Read my full disclosure here.

I started using the Words Their Way Word Sort books for word study a few years into my teaching journey and I never looked back. While the differentiated word lists alleviated a lot of my planning woes (I know longer had to research and build my own word lists for students!), I also found that my students needed more than word sorting for a well-rounded word study program to make an impact on their spelling and word reading abilities. Hence, many of my activities were born (discovery word searches, word study notebooks, and word study games/activities).

If you have not purchased the Words Their Way Word Sorts books, I highly recommend checking them out. You can check out the 3rd Edition Word Sort books, released in 2018 here:

Letter and Picture Sorts for Emergent Spellers

Word Sorts for Letter-Name Alphabetic Spellers

Word Sorts for Within Word Pattern Spellers

Word Sorts for Syllables and Affixes Spellers

Word Sorts for Derivational Relations Spellers