Guide word epiphany and VA Writing SOL help

We still have a full week of school left, so it's been business as usual here (with a few more stories and fun crafts thrown in for the regular classroom teachers...not me...boo!). This morning, I was working with 2 fourth grade students on guide words because they just aren't getting it. I tried a few different strategies that I use to put the words in order, but none of it seemed to help.

Then it hit me!

Why not put ALL of the words in order, underline (or circle) the guide words, and see what fits in the middle? So stinking easy! Most of the kids can put the words in alphabetical order. It's finding the word that fits on the page that gets them. So we tried it, and one of the two walked away excited and confident. The other still needs some practice, but he only did it for the last problem. We'll try again tomorrow.

Here's an example of what I mean for those who need a visual like me(or just like pictures):

I would have them underline the guide words (like I showed) and then circle the word in the middle. The nice thing about this is that if there's more than one word in the middle and shouldn't be, they can check the order and correct their own mistakes (this happened today also). I then had them cross out the wrong words and label if it came before or after (more practice!) before they chose the correct answer. I hope this helps!

I also wanted to pass along a FANTASTIC resource I found for those friends of mine who are taking the 5th grade VA Writing SOL. Sally from Fun with Reading and Writing went to the DOE website and looked at all 44 writing prompts that a VA 5th grader may receive. She then broke them down into categories based on the kind of writing they require. I HIGHLY recommend checking it out! I wanted to pin it from her site, but there were no graphics. So click on the picture below to check out her information. I promise it's worth  your time: