At the beginning of first grade many of our students don't really know the difference between letters and words. We work on this in a variety of ways at various times throughout our day. Yesterday we tackled it head on. I pulled out our thinkblocks and we talked about word/not word and then letter/not letter.
I was pretty impressed with their thoughts. They said that words need to make sense (I chose not to get into the idea of nonsense words). They shared some words as examples of not letters.
Finally, at the end I asked them about the relationship between words and letters. In no time the students shared three relationships, "letters are part of words," "letters make the sounds in words," and "when you stretch out words you can hear the letters."
While I was thrilled to see the understanding of words and letters, at least from some, I was really impressed with their thinking about the identities of words and letters and the relationship. As well as their ability to explain their thinking.
On the 18th day of first grade this was fabulous. We've got quite a year ahead.