Ten Principles of Word Study Instruction (pgs. 82-83)
- Look for what students use but confuse
- A step backward is a step forward
- Use words students can read
- Compare words "that do" with words "that don't"
- Sort by sound and sight
- Begin with obvious contrasts
- Don't hide exceptions
- Avoid rules
- Work for automaticity
- Return to meaningful texts
Five Essential Literacy Activities: RRWWT (p.105)
· Read to: teachers perform a read aloud that offers exposure to new vocabulary and literary language.
· Read with: students participate in shared reading and rereading of various texts
· Writing with: teachers perform a write aloud by matching sounds in words to letters; students later mimic procedure and write on their own.
· Word study: “direct instruction in phonological awareness, the alphabet, and letter sounds”
· Talk with: a collaborative book talk about common reading experiences between teacher and students.
· Read with: students participate in shared reading and rereading of various texts
· Writing with: teachers perform a write aloud by matching sounds in words to letters; students later mimic procedure and write on their own.
· Word study: “direct instruction in phonological awareness, the alphabet, and letter sounds”
· Talk with: a collaborative book talk about common reading experiences between teacher and students.
"When purposeful reading, writing, listening, and speaking take place, vocabulary is learned along the way"
Best practices have shown for teachers to monitor and observe student writing and reading progress informally everyday. The information gathered from these observations help focus teacher instruction.
Based on student performance and their learning stage, teachers can use the following strategies to strengthen areas students need improvement in:
Based on student performance and their learning stage, teachers can use the following strategies to strengthen areas students need improvement in:
- Spelling Inventories: help assess student development of orthographic features. This should be done often to track student progress.
- Call the words aloud: teacher pronounces "each spelling or vocabulary word naturally without drawing out the sounds or breaking it into syllables (p. 31)." They provide the word in a sentence to help students understand the context the word can be used in. Students are responsible for spelling the word provided. Teacher monitors student work and behavior, stopping when many students are struggling with misspelling or are frustrated.
- Word Sorting: "based on constructivist learning and teacher-directed instruction" (p.51). Students categorize words to help make sense of its meaning. This can be a fun way for students to manipulate the words in a hands-on way. It can be done with words or pictures; either way students have to "pay attention... and make logical decisions about their sound, pattern, and/or meaning" as they categorize them.
- Guess my Category: used when students are comfortable with word sorting. The teacher presents students with a collection of objects, words, or pictures that can be placed or not placed in categories, but are not labeled or described. Students are asked to sort the items and determine category names. This strategy is "useful for exploring content-specific vocabulary and stimulates creative thinking" (p.57).
- Word Hunt: This activity helps students to find important connections between words in texts they read. It requires "students [to] hunt through their reading and writing for words that are additional examples of the sound, pattern, and meaning unit they are studying" (58). This activity should be modeled by the teacher before students first complete a word hunt independently, in pairs, or small groups.
Chart from: medaillewordstheirway.wikispaces.com
Guide to Knowing When to Teach What: Levels of Learning
- If a student can perform an activity correctly, they are independent or find the task easy
- If a student uses but confuses strategies, they are in need of instruction to help them become independent
- If there are absences in a student's spelling, they are becoming frustrated at spelling concepts that are too difficult for them (additional, in depth instruction needed)
Activities for each stage
EMERGENT STAGE Emergent spellers are just beginning to write on their own. They are pre-phonetic spellers. Emergent spelling ranges from random marks to actual letters that have no sound relationships. The early concept sorting activities are followed with picture sorts that develop phonemic awareness and include activities for rhyming, syllabication, and sound play. Students then sort beginning consonants with pictures, laying the foundation for the letter-name stage.
Sesame Street Games |
LETTER NAME ALPHABETIC This stage reflects students' dominant approach to spelling - by using the names of letters in connection with the alphabetic principle. Students move from partial to full phoneme segmentation and spelling becomes more complete.
Letter Name Alphabetic Sorts (Powerpoint slides of sorts) |
WITHIN WORD PATTERN Students in the Within Word pattern stage have a sight word vocabulary of about 200 - 400 words. Students at this stage of spelling development exhibit automatic knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and short vowel patterns.
Within Word Pattern Sorts: Powerpoint slides of sorts Within Word Board Game : Short/Long -a & short/long -e |
Syllables and Affixes Students who are in the syllables and affixes stage of spelling development typically are intermediate or advanced readers and writers. These students are ready to study multi-syllabic words—beginning with consonant doubling, plural endings and moving through the study of basic prefixes and suffixes.
Syllables and Affixes Word Sorts: Powerpoint slides of sorts
Smack Down Game Smackdown is a slap-jack like card game for two players. The game teaches VCV and VCCV patterns. It coordinates with Words Their Way Syllabiles & Affixes stage (Syllable Juncture). |
DERIVATIONAL RELATIONS STAGE This is the last stage of the developmental model. Students at this stage examine spelling and vocabulary knowledge through processes of derivation—from a single base word or word root to a number of related words derived through the addition of prefixes and suffixes. Additionally, students explore word origins and word spelling-meaning relationships.
Derivational Relations Sorts: Powerpoint slides of sorts Reading fluency Vocabulary learning |