Word Study A Guide For Parents Word Study Today I want to share with you: What exactly Word Study is? Why KISD has moved from the traditional spelling list to Word Study? What it looks like in your child’s classroom. What you can do to support your child’s learning in this area. But first let’s watch a video that reaffirms why Word Study is important. This ppt is posted on the KatyISD website as a parent resource A Guide For Parents Word Study

Research and Best Practice Best practice suggestions and professional literature from: Fry, Dolche, Timothy Rasinski, Patricia Cunningham, Regie Routman, Marie Clay, Irene Fountas, and Gay Su Pinnell Word Study is backed by years of research as you can see by this list of authors and researchers.

What is Word Study? Word Study is a conceptual way of thinking about how to read, understand, and spell words. It is a rich and rigorous way of thinking about words and how we use them. Let’s focus on some key words here: “how to read” – learning about words makes us better readers “how to understand words”- this encapsulates the meaning of words and focus on root words and affixes (go over meanings of these concepts) As you can see, the program will still emphasize the 3 critical components for children to learn: phonics, spelling, and vocabulary

Word Study contains three critical components which are essential for students to become readers and writers. Word Study includes: Phonics Spelling Vocabulary As you can see, the program will still emphasize the 3 critical components for children to learn: phonics, spelling, and vocabulary

How Is Word Study Different From Traditional Spelling? Word Study not only includes learning to correctly spell words, it also gives students an opportunity to think more deeply about words and how they are put together. When students look at the parts of words and what those parts mean, they are able to see relationships between words that are similar in how they are spelled. For example, if I can spell top I can spell stop. Or for older students, if mega means large then megaphone must mean large sound.

How Is Word Study Different From Traditional Spelling? Students will still learn the rules of spelling and how to apply those rules as part of Word Study. Word Study opens the student’s word world, while traditional spelling relies on memorizing words in isolation.

What Does Word Study Look Like In The Classroom? Students will be engaged in building words, word sorts, word wall activities and other activities that not only teach the rules of spelling but also support vocabulary development. Students work with a variety of words at different levels. Word Study supports differentiation. Word Study is a component of guided reading and writing instruction. We study words throughout the day. Differentiation: there are no two learners exactly alike. This is the challenge for the classroom teacher. Word Study allows for students to work at their “instructional” level because of the variety of activities. WS is just one small part of Literacy in your child’s day. It works hand in hand with GR and Writing.

Making Words Day 1 Explicit instruction on the patterns of English spelling . Students are taught how to use letter patterns to actually decode and spell new words when they are reading and writing. Making Words the SMART way Making Words lessons are broken down into 3 days. Day 1 – make words Day 2 – sort words Day 3 – transfer – use related words to spell and make sentences for similar words. Click the link to the SMART lesson on the Wiki….work through all slides except the last one.

Word Sorts Day 2 The brain seeks patterns—basic cognitive learning processes of comparing and contrasting, discovering similarities and differences, generalizing beyond isolated words. This is what word sort may look like in the primary classroom. A kinesthetic activity that triggers the brain to seek patterns and go beyond words in isolation.

Word Wall Day 3 The interplay between writing and reading is especially important for the beginner. We want to help students recognize high frequency words quickly and automatically while reading for meaning.

Word Wall Activities Knowing words facilitates fluent reading and allows the reader to pay attention to new words. - Guided Reading by Fountas and Pinnell The 100 most frequently used words make up 50% of all material written in English.

Word Wall This is an example of a Word Wall in a classroom.

Movie Star Kisses Opera Fly Like a Bird Chicken Under Water Beat It Put your hands to your mouth Throw each letter a kiss, like Marilyn Monroe at the Oscars Opera Sing the letters in opera fashion Fly Like a Bird Arms flapping up and down Chicken Arms folded up to make wings and head moving forward and back Under Water Hold your nose and spell it Beat It Beat it out on the desk Cheerleader Like a cheerleader (Give me an “h”, etc.) Snap and Clap Clap the vowels Snap the consonants Ketchup One hand open, other closed Pound hands together like you would pound a ketchup bottle Fun, kinesthetic ideas to engage in the Word Wall…whole body learning! Taken from http://www.k111.k12.il.us/lafayette/fourblocks/word_wall_chants.htm Adapted by J. Wolf

A Few Interesting Facts Word Study helps students gain automaticity and fluency in the reading and writing of new words correctly. Adding a beginning letter or letters to the 37 most common word families allows students to spell and read 654 one syllable words. (Fry,1998) This is critical for our beginning readers. Automaticity is defined as fast, accurate and effortless word identification at the single word level. Fluency, on the other hand, involves not only automatic word identification but also the application of appropriate rhythm, intonation, and phrasing at the phrase, sentence, and text levels. 654 words!

How Will Word Study Be Graded? Students will be given an application level assessment every 4-5 weeks. The assessment is aligned to the Word Study instruction. Word Study assessments are a major grade, but they are only counted as a x1 grade. Grades for Word Study will be incorporated in the Language or Reading categories. Grades 1-3 will be included in Language. Grades 4 & 5 will be included in Reading. Grades 1-3 is targeted at word level skills that can transfer to reading and writing. Grades 4-5 are word meaning skills.

Higher Level Learning Word Study Spelling Tests Bloom’s Taxonomy shows the classifications of learning. Spelling tests are simply memorizing your words for the week and, therefore, are the lowest form of learning. Word Study engages most of the higher levels: understanding word families, affixes, root word meanings, how words are changed. Applying: the application level assessments and activities during Word Work in the classroom Analyzing: word sorts Creating: categories for word sorts Spelling Tests

Application Assessment

Application Assessment

Parent Resources Check out Word Study Resources on Katyisd.org for many resources including - overview Word Study PowerPoint presentation - word banks (with the focus of the week and assessment dates) - letter tiles that can be printed to practice building words at home - research articles Just click on the parent page and then the Word Study tab. You can find several resources on the katyisd website. Click and go to website to show resources.

Word Study Bank Word Study Banks will be available for students in grades 1-3. Word Study Banks are not spelling lists. They are examples of words based on the patterns used in the classroom. For example, if the spelling pattern is –ad, below is a list of words that can be contained in the Word Study Bank: sad, glad, had, dad

What can you do at home to reinforce word study learning? Keep a word journal – list new words, sort them, add endings Encourage your child to write at home for a variety of purposes-lists, letters, stories, messages, notes, etc. Encourage your child to read a variety of texts that will introduce him/her to new words

Search for or cut out words in magazines, catalogs or newspapers that contain a focus spelling pattern (-ick, -ack, -ash) For younger children, play with language through word games, songs, rhymes and poetry Word games – Boggle, Scrabble, crossword puzzles, hangman

Word Family Activities Here are some great at-home projects for the primary-aged students.

There’s an app for that! 100s of apps for iPads, iPods, tablets, etc. Befuddled Bookworm Chictionary Just a few that came up in a quick search! Wurdle Puzzlejuice Chalk Up! Word Solitaire Moxie 2 Wooords

Thank You! Thank you for being a partner in your child’s education. Thank you for taking the time to come and learn more about Word Study so that you can be a partner in your child’s education. Watch the I Love Lucy episode. I can answer a few questions. Please feel free to email or call me with any other questions or concerns. DeborahFSwallers@katyisd.org 281-237-7717