Word Study: understanding and making the most of word study at home

What is Word Study? Word study is an approach that is different from the traditional spelling instruction. TraditionalWord Study Given a list to memorize Students are “Friday Spellers,” they forget the words after Friday’s quiz All students study the same words Analyze words to discover similarities and differences Investigation, hands on, & oral activities to help students retain new spelling patterns Students are grouped according to their spelling skills and what they need to practice

What does it look like?  Students sort words or pictures based on sound or spelling pattern.  Students apply skills taught through their everyday writing.  Students sort words or pictures based on sound or spelling pattern.  Students sharing with parents what sort they learned in school and explaining the reasoning behind the sort.  Students notice words that follow their studied pattern in their reading at night.

(Taken from Words Their Way, Bear et al, 2012)

EMERGENT SPELLERS Instruction includes: phonological awareness & alphabet knowledge (letter names, letter sounds & letter production) D duck T mitten house bed

LETTER-NAME SPELLERS Instruction includes: word families, short vowels, blends/digraphs, preconsonantal nasals Developing phonemic awareness and a sight vocabulary LP lump BAD bed FLOT float STEK stick

WITHIN-WORD PATTERN SPELLERS  Attend to the pattern features of spelling in single syllable words  Instruction includes: common long vowel patterns, r-influenced vowels, complex consonants SPOYL E spoil MARCH T marched FRITE fright TRANE train

SYLLABLES & AFFIXES SPELLERS  Attend to spelling changes within and across syllables  Instruction includes: inflected endings, e-drop/doubling/nothing, syllable stress, simple prefixes & suffixes PERTEN D pretend DAMIGE damage BOTEL bottle SHOPIN G shopping

DERIVATIONAL RELATIONS SPELLERS  Attend to meaning-based changes in spelling  Instruction includes: affixes, assimilated or absorbed prefixes, Greek/Latin roots COMOTION commotion EMFASIZE emphasize OPISISION opposition CONFUDENS E confidence

How are Spelling Stages decided?  Administer a spelling inventory  Weekly Assessments  Writing Samples  Reading Observations

In the Classroom  Introduction of sort and explanation of week’s features  Time throughout the week to sort and work with words at a literacy station independently and with a partner

Word Study at Home  Provides additional extended practice of weekly features  Follow the set activities by your child’s teacher  Sort each and every day before completing the assigned activity!

Sorting Types of Sorts  Picture/Word Sorts  Buddy Sorts  Writing Sorts  Blind Sorts  Speed Sorts

Picture / Word Sorts Word Sort Picture/Word Sort Categorizing pictures, words or a combination by their sound, pattern, or meaning feature. Picture Sort

Buddy Sorts Working collaboratively, students sort the picture and/ or word cards, “check” each column in the sort and then discuss the generalizations covered by the sort.

Writing Sorts Like a picture and/or word sort, except students categorize and write the words into columns according to phonics features.

Speed Sorts Students time themselves completing a sort in order to support automatic recognition of the words and features.

Blind Sorts The student hears the words read by someone else and categorizes them without seeing the spelling. Blind sorts encourage students to focus on sorting by “sounds.”

Letter Hunts & Word Hunts

Concentration Match 2 cards with the same feature (i.e., tug-hug)

Your Pile, My Pile  Put the cards in a pile.  Pull one card from the pile and say it out loud.  Your child will have to spell it correctly and use it in a sentence.  If your child does both correctly, he/she gets to keep the card. If not, it goes back into the pile.  When it is their turn, they can do the same to you!

Developing Automaticity Oh, No! Cards Students take turns drawing a card and reading it. If a student reads the word automatically, h/she keeps it. If a student draws an OH, NO! card h/she must return all his/her accumulated cards to the table.

Variations of Oh, no! DUMP ‘EM Crash!

Tic-Tac-Toe Split the features up between two players. Each player has all of the words for their assigned feature. A player’s goal is to get three of their words in a row.

Accountability Show what you know. Once a feature has been studied, it is expected that the student will apply that feature in every day writing and reading.

Questions