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Phonemic Awareness

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Written by Holly (Teach Starter)
Posted Tuesday December 13, 2016

"Children who learn in a classroom with a working word wall have a distinct advantage over students who don't have such a resource in their room!" - Dr Darla Shaw

Word walls in the classroom are designed to be an interactive tool for students. They include an array of words that can be used during writing and reading.

Your word wall focus depends on the space you have in your classroom, year level and your focus areas for the year!

This blog outlines a number of displays and topic ideas for word walls in the classroom environment.

Word Wall Display Ideas

Creating a word wall that can be interactive and easy to change is the utmost important aspect! All of our word wall templates can be customised and added to throughout the year!

In the photo below, ribbon has been used with velcro dots! Students can come and take a word to use and then put it back when they are finished.

I customerised the Rainbow Word Wall template for the below display!

In the photo below, the same thing can be done, velcro dots can be used on laminated coloured paper, so that the children can easily remove or add to the class word wall!

Word Wall Vocabulary Ideas

Literature Study Word Walls

A literature specific word wall is a great way to encourage students to use new vocabulary in their writing, as well as understand a particular style of writing.

Spelling / Phonics Word Walls

Displaying a spelling or phonics word wall is a fantastic tool for students to use throughout the year. Organise the word wall in alphabetical order, this will make it easier for your students to check and find words. This is a 'work in progress wall' that students add to throughout the year.

I came across this idea on Pinterst and thought it was a great idea! Spelling word walls can get really big throughout the year, so this takes up less space, however each flip-book gets bigger!

Science Vocabulary Word Walls

The language used in science is very specific and often difficult for students to remember! Having a science specific word wall enables your students to become confident with the vocabulary used during a science unit!

Here is our Minibeasts word wall in action:

Maths Vocabulary Word Walls

The understanding of vocabulary is not just important in reading and writing! Students must be able to use and understand certain mathematics vocabulary. We have a huge range of Mathematics Vocabulary Word Walls available to download and customise! Here are some of our most popular:

Other Subject Specific Word Walls

New vocabulary is introduced in every key learning area. Here are some examples of other subject specific word walls:

Word Wall Activities

These word wall activities cards work best when you have a spelling or phonics word wall. It is crucial that the word wall doesn't just work as a 'display only!' Students must be exposed to the words on a number of different occasions and these activities are a great start! I used our word wall task cards and turned them into a flip book that can be used again and again!

Show us Yours!

Do you have other awesome ideas for how to use word walls in your classroom? Share your ideas in the comment section of this blog.

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27 Practical Word Wall Ideas for the Classroom - Teach Starter Blog

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Written by Holly (Teach Starter) Posted Tuesday December 13, 2016 "Children who learn in a classroom with a working word wall have a distinct advantage over students who don't have such a resource in their room!" - Dr Darla Shaw Word walls in the classroom are designed to be an interactive tool for students.

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Modeling and Teaching

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Inflectional Endings: -ing and -ed | Lesson Plan | Education.com

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Wondering how to teach your second graders about inflectional endings? Look no further.

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Practice Reading Vowel Dipthongs: aw | Worksheet | Education.com

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Help your beginning reader practice decoding tricky "aw" words with this complete the sentence worksheet.

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Party In The Jungle | Fun Phonemic Awareness Song | Jack Hartmann

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Most of the assessments here should be given one-on-one. It is important that you have a non-distracting, comfortable testing environment for students, and that the rest of the class is engaged in a task or assignment and working quietly. It's even better if you can arrange for another teacher to be present while you are performing assessments.

This list of informal assessments is not all-inclusive; there are components of reading that these tools do not assess. This information is also available in chart form.

Letter/sound recognition

About this assessment

Familiarity with the letters of the alphabet is essential to the development of reading skills. Instruction should be geared towards unknown letters and their sounds. Students should be able to recognize the letters in both uppercase and lowercase forms.

What it measures

Ability to recognize letters and sounds.

Examples of assessment questions

Show student one letter at a time and ask:

Can you tell me what letter this is? (Record the student's response)

Can you tell me what sound it makes? (Record the student's response)

Age or grade typically mastered

Many students enter kindergarten with the ability to recognize letters. Fewer students recognize the letter sounds. Both are taught in kindergarten.

When should it be assessed?

Assess letter/sound recognition three times during kindergarten, at the start of school, at mid-year, and at the end of the year.

Concepts of print awareness

About this assessment

Concepts of print are usually learned incidentally as children are exposed to books and story readings at home and at school. Concepts of print include an understanding that: print carries meaning, that books contain letters, words, sentences, and spaces. It also includes understanding what books are used for, and that books have parts such as a front cover, back cover and a spine. Eventually, students learn more sophisticated ideas such as understanding that we begin reading on the left and read across the page to the last word on the right, and then we got to the next line, begin reading on the left, and so on.

What it measures

If a student understands:

That print has meaning

That print can be used for different purposes

The relationship between print and speech

There is a difference between letters and words

That words are separated by spaces

There is a difference between words and sentences

That there are (punctuation) marks that signal the end of a sentence

That books have parts such as a front and back cover, title page, and spine

That stories have a beginning, middle, and end

That text is read from left to right and from top to bottom

Examples of assessment questions

Give the student a book and ask the following questions. "Can you show me:"

a letter?

a word?

a sentence?

the end of a sentence (punctuation mark)?

the front of the book?

the back of the book?

where I should start reading the story?

a space?

how I should hold the book?

the title of the book?

how many words are in this sentence?

Age or grade typically mastered

Some students enter kindergarten with an understanding of print concepts, but other will master it as the school year goes on.

When should it be assessed?

Assess concepts of print twice during kindergarten, at the start of school and at mid-year. In addition, as you model story reading techniques to help guide instruction, identify students who need additional support, and determine if the pace of instruction should be increased, decreased, or remain the same.

Phonological awareness

About this assessment

Phonological awareness is a necessary part of reading instruction. Children can show you they have phonological awareness in several ways. It is necessary as the classroom teacher to determine strengths and weaknesses to plan instruction.

What it measures

Recognizing a word in a sentence shows the ability to segment a sentence

Recognizing a rhyme shows the ability to identify words that have the same ending sounds

Recognizing a syllable shows the ability to separate or blend words the way that they are pronounced

Understanding onset-rime shows the ability to blend the first sound in the word (onset) and the rest of the word (rime)

Examples of assessment questions

Word
How many words are in this sentence? "I am happy." (Correct response: 3)

Rhyme
Do these words rhyme? big, fig(Correct response: Yes)

What about key, tree? (Correct response: Yes)

Syllable blending
I am going to say a word in parts. Listen: o...pen What word did I say? (Correct response: open)

Syllable segmentation
Can you tell me the two word parts in open? (Correct response: o...pen)

Syllable deletion
Say open without the -pen. (Correct response: o)

Onset-rime
What word do these sounds make? /s/ – /ee/ (Correct response: see)

How about /h/ – /op/? (Correct response: hop)

Age or grade typically mastered

Word: Age 3

Rhyme: Age 4

Syllable blending: Age 4

Syllable segmentation: Kindergarten

Syllable deletion: Kindergarten

Onset-rime: The middle of kindergarten

When should it be assessed?

Typically, phonological awareness is assessed during kindergarten and throughout first grade. During the beginning of kindergarten, assessment should be limited to recognizing words, rhyme, syllable blending, and segmentation to help guide instruction.

Phonemic awareness

What it measures

Phoneme matching is the ability to identify words that begin with the same sound.

Phoneme isolation is the ability to isolate a single sound from within a word.

Phoneme blending is the ability to blend individual sounds into a word.

Phoneme segmentation is the ability to break a word into individual sounds.

Phoneme manipulation is the ability to modify, change, or move the individual sounds in a word.

Examples of assessment questions

Remember, when a letter appears between slash marks, you should say the letter sound, and not the letter name.

Phoneme matching
Which words sound alike? man, sat, sip (Correct response: sat, sip)

Phoneme isolation – initial (first) sound
What's the first sound in sat? (Correct response: /s/)

Phoneme isolation – final (last) sound
What's the last sound in sat? (Correct response: /t/)

Phoneme isolation – medial (middle) sound
What's the middle sound in sat? (Correct response: /a/)

Phoneme blending
What word do these sounds make? /h/ – /o/ – /t/ (Correct response: hot)

Phoneme segmentation
What sounds do you hear in hot? (Correct response: /h/ – /o/ – /t/)

Phoneme manipulation – initial (first) sound
Say mat without the /m/ sound. (Correct response: at)

Phoneme manipulation – final (last) sound
Say mat without the /t/ sound. (Correct response: ma)

Phoneme manipulation – substitution
Say pig. (Correct response: pig)

Now change the /p/ in pig to /f/. (Correct response: fig)

Age or grade typically mastered

Phoneme matching: The middle of kindergarten

Phoneme isolation – initial (first) sound: The middle of kindergarten

Phoneme isolation – final (last) sound: Late kindergarten or early first grade

Phoneme isolation – medial (middle) sound: Late kindergarten or early first grade

Phoneme blending: Late kindergarten or early first grade

Phoneme segmentation: First grade

Phoneme manipulation – initial (first) sound: First grade

Phoneme manipulation – final (last) sound: First grade

Phoneme manipulation – substitution: Middle to end of first grade or early second grade

When should it be assessed?

Phonemic awareness assessments should be done three times during the kindergarten and first grade years to help guide instruction.

Informal (qualitative) reading inventory

What it measures

Grade level reading

Fluency

Comprehension

Vocabulary

Oral reading accuracy

Examples of assessment questions

Choose a grade level passage for the student to read. As the student is reading complete the oral reading accuracy and reading fluency assessments. After the student finishes the passage, check for understanding through explicit and implicit questions. Also, ask open-ended questions about the vocabulary found in the passage.

Age or grade typically mastered

This assessment can be given to students in grades one through twelve. Students should be expected to master age-appropriate material.

When should it be assessed

The informal reading inventory is an on-going assessment, and should be completed several times throughout the child's schooling. In kindergarten, perform the informal reading inventory twice per year, at mid-year and at the end of school. In first and second grades, it should be done three times, at the beginning of the school year, at mid-year, and at the end of the year. If a child is struggling, the inventory should be done more often in order to have an accurate picture of the child's progress.

Reading comprehension

About this assessment

Reading comprehension assessments are the most common type of published reading test that is available. The typical type of reading comprehension assessment involves asking a child to read a passage of text that is leveled appropriately for the child's age or grade, and then asking explicit, detailed questions about the content of the text. An example of a common reading comprehension assessment is the Informal Reading Inventory (IRI), also known as the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI).

There are variations on the basic reading comprehension assessments. For example, instead of questions about facts found directly in the text, the child could be asked to answer questions about information that is implied in the text, or the child might be asked to retell the story in the child's own words.

Oral reading accuracy

About this assessment

This assessment provides a measure of a student's oral reading accuracy by giving teachers insight into a student's individual reading level. It allows the teacher to listen and record reading behaviors such as the number of errors a student makes, if the student substitutes words, or if the student needs prompting from the teacher.

The information offered by this assessment is limited. For example, it does not measure phonological ability, vocabulary, or comprehension. This is why it is often given in conjunction with other assessments such as the informal reading inventory. It should never be used in isolation.

Note: When children read orally, they usually concentrate on reading accurately and do not pay as much attention to comprehension of the content. It is also important to remember that if this assessment is used with students who are new to learning English, it should be given both in English and the child's primary language.

What it measures

Oral reading accuracy. It also provides the teacher with insight into a student's ability to use strategies to decode unfamiliar words.

Examples of assessment questions

Choose a passage for the child to read aloud. As the child reads, take notes on words read correctly and incorrectly.

Age or grade typically mastered

First through third grade.

When should it be assessed?

Reading accuracy assessments can be given as part of an informal reading inventory or combined with a comprehension assessment to yield more information. Reading accuracy should be assessed several times throughout the year to help you plan on-going instruction. Are students reading on grade level? Do some students require additional support? Do your students have rich vocabularies? Are your students able to read age-appropriate material?

Steps in administering this assessment

1. Choose a book that is age appropriate, but unfamiliar to your student. (This gives a more accurate picture of a child's ability in handling texts.)

2. Ask the student to read the story aloud to you and then at the end tell you what the story was about.

3. You should familiarize yourself with the following scoring information prior to administering this assessment:

Reading behavior

How to score

Read correctly (no error)

Check mark over word

Omission (one error)

Long dash over word omitted

Insertion (one error)

^ at point of insertion with the inserted word written above it

Repetition of a word (no error)

Mark above word with a capital R

Repetition of a phrase (no error)

Capital R with a line and an arrow stretching across phrase repeated

Self correction (no error)

Capital SC above the word to indicate child has self-corrected

Unable to read word (one error)

T for Teacher prompt

Decodes a word in an obvious manner (no error)

Mark individual sounds read within the word followed by a check mark if eventually read correctly or a circle if read incorrectly

Read incorrectly (one error)

Circle word

What should you count as an error when giving this assessment?

Substituting a word

Passage reads: The tall fir tree.

Omitting a word

Passage reads: The tall fir tree.

Inserting a word

Passage reads: A dark and stormy night.

Needs prompting (if the student has to be told a word by the person administering the running record)

Passage reads: I wish that people...

4. As the student reads, mark each word on the form by using the symbols above. Place a check mark above the words read correctly.

5. If the student reads a word incorrectly or substitutes a word, record what is said above the actual word.

6. As the student reads, pay attention to his or her behavior. Is the student using context clues (from the sentence or pictures), structure (language sounds correct) and visual cues (using beginning sounds, familiar word chunks, etc.) to read words and gather meaning?

7. Intervene as little as possible when a student is reading.

8. If the student is stuck on a word, wait 5-10 seconds before you tell him or her the word.

9. After the reading, ask the student to tell you about what he or she has just read. Make notes on the following:

Can the student tell you what happened in the story in his or her own words?

Does the student include the different parts of a story (the characters, setting, events, problem and resolution)?

Can the student identify the main idea and supporting details?

Does the student use some of the vocabulary found in the text?

Is the student's retelling minimal, adequate or very complete?

What do I do with the information obtained from this assessment?

The information gathered while completing an oral reading accuracy assessment can be used to determine error, accuracy, and self-correction rates. To calculate a student's reading accuracy rate, divide the total words read correctly by the total words read. For example, if a student read a passage containing 100 words and made 5 errors:

95 (total words read correctly) / 100 (total words read) = 95% word accuracy

Use the accuracy rate along with the information gained in the student's story retelling to determine whether the text the student read was too easy, just right, or too difficult for the reader. Below is a general breakdown to use to help guide you when choosing texts for students:

Oral reading accuracy

What this says about the text

95-100%

Too easy; the text does not present a challenge

90-94%

Just right; the text is challenging but manageable

89% and below

Too difficult; the text is frustrating for the reader

If a student can read a book with 100% word accuracy but can only give a minimal retelling of the story, do not choose a higher leveled book. We read to get meaning; if a child is not getting meaning from a text they must be instructed on comprehension strategies. Word accuracy without comprehension is not acceptable.

What should I be looking for when I give an oral reading accuracy assessment?

Giving an oral reading accuracy assessment and asking a child to retell reveals many things about a child's reading ability. There are other things to be on the look out for and can be taught in the moments following this assessment:

Has the student mastered directionality, letter-sound correspondence, return sweep, etc?

Did the student make "good errors" when phonetically reading a word (i.e., reading island as "is land" instead of "eye land")?

Was there an attempt to self-correct errors?

Did the student attempt to decode an unknown word?

Was the student's reading slow and labored, or fluent?

Did the student use expression while reading?

Reading fluency

What it measures

How many words a child reads correctly in one minute.

Examples of assessment questions

Choose an appropriate passage for the student to read aloud. As the student reads, complete a record for one minute.

Age or grade typically mastered

Students should be expected to master age-appropriate material.

When should it be assessed?

Fluency assessments should be completed throughout the year to help guide instruction.

Word recognition

What it measures

Sight word vocabulary at a given grade level.

Examples of assessment questions

Ask a child to read from a list of words.

Age or grade typically mastered

Students should be expected to master age-appropriate material.

When should it be assessed?

Word recognition should be assessed three times during the year for students in kindergarten through second grade to help guide instruction.

Phonic elements

What it measures

Phonic elements at a given grade level.

Examples of assessment questions

What sound do the letters 's' 'h' make? (Correct response: /sh/)

How can I turn cap into cape? (Correct response: Add an 'e' to the end of the word.

Age or grade typically mastered

Students should be expected to master age-appropriate material.

When should it be assessed?

Phonic elements should be assessed several times throughout the year in grades one through three to help guide instruction.

Portfolios

About this assessment

Portfolios can be used to document students' achievement and progress. Portfolios give an accurate picture of an individual's strengths and weaknesses. Instruction on how to pick a piece of work to place in a portfolio (does it show a concept that was struggled with then understood, does it demonstrate an understanding of a concept? Is it something you are proud of?) is beneficial for students. This type of instruction engages the student to reflect on his or her own work. Portfolios encourage students to take an active role in learning information they feel they have not yet mastered.

Portfolios can help guide instruction. Through looking at a piece of child's work, a teacher can quickly see what lessons are further needed. For example, by looking at a student's writing a teacher may determine lessons in using commas correctly need to be revisited.

Types of portfolios

Collection
The collection may consist of a folder that holds samples of a student's work. The collection should include representative examples of the various types of student work, such as tests, writing samples, and homework assignments.

Display portfolio
A container or box containing a selection of work documenting a student's progress may hold work in this type of portfolio. This type of portfolio may be used to share with parents at conferences. Pieces of work are carefully selected by both teachers and students to show and share with parents/guardians during conferences.

Teacher/student assessment portfolio
A collection of documentation including copies of work in the student's display portfolio, tests, anecdotal notes, conference summaries, contacts made with parents, etc. This portfolio is used by the teacher to aid in discussions with administrators, other teachers, parents, etc about a particular child.

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Types of Informal Classroom-Based Assessment

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Most of the assessments here should be given one-on-one. It is important that you have a non-distracting, comfortable testing environment for students, and that the rest of the class is engaged in a task or assignment and working quietly. It's even better if you can arrange for another teacher to be present while you are performing assessments.

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Second Grade: Phonics, Word Recognition and, Fluency

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English Language Arts Standards " Reading: Foundational Skills " Grade 2

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A guide to the Teaching Reading K-2 Workshop, a video series on research-based principles and practices.

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A brief description of word study instruction

Word study is an approach to spelling instruction that moves away from a focus on memorization. The approach reflects what researchers have discovered about the alphabetic, pattern, and meaning layers of English orthography.

Teachers use a variety of hands-on activities, often called word work, to help students actively explore these layers of information.

When studying the alphabetic layer, students examine the relationship between letters and sounds. They learn to match single letters and pairs of letters (e.g., ch) to specific sounds and, in doing so, to create words.

When students study the pattern layer, they look beyond single or paired letter-sounds to search for larger patterns that guide the grouping of letters (e.g., CVC e).

Studying the meaning layer helps students to understand how the English spelling system can directly reflect the semantic relationships across related words. For example, students come to understand that the second vowel in composition is spelled with an o because it is related to compose.

Examining each layer of the orthography helps students to see the regularities, patterns, and derivations in English words - how words work in our writing system. Word study also teaches students how to use this word knowledge strategically to support their spelling attempts during writing activities and to help them decode unfamiliar words while reading (Bear & Templeton, 1998).

The primary goal of word study is to support students' development of a working knowledge of the orthography - knowledge that students can apply as they are reading and writing. Here are nine tips for implementing word study.

Tip 1: Assess students' word knowledge using multiple assessment tools

Before you can craft a systematic word study program, you must determine what your students know about the alphabetic, pattern, and meaning layers of the orthography. It doesn't make sense to teach students the r-controlled vowel pattern if they don't understand the alphabetic principle. Assessment informs you of what your students already know and don't yet know, which guides your instruction. We found that two kinds of assessments proved most informative: informal spelling inventories and analyses of students' independent writing.

We used the Primary Spelling Inventory or the Elementary Spelling Inventory (Bear et al., 2000) to assess students' word knowledge at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Not only did these assessments help us to determine what each child knew about the orthography, but also the results were particularly useful in grouping (and re-grouping) children homogeneously for small-group instruction.

Students needing to study the alphabetic layer were grouped as either emergent or letter-name alphabetic learners. Students who were ready to explore the pattern layer were grouped as either within word pattern or syllable and affixes learners. At the end of the academic year, a few second graders studied the meaning layer of the orthography; these children were grouped as derivational relations learners (see Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2008).

But periodic assessment isn't sufficient. With high-quality instruction and lots of reading and writing, students' word knowledge is continually progressing, and so we used students' independent writing as an ongoing assessment tool. We knew that students' invented spellings would show us what they knew about English orthography. Each week, we reviewed the students' journal writing or writing workshop pieces to document the orthographic features they were spelling correctly or misspelling. Bear et al. (2008) suggest that what students "use but confuse" in their writing should be a target of word study (p. 9).

Interestingly, using these assessments in tandem sometimes created a thorny challenge. In our second-grade project, for example, some students in the letter-name alphabetic group frequently used but misspelled CVC e-patterned words (e.g., mad for made). According to the scope and sequence outlined in Bear et al. (2008), this common long-vowel pattern should be taught at the next developmental level-within word pattern.

Similarly, a few students in the within word pattern group frequently failed to double the final consonant when adding -ed to a short-vowel word (e.g., stoped for stopped). Consonant doubling is usually taught at the syllables and affixes level.

So what were we to do - follow the scope and sequence or let our assessment of students' writing inform our instruction? We don't embrace a "readiness" model of learning, nor do we believe that learners move rigidly through developmental spelling stages (Brown & Ellis, 1994; Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Treiman & Cassar, 1997). So, given how frequently the students were using but confusing these orthographic patterns, we decided to teach them. Despite this challenge, we found that using more than one assessment tool helped to inform our grouping of students and the instruction Colleen prepared for each homogenous group.

Tip 2: Use a homogeneous small-group approach to instruction

In our kindergarten project, Krissy tried to save time by using a whole-group approach to word study, but, as we mentioned, it didn't meet the students' instructional needs. A primary finding of that project was that homogeneous small-group instruction is essential.

There are two approaches to homogenous word study instruction. One approach is to teach word study within the context of guided reading groups (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996; Joseph, 2000; Schulman & Payne, 2000; Snowball & Bolton, 1999). Another approach is separate word study lessons for each developmental spelling level (Bear et al., 2008). We tried both approaches, and we found that integrating word study into guided reading worked well in Title I and first grade but not in second grade. The books that were used for guided reading in second grade did not necessarily include examples of words that reflected the orthographic features and principles Colleen was targeting. Moreover, we found that some of the students' reading and spelling levels were not closely linked.

In several cases, spelling achievement lagged considerably behind reading achievement, which made it difficult to form small groups that were appropriate to both areas of instruction. For example, our assessments indicated that several students needed word study on short-vowel patterns. A majority of these students were in the lowest guided reading group, but a few of them were in the middle group. For a while, we tried flexible grouping (see Invernizzi & Hayes, 2004), but constantly rearranging the students at the end of each guided reading lesson to form the appropriate word study groups was cumbersome and time-consuming.

After several months, we separated word study from guided reading and created three homogeneous word study groups. Doing so allowed Colleen to target specific orthographic features and principles these students needed to learn. This experience leads us to recommend separate developmental groups for word study in second grade.

Both Pinnell and Fountas (1998) and Bear et al. (2008) recommend an introductory teacher-directed lesson (15-20 minutes) with subsequent word study activities (10 minutes) throughout the week for each small group. To organize and manage three groups, Bear et al. (2008) propose a "circle-seat-center" routine (p. 70). While Group 1 is receiving a teacher-directed word study lesson in the circle, Group 2 engages in literacy activities in centers, and Group 3 participates in word work games and activities at their seats. After 10-15 minutes, the groups rotate. Group 2 joins the teacher, Group 3 moves to centers, and Group 1 returns to their seats. All three groups can rotate through each instructional context in about an hour, including transition time.

To organize and manage four small groups, a classroom volunteer can be helpful. Staff developers at a professional development workshop that Krissy attended at Teacher's College, Columbia University, recommended that teachers prepare word work activities that volunteers can use with small groups of children. Krissy has found that asking a volunteer to work through word sorts or play a word study game with small groups of children prepares students to do these activities independently or with a partner when Krissy places the game or activity in the literacy center.

Tip 3: Carve out time to prepare for word study instruction

Whether you combine word study with guided reading or teach word study to separate developmental groups, you'll need to carve out sufficient time to prepare your lessons and word work activities. If you have three groups, you'll be crafting three separate word study lessons, and you could easily need to prepare six to nine different word work activities. But don't reinvent the wheel! We found the instructional materials currently available to be invaluable in supporting this process.

You'll also want to carve out time to study the concepts you'll be teaching. Our work together reminded us of the importance of teachers knowing the generalizations that students will be exploring. We documented several missed opportunities in our data for teachers to talk with students about specific generalizations that can prove useful. For example, teachers can explain that the ck spelling pattern only comes at the end of short-vowel words, or that the oa pattern almost always signals the long o sound, or that words spelled with ee usually have the long e sound.

The bottom line is this: For a word study program to be successful, the teacher has to invest sufficient time preparing for daily instruction and word work. Carving out preparation time may be one of the biggest challenges you face in implementing a word study program.

Tip 4: Teach word knowledge, not just words

In a traditional spelling program, students learn to spell words that are deemed appropriate to their grade level. In a word study program, however, students learn about words. The instruction is unique in that it focuses students' attention on consistencies within our spelling system. Students learn word knowledge that they can apply generally to a wide range of reading and writing activities.

Of course, students learn to spell a great many words through word study lessons and daily word work activities, but the instruction is far more conceptual than that of traditional spelling programs. This is important because what students remember about specific words is related to what they know about English spelling in general (Ehri, 1992). Focus your word study lessons on the way English words work, so that students will form useful generalizations they can apply to words they want to read or spell.

Our experiences also lead us to advocate some instruction on sight words, particularly in kindergarten and first grade (see Fountas & Pinnell, 1996). The words you choose should be highly useful to your students-words they will encounter frequently in their reading as well as words that appear often in students' own writing (e.g., because, are, again, said, friend, were).

You may want to display some of these high-frequency words on the word wall. Because these sight words don't follow the spelling patterns and generalizations that students will be exploring, help students to learn these words by focusing on how the word looks and how it sounds, and avoid simple memorization (Clay, 2001). Bear et al. (2008) recommend using some high-frequency words as examples of exceptions to the generalizations you are exploring in your word study lessons.

Tip 5: Demonstrate how word study can be used during reading and writing

Word study undoubtedly supports students' spelling achievement. It has the potential to support students' reading and writing development as well-if students understand and exploit the relationship between these literate processes. Our research helped us to see that some students don't necessarily make this link.

As mentioned above, several students in our second-grade project didn't appear to recognize the ways in which word study is related to writing. This was true for both low-ability as well as high-ability students. While we were trying to make sense of this finding, we realized that in our second-grade project we did not have a guided practice component to our word study program. That is, we did not demonstrate for these students how they could use word study to support extended reading and writing activities. We assumed that students would transfer word study to other literacy events, but we were wrong.

In all of our other projects, we used interactive writing (McCarrier, Fountas, & Pinnell, 2000) as a context for guided practice in applying word study to authentic writing events. As students "shared the pen" to solve the spelling of words in the messages they were writing, myriad opportunities emerged for them to apply the orthographic features and principles they'd been taught during word study instruction. And, if they needed help, their teacher could easily scaffold their attempts.

In our kindergarten study, for example, the students were trying to write the word thank (as in thank you) during an interactive writing lesson. The child at the chart wasn't sure how to begin, so Krissy reminded the class of an important orthographic principle she had taught earlier in the year: "Sometimes the sounds in words are represented by more than one letter." Then she said, "The word thank is like that. The first sound in thank has two letters. What two letters can stand for /th/?" The child writing on the chart easily spelled the first phoneme in the word.

These kinds of minilessons in the midst of interactive writing events clearly demonstrated for students how they could use word study to support extended writing. And the demonstrations paid off: We observed many kindergartners and first-grade students using word study to support their independent writing endeavors-including the children who struggled with literacy learning.

But interactive writing is best used as a transition tool to support children's growth from emergent to conventional writing. Most second graders understand what it means to write and how to go about it, so interactive writing isn't necessary or appropriate for the majority of second graders, except for those who struggle. Yet, our research helped us to see that guided practice in using word study during writing activities is essential, so we are now searching the professional and research literatures for examples of what a guided practice component might look like in second grade.

Tip 6: Teach strategies that support students' use of word study instruction

In addition to guided practice, our research also highlighted the need for explicit strategy instruction. If we want students to use word study independently and strategically when they are reading and writing, then we must teach them how to do so (Dudley-Marling, 1997). Along with the orthographic features and principles you teach, we recommend that you integrate strategy instruction into your word study lessons.

We think of strategies as tools that help students actively use what they've learned. Sometimes the tools are physical, like dictionaries or the word wall. Other times, the tools are cognitive - in the mind - like listening for sounds or thinking of a word that rhymes with the word you're trying to spell. We encourage you to teach both kinds of tools to help students learn to use word study strategically.

The text box below lists the 10 strategies we taught most often across our projects. Diane and Ruth are Reading Recovery trained teachers, and we culled most of these strategies from their training. A key focus of Reading Recovery instruction is the development of cognitive and strategic processing systems that integrate meaning, visual, and sound cues (Clay, 2001).

Throughout our work, we observed students using the strategies that had been taught. Interestingly, in two of our projects, we found that strategy instruction was more salient for struggling students than other aspects of word study instruction. When we analyzed these students' independent writing, we saw little evidence of the orthographic features that had been taught, but when we observed the students during writing time, we saw and heard them using specific strategies they had learned.

We also recommend that teachers model the use of these strategies during interactive writing activities. This was best illustrated in our first-grade Title I project, where Ruth introduced the strategies and gave children opportunities to practice using them during daily word study lessons. Then, during interactive writing events, she continually prompted the students to use the strategies she had taught.

For example, during an interactive writing lesson in mid-November, Ben was trying to write the word dog in the story the class was composing. Ruth prompted him to "say the word slowly and listen for the sounds" he could hear. He did so and spelled the word correctly.

In late April, Andrew was trying to write the word street. He said the word slowly, demonstrating that he had appropriated the use of this important strategy. Then he wrote stret in the story. Ruth praised him for using a spelling strategy, and then she prompted, "The /e/ in street is spelled like the word wall word see." Andrew knew immediately what he needed to do. Ruth covered the et with correction tape and Andrew wrote eet in its place. Ruth's prompting was essential to Andrew's success.

There were numerous examples like these across our research projects. The teacher's prompting targeted the child's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978), which allowed the child to be successful as he or she wrote at the chart.

It is clear to us now that applying orthographic features and principles while composing extended text is far more cognitively demanding for students than using word knowledge to spell sample words during word study lessons and word work activities. Our research has helped us to see that if word study is to move beyond spelling instruction and become an approach to supporting young children's writing development, then most students will need explicit demonstrations on how they can use word study strategically during authentic writing activities. They will also need frequent opportunities to practice doing so in the context of their teacher's scaffolding and guidance.

Tip 7: Make your word wall work

A word wall is a special section of a classroom wall designated for the exploration and study of words (see Cunningham, 1995). If you have a word wall in your classroom, be sure it is more than a simple display of words-make it work for you and your students. The word wall should be clearly visible and accessible.

Use the word wall frequently as a teaching tool and help students learn to use it as a resource for their writing. We recommend placing words on the word wall that not only illustrate the orthographic feature or principle you are teaching but also can be used in generative ways to spell other words. For example, the high-frequency word see can be used to teach students the double ee spelling of the long e vowel, and it is generative in the sense that students can use it to help spell a host of words with -ee, -eed, -eek, -eel, -eem, -een, -eep, -eet, and -eeze endings (e.g., tree, feed, week, wheel, seem, green, sheep, beet, sneeze).

Discuss the orthographic feature(s) you are teaching before placing the exemplar word on the word wall. Then show students how they can use these exemplar words to spell other words. The word wall should be a dynamic tool-change it often. Remove words that students know how to spell and replace them with exemplar words for new concepts you are teaching.

In our research, we found mixed results with regard to students' use of the word wall. Some students used the word wall frequently while they were writing; other students rarely used it-and this was the case regardless of grade level or academic ability. Interestingly, students were more likely to use the word wall as a resource for their writing when their teacher used it as a teaching tool and also encouraged her students to use it strategically to support their independent writing endeavors.

Tip 8: "Word work" should work, too!

Once you've introduced a specific orthographic feature or principle, students will need ample opportunities to explore it through hands-on games and activities. Word work can be scheduled throughout the day during independent work time or center time.

As we mentioned above, each small group will need several activities every week to provide repeated opportunities for examining the concepts you are teaching and to promote inquiry and discovery about the way English words work. These activities should be crafted in such a way that students can engage in them independently or with a partner. We have found that making and breaking words with magnetic letters, word searches, and word study notebooks are particularly beneficial.

Above all, we recommend word sorting, an activity that requires students to sort words into categories. Word sorting actively engages students in exploration and analysis as they search for similarities and recognize differences between and among words, compare and contrast word features, and form generalizations that they can apply to new words. For example, a word sort of match, reach, switch, coach, hutch, and teach can help students learn that the tch pattern typically follows a short vowel and the ch pattern typically follows a long vowel. Including the words rich and much in the word sort can help students learn to study words flexibly - to look for exceptions to the generalizations they form (see Bear et al., 2008).

We recommend pairing students with a buddy for at least some of the weekly word work activities (see Pinnell & Fountas, 1998). Buddies can challenge each other's thinking and check each other's work. Assign buddies based on results from the first informal spelling inventory and then change them after subsequent administrations. You will also want to change buddies if students aren't working well together or if one student makes significant growth that the buddy hasn't made.

Tip 9: Engage students in extensive "real" reading and writing

Finally, we recommend daily extended, authentic reading and writing activities where children are encouraged to read and to compose texts on topics of their choosing. In each of our studies, the teacher engaged students in extensive, "real" reading and writing events.

For example, one morning when Diane's first graders were excitedly talking about the Bengals "finally winning a football game," Diane encouraged her students to write about the winning touchdown in their journals. We watched as the children used the strategies they had learned to spell the football players' names. When Derek announced that he was going to "sound out Houshmandzadeh," Emily said, "No way!" and began to look for the name in print around the room. Brad suggested that "a newspaper would have it!" and Diane agreed that students could read the paper that evening with their parents or look online.

The writing activities provided us a context for examining students' use of word study instruction, but that was not our primary goal. We wanted to give students plenty of opportunities to use what they had learned. We also knew that meaningful, sustained reading and writing experiences support spelling development (Hughes & Searle, 1997) and that, in turn, spelling knowledge supports reading and writing development (Richgels, 1995). Children draw on their orthographic knowledge to accomplish all three aspects of literacy (Templeton, 2003).

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Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom

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Word study is an approach to spelling instruction that moves away from a focus on memorization. The approach reflects what researchers have discovered about the alphabetic, pattern, and meaning layers of English orthography. This article describes nine tips for implementing a word study program in your classroom.

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Watch Turtle Diary's Compound Words video. Your students will learn about ela in a fun and engaging way!

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Learn second grade English language arts skills for free! Choose from hundreds of topics including phonics, reading comprehension, writing, grammar, and more. Start now!

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Learn second grade English language arts skills for free! Choose from hundreds of topics including phonics, reading comprehension, writing, grammar, and more. Start now!

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Five Activities To Improve Reading Fluency.docx