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Bear, D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (1996). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Chard, D., & Dickson, S. (1999). Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines.

Ellis, E. (1997). How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities.

Goswami, U., & Mead, F. (1992). Onset and rime awareness and analogies in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 2, 153-162.

Wise, B. W., Olson, R. K., & Treiman, R. (1990). Subsyllabic units as aids in beginning readers word learning Onset-rime versus post-vowel segmentation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 4, 1-19.

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The "onset" is the initial phonological unit of any word (e.g. /c/ in cat) and the term "rime" refers to the string of letters that follow, usually a vowel and final consonants (e.g. /a/ /t/ in cat). Not all words have onsets.

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What is Orthographic Mapping?

Have you ever wondered how students memorize sight words or why some students seem to effortlessly learn new words while others can't seem to make them stick? This post is all about a theory called orthographic mapping, which was originally introduced by Linnea Ehri. More recently David Kilpatrick has written books about the topic that caught my interest and transformed my teaching. Orthographic mapping is the process of creating sound-symbol connections to recall the spelling, pronunciation, and the meaning of words.

This post uses information from a few different resources, which I will list at the bottom of the post. I highly recommend reading these books when you get a chance. This is just an overview, and I'm hoping that it inspires you all to dig deeper with those books.

(Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert. I'm just super interested in all of this and have been studying and attempting to apply this information as best I can. This post is my attempt to summarize and break it down in a way that makes sense to me. It's just as much for you as it is for me! I have a really hard time remembering things, so creating a post like this helps me to wrap my brain around it and hopefully remember it! Ha! I hope it can do the same for some of you.)

What Does Reading Require?

I should start with the big picture: Reading requires two skill sets: Printed Word Recognition and Language Comprehension.

This post is focusing on printed word recognition. Word recognition requires phoneme awareness (sound awareness) and phonics (alphabet awareness- which symbols link to those sounds).

This post will go into how new readers take unknown printed words and turn them into known "sight words" or words automatically recognized.

But First... What's happening in the Brain

Research says the brain reads by breaking words into sounds. Our brains are naturally wired for speech, but not for reading! (Louisa Moats) Reading is a human invention developed over thousands of years.

(To read about the evolution and history of reading, check out Maryanne Wolf's book called Proust the Squid).

Our brain relies on other systems already in place mostly in the brain's language center to work together to read. There are four systems working together when we read:

One part of the brain (orthographic processor) identifies and processes the letters and letter patterns that our eyes see on the page. It's what helps us remember letter sequences for spelling.

Another part of the brain (phonological processor) identifies, remembers, interprets and produces speech sounds. Phoneme awareness is just one of the jobs of the phonological processor.

A third part connects the word to meaning (meaning processor). When we read, the orthographic processor and phonological processor must communicate with the meaning processor to make sense of the words we are reading. Another word for this is the semantic processor.

A fourth deals with background information and sentence context (context processor). The context processor interprets words.I find this one super interesting because it mainly supports the meaning processor. As you know, context helps us determine a word's meaning by using the words around it. Although context is helpful with self correcting, but it is not effective alone word identification.

(This information is from Louisa Moats: LETRS and Marilyn Adams: Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print)

The phonological and orthographic processors work together for word recognition. Automatic word recognition (identifying a word "on sight") happens after the word is read and mapped over and over and neural connections have gotten stronger and stronger. For some kids, this happens quickly after only a few repetitions, while with others, it takes seemingly endless (possibly hundreds of) exposures. (See my post on dyslexia.)

After students have mastered many words (meaning they have stored those letters patterns in their own mental lexicon), then they can begin to read using these familiar patterns. They may be quicker to read "p-an" and "m-an" because they have read "can" so many times and have "mapped" the letters a-n to the pronunciation "an".

I always tell my kindergarten students that reading begins with our ears. This is so true, but I didn't how true it was for a long time. They always get a kick out of this because of course they think reading begins with their eyes, looking at print. Reminding myself of this has really shaped how I teach reading and spelling. Read on to learn more!

Orthographic Mapping: How words become "sight words"

When students are first learning to read, they are sounding out most words. As they read more, they start to recognize words "on sight" without having to decode. But how does this happen? They need to store these letter sequences correctly (for word recognition) through orthographic mapping.

Orthographic Mapping is the process we use to store words into long term memory. (David Kilpatrick) These stored words are words that are recognized instantly without decoding. Skilled readers may develop orthographic mapping skills naturally, while others need more explicit instruction, guidance, and repetition to do so.

Clip art by: Educlips; Fonts by KG Fonts and A Perfect Blend Fonts

In his books Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties and Equipped for Reading Success, David Kilpatrick explains that with orthographic mapping, a reader is using the oral pronunciation of words that is already stored in memory with the correct letter (orthographic) sequences. He goes on to say the sequence of letters are anchored to the pronunciation of words. These pronunciations are already stored in our long term memory because we learn to speak well before we learn to read. I tried to break it down as I understand it here:

Developing a Phonological Lexicon

When toddlers learn to speak, each individual phoneme (sound) of a word is sequenced automatically, then stored in the brain's phonological lexicon. Basically, that word is in that child's word bank.

They can tell the difference between a cat and a hat, even though they only differ by one sound.

They recognize and interpret the sounds in those words and connect it to meaning (a furry animal or a thing you put on your head).

The phonological lexicon also includes word parts! (This will be relevant later in my post.) Once a child is ready to read, it's time to develop the orthographic lexicon.

Let's look at how this orthographic lexicon is developed.

Turning Unknown words into Sight Words

Remember that reading is a man-made skill and there is not a specific part of the brain that is designed solely for reading. Our brains use other systems in place together to make it all happen. It really is quite amazing!

The first few steps explain how phonic decoding works:

The following slide demonstrates how decoding (phonics) works. Keep in mind, this is only one piece of the puzzle. Keep reading to see what piece of the puzzle leads to word recognition!

Although phonic decoding is an essential skill for reading, it alone may not lead to future word recognition (knowing the word by sight) for all of our students. This is where orthographic mapping comes in! Think of it as going backward from phonic decoding.

With phonic decoding, students are taking the individual sounds (that they have translated from the letters) and blending them to make a whole word. (Part to whole.)

With orthographic mapping, students will take a whole word and break it into its sound parts and connect to the correct graphemes (letters or letter combinations), paying special attention to the exact sequence of letters and how it connects to the sounds. (Whole to parts.) It's this process that helps get the word stored in long-term memory.

Remember above when I said that our phonological lexicon also involves word parts? That's good news for our struggling readers because they can map common word parts and apply them to new words. Here is an illustration of how it's done:

Clip art by: Educlips and A Sketchy Guy. Fonts by KG Fonts and A Perfect Blend Fonts

Common Reading Practices to Reconsider

Using Context and other Strategies to "Read" Words

I was trained on guided reading and balanced literacy with an emphasis on reading strategies, mastering "sight words", and the belief that simply exposing kids to literacy (no matter how implicitly) would lead to successful and strategic readers. Except after a few years I realized that this worked for many of my readers (likely the ones that would learn to read in spite of their teacher or the instruction). However, this wasn't enough for some of my students.

I realized that the strategies (without explicit word study instruction) were actually just helping them compensate and cover up the fact that they couldn't decode. This was leading to constant guessing.

Turns out that contextual guessing not only doesn't help our struggling reader store the unknown word in memory, but it actually hinders them from learning the word. If they can guess, then they are not actually attending to the sequence of letters in the word. (Archer& Bryant 2001; Landi 2007)

Without strong foundational skills, these students were left to guess and use context. This is not enough. I couldn't figure out why they weren't applying certain rules that I "went over" during shared reading or for a few minutes during word work. Remember above when I talked about the phonological and orthographic processors that are in charge of word identification? These processors are linked to the context processor through the meaning processor. So that means word recognition does not happen through context.

Context does help once a word has been decoded. If a new reader decodes an unfamiliar word and doesn't get the stress right or gets one sound wrong, often then the context can help the student self correct that word. But context alone should not be the main tool in our students' reading tool belts.

Using Leveled Readers

So here's where I'm really going out onto a limb and I may ruffle some feathers. I no longer use leveled books and the traditional guided reading method with my beginning readers. Eek! I said it! Hear me out though. Think about those beginning leveled readers (levels A-D). What are your kids mainly doing? They are using the picture, looking at the first letter and guessing. Context plays a big part, too. There are few if any opportunities for students to actually apply phonic decoding skills with words they can actually be successful with. This goes against all of the research on how we learn to read.

That isn't to say that there isn't a place for leveled books later. I do use them once my students have a stronger foundation. In kindergarten, I would only use those leveled readers for those kids who can map more effortlessly. You know who they are. They are the ones who can learn sight words easily and who decode quickly. They are the exception though. I would still not use those alone, even with those kids. I want to make sure those kids who can seemingly read, have a strong foundation too. I would still spend a lot of time on phonics and morphology skills. I would also check their spelling skills! (See this post about spelling instruction.)

With the average kindergartener, I would not rush those sight word flash cards or the leveled readers. I would spend more time giving them opportunities to apply their newfound phonics skills in context using controlled texts. More about that below under Implications for Teaching. I do think there is a time and place for guided reading. I just think if we rush it too soon before foundational skills are in place and before they have had time to map words and word parts, we are setting some of our readers up for failure or for bad reading habits.

The Sight Word Myth

When I began teaching, I was taught (or maybe I inferred based on the methods I was taught) that good readers simply see a whole word and memorize it. Give 'em a set of flashcards and have at it. This is based on the assumption that we memorize words using our visual memory. Turns out, when we see a word, the input is visual but we do not store them visually.

Written words are actually stored (for later recall and recognition) on many levels at the same time: Phonologically (pronunciation), orthographically (spelling), and semantically (meaning). According to David Kilpatrick (and other researchers), there is actually a small correlation between sight word vocabulary and visual memory (although it does help with letter identification). There IS a strong correlation between sight vocabulary and phonemic awareness. As I explained above, to store a word permanently, students need to use phonemic awareness and letter knowledge to "map" that word's orthography (spelling).

If that's all too much to take in now, just think about this:

The whole language theory rests on this idea of using visual memory to store words. For years, I assigned sight words without any teaching behind them. I didn't think I was practicing whole language techniques, but actually, I was just by doing this. For years, I guided my kids to rely on context and other strategies that did not require them to really dissect the word. These strategies are fine to use as long as strong foundational skills about our language are explicitly taught. I was sort of missing that last part though. 😉 And a big reason I didn't dedicate more time to phonics and morphology is because I believed that English didn't make sense (and quite frankly I didn't know anything about it!) That's the second myth- that sight words are mostly irregular and don't make any sense. More about that in this post about English orthography.)

One more thing that I thought was really interesting is that the average human memory can only actually hold 2000 individual symbols (Diane McGuinness: Why our Children Can't Read and What to do about it), yet the average adult knows 40-60,000 words (and a well-educated adults knows 200,000). (Denise Eide: Uncovering the Logic or English) That's quite the discrepancy between how many words our oral language uses vs. how many words our brain can memorize.

This is a big hole in the whole-language/memorize-sight-words-without -phonics approach. I cringe when I think about how I "coached" my students to just see it and say it when I showed them a "sight word". I actually told them not to sound it out! AGH! I was under the impression that they had seen this word enough time and it should just be popping into their head. But guess what Sarah from the past... if it didn't pop out of their mouths, then it wasn't properly mapped in their memory. What I was doing was encouraging them to guess the first thing that looked like that word.

Now I know that with guidance, my students can and should "sound out" these high-frequency words instead of guessing. Now I know what you're thinking. Many kids do seem to just memorize those sight words pretty effortlessly. That's true enough, but they are still using the same process of mapping word parts and words, just faster. I think of those kids as the kids that will learn to read in spite of teaching methods or proper instruction. There are definitely those kids. But what about the 20% or more that don't?

The science tells us that skilled readers (like you) read words on a page effortlessly because you are "matching the words with spelling images that have been mapped or stored in your brain"..."Your reading circuitry is in place.". (Brain Words How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching by J. Richard Gentry and Gene P. Ouellette) Our brain has a lot of work to do to get to that point though. We need to listen to the science of reading and apply it to our teaching practice.

How To Teach High-Frequency "Sight" Words?

We map them the same way we would any other word. If it is "irregular", we point the irregular part(s) out and still map it. There are a few high frequency words that really don't make sense ( could is one I still can't figure out), but most are either off by one sound or they can be explained by a "generalization" or morphological connection. (Read more here)

Here is another visual that you can download.

Click here to download this guide along with the Map It board.

Here's another example with the word "want".

Click here to download this.

Implications for Teaching

All of the technical and scientific stuff here is interesting and relevant to understanding how our students learn to read and, perhaps more importantly, why some kids struggle so much. So now, it's our job as teachers to take this information that has been given to us by these amazing researchers and apply it to our teaching practices in the classroom.

I explain below a few ways that I've done that, but one thing I want you to walk away with is spelling. I know a trend is to throw spelling out the window. Heck, I even believed in that trend for a while. Here's what you should throw out the window: (1) Spelling lists that are random. (2) Spelling tests that just promote memorization. (3) Spelling lists that put too many spelling patterns at once.

As you will see below, spelling should be integrated into your instruction and can be done with your reading instruction. Encoding and decoding go hand and hand. Asking our students to hear a word, think about knowledge of spelling patterns, and then attempt to write that word is actually very helpful and fits in with all of this research. The key is to follow up with the correct spelling, pointing out the correct sound-symbol correspondence using the methods shown below. Hope this helps!

Process for Orthographic Mapping

Hand clip art by Creative Clips

Here is an example that you may do in late 1st grade or early 2nd grade:

Here is what a small group follow up lesson may look like:

The Role of Phonemic Awareness with Orthographic Mapping

Kilpatrick talks a lot about the importance of advanced phonemic awareness skills with orthographic mapping, like phoneme addition, deletion, and substituting. You will not need to continue this with all of your students. Kilpatrick says that "Typically developing readers will naturally analyze any whole word phonemically and establish an orthographic representation of that word." However, you will have students who do require this guided practice with advanced phonemic analysis.

Kilpatrick states that weak readers do not naturally engage in orthographic mapping because they lack those advanced phonemic awareness skills.

Below are some pictures from my small group work. We do a lot of phonemic segmenting with bingo chips and, when they are ready, continue with advanced phonemic skills.

For a kindergartener, I would say "Break up the word map". They would push the chips as they say /m/ /a/ /p/. Then I would say, "Take away the /m/. What do you have now?" (ap). Then I would slide over a new bingo chip and say, "This is /s/." I would place it where the /m/ was and ask, "now what is the word?" (sap).

For first and second graders, it gets a little tricker. You may ask your students to break up sled, then ask them to take away the /l/ and add in /p/. That takes phonological working memory (they are holding those sounds in their head long enough to do something with them) and phonological awareness/analysis.

Kilpatrick recommends doing more advanced phonemic awareness activities as students get older. Admittedly, I was not doing enough of this. I did a ton with kinder and beginning first, but then I focused on phonics and didn't put time into advanced phonemic awareness. Now that I do put time into it, I really see the value!

Below is just regular phoneme segmenting and connecting to graphemes. I have a set of sound boxes for several phonetic elements.

You can grab printable Sound Boxes here and digital sound boxes here.

After Mapping: Gaining Automaticity with Word Parts

Below is a chart I used after mapping word parts. I had a similar chart for my first and second graders once they learned silent e, vowel teams, r-controlled vowels, etc.

Under that star on the chart above, put irregular words that you have taught. For example, is, has, and was could go there. Map it first for your students, then add it to your chart.

Below shows some charts for silent e and vowel teams.

Here are some activities I've done with my students after word parts have been mapped:

I've used this activity as a follow-up after we have initially mapped a word:

Click here for these cards and many other decoding resources (including Google Slides)

And of course sometimes you just have to mix it up with phonics games! Our students work so hard and often need soooooo much repetition, so making it a game whenever possible is huge!

Click here to download a free template to make a Word Part Race as shown below:

Making your Word Sort Meaningful:

I used to think word sorts were a waste of time because I saw students just looking at the spelling of the word and matching it without reading it. Now I see how valuable they are as long as the right delivery is there. 😉 Below shows a picture of ways that I use sorting that I feel does support orthographic mapping.

Here, they are taking the whole word (the picture card) and they must first use phonemic awareness skills to segment the onset and the rime. Then they have to isolate that rime (for example, "ad") and match it to the correct letter sequence. This may be easy for some, but let me tell you, it is a challenge for many! That means it's worth doing!

If you are using word cards instead of picture cards, you just need to make sure they are reading them. If they are doing it as an independent activity, they likely will just try to match without reading. But if you do it as a small group activity, where they are whisper reading the word card and you are guiding, it can be quite effective.

Click here for picture and word cards (Print /laminate and Google Slides).

Next Steps: Phonic Decoding with Controlled Texts

After all the mapping, give your students opportunities to practice phonic decoding in context. Here are a few ways I provide controlled decodable texts.

In that first picture (the sentence ladders), I had them identify familiar rimes before reading. This group was working on silent e and we had mapped several word endings (rimes) with silent e.

First, I had students whisper read word endings that they spotted.

Then I called on students to share one they found.

I instruct them to say, "a-l-e, ale".

I would underline those word endings as they read them to me.

The other pictures just show normal decoding with sentences, but you can connect by asking, What ending do you see in the word pig? or Which word has the ending et?

Click here for decodable sentence resources.

I also use decodable short stories. You can find some decodable passages (also available as Google Slides) here.

What Skills Are Needed For Orthographic Mapping?

1. Sound-Symbol Awareness: Explicitly teaching and reviewing graphemes (letter or groups of letters that represent a sound) is the first important step.

As I've mentioned before, students need to recognize and produce the sound associated with a symbol with automaticity. This begins in kindergarten with the alphabet. (To read a blog post about systematic alphabet instruction, click here. To get resources for systematic alphabet instruction, click here.)

2. Phonemic awareness: I can't say it enough how important this is. Integrate it into you classroom daily!

Start with rhyming and isolating initial sounds (integrate into alphabet instruction), then move on to stretching words to hear medial sounds and ending sounds.

Next, you can move into phoneme segmenting (breaking words into individual sounds). You can easily do this with the whole class by finger spelling words. You don't need to wait for students to learn letters before doing this. Students may know one letter or all their letters, but they may (or may not) be equally good at this skill. You can start phonemic awareness activities day 1 in kindergarten!

Eventually you merge these two skills and that's when the magic happens. Since I've already been working on phoneme segmenting with finger spelling, they will be ready to start orthographic mapping using word parts or words with familiar letters they have learned. You can even start mapping when your students only know a few letters! Once I've taught my first set of letters, I start modeling phoneme segmenting. Some students are not ready to do this one their own, but others are. At this point, I'm modeling these skills.

As you map these word parts, add them to your chart of sticky notes shown above. Then review them daily. This can be done with the whole class, then you can reinforce as needed with small groups. Some kids might be ready to read more words, while others may need more time with each word part. Make a clear sequence to follow to keep you on track.

3. Phonological Long Term Memory: This is that phonological lexicon I was talking about earlier. Interestingly enough, dyslexic students can have a great phonological long-term memory but not have adequate phoneme awareness/analysis skills to effectively map the printed version of these words into long-term memory. You'll have to read Kirkpatrick's book to learn more!

Advanced Phonemic Awareness

One thing that I was missing when I originally wrote this blog post was the importance of continuing to do advanced phonemic drills with students beyond first and second grade. Kilpatrick's book Equipped for Reading Success has a whole section dedicated to drills you can use with. your students. He also provides a free assessment so you know where you need to begin with your students. How does this relate to learning new words? Kilpatrick talks about how typically developing readers may naturally engage in the process of mapping words. However, weaker readers will not naturally engage in this process because they lack the phonemic awareness skills.

References for Orthographic Mapping

The majority of information from this post can be found in David Kilpatrick's books, which I highly recommend. This blog post is just the tip of the iceberg. Reading his books will give you a deeper understanding and provide a lot more background as well as examples of how to teach.

After reading his book, I went back and read articles and research studies that he recommended. Dr. Louisa Moats has a whole series called " target="_blank" aria-label="undefined (opens in a new tab)" rel="noreferrer noopener">LETRS, which I also highly recommend. I went to a presentation of her several years ago and that was a game changer for me. It led me to all of this. Her books are easy to understand and so thorough! This one shown below is the first. If you are pressed for time, simply google her name and read the free articles she's written.

I also highly recommend Brain Words How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching. So much great information.

Here is research by Linnea Ehri: click here

Related Blog Posts

For more about how to teach reading, click here.

For more about the Science of Reading, click here.

Resources

I have tons of resources for phonic decoding and spelling!

If you're looking for a systematic approach to reading and spelling, click HER E to check out these units.

I also have a few different phonemic awareness resources (printable and hands on). Click here for those.

I also have several printable intervention packs, like the one shown below. Click here to get to those.

Digital Resources

I have several Boom decks for word building including cvc words, digraphs, consonant blends, silent e, vowel teams, ck words, bossy r, and diphthongs. I set these up to be like sound boxes. With this resource, students can tap the picture to hear the word, then they drag the letters to the empty boxes to spell the word. These are self-checking, which is great because then students can try again if they make an error.
Click HERE to see all of the digital word building decks.

Click HERE to read a blog posts all about Boom Decks.

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How Do We Learn New Words? Orthographic Mapping - Sarah's Teaching Snippets

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Orthographic mapping is the process of connecting pronunciation of a word with letter sequences to permanently store words into long term memory.

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Rhyming Games | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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Rhyme is found in poetry, songs, and many children’s books and games. Most children also love to sing and recite nursery rhymes. Words that can be grouped together by a common sound, for example the ”-at” family — cat, hat, and sat — can be used to teach children about similar spellings. Children ca…

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As students progress in their literacy understanding, they move from reading and writing single syllable words (often with consonant-vowel-consonant constructions) to reading and writing multisyllabic words. Instruction focused on teaching students about syllables often focuses on teaching different…

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Lyn Stone (What is Orthograhic Mapping?)

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Lyn Stone (What is Orthograhic Mapping?)

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MultiSensory Games and Activities for Syllable Segmenting 

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MultiSensory Games and Activities for Syllable Segmenting 

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Phonemic Awareness: Segmenting and Identifying Ending Blends

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FCRR.org: Phoneme Manipulation - Phoneme Swap Activity

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FCRR.org: Phoneme Manipulation - Phoneme Swap Activity

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FCRR.org: Phoneme Manipulation - Phoneme Name Changes Activity

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FCRR.org: Phoneme Manipulation - Phoneme Name Changes Activity

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Say It, Move It, Spell It (Word Building): 

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Word Solving Strip for Kindergarten and First Grade

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Word Solving Strip for Kindergarten and First Grade

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Decoding Bookmark for Kindergarten and First Grade

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About Onset & Rime Tiles

Print onset and rime tiling cards in a range of styles and sizes.

Use Choose Letters to select the onset and rimes to use.

Use Card Size to change the size of cards on the page.

Use Card Style to select the colour scheme.

Use Font to select a typeface - clean, specialist and decorative fonts are included.

Report Problems or Suggest Improvements

Use this form to contact us about this printable. Comments will not be made public.

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Onset & Rime Tiles ⋆ Printable Visual Aid

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About Onset & Rime Tiles Print onset and rime tiling cards in a range of styles and sizes. Use Choose Letters to select the onset and rimes to use. Use Card Size to change the size of cards on the page. Use Card Style to select the colour scheme.

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Florida Center of Reading Research (fcrr.org)

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Florida Center of Reading Research (fcrr.org)

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Parents and children visiting the LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library System will find new resources awaiting them thanks to Book Nook Bundles provided by the Florida Center for Reading Research.

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University of Florida Virtual Teaching Resource Hub

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University of Florida Virtual Teaching Resource Hub

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Closer To Z Game. (Letter Sequencing and Identification)

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Letter Names and Spinners

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Race To The Top Letter Game- In Person Low Tech

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Phonological skill develops in a predictable progression. This concept is important, as it provides the basis for sequencing teaching tasks from easy to more difficult. Table 1 outlines the relative difficulty of phonological awareness tasks. Table 2 is a more specific synthesis of several research reviews and summaries (Adams et al., 1998; Gillon, 2004; Goswami, 2000; Paulson, 2004; Rath, 2001) that ties specific ages to the typical accomplishment of those phonological awareness tasks.

Prerequisite to phonological awareness is basic listening skill; the acquisition of a several-thousand word vocabulary; the ability to imitate and produce basic sentence structures; and the use of language to express needs, react to others, comment on experience, and understand what others intend.

Table 1. Phonological skills, from most basic to advanced

Word awareness

Tracking the words in sentences.

Note: This semantic language skill is much less directly predictive of reading than the skills that follow and less important to teach directly (Gillon, 2004). It is not so much a phonological skill as a semantic (meaning-based) language skill.

Responsiveness to rhyme and alliteration during word play

Enjoying and reciting learned rhyming words or alliterative phrases in familiar storybooks or nursery rhymes.

Syllable awareness

Counting, tapping, blending, or segmenting a word into syllables.

Onset and rime manipulation

The ability to produce a rhyming word depends on understanding that rhyming words have the same rime. Recognizing a rhyme is much easier than producing a rhyme.

Phoneme awareness

Identify and match the initial sounds in words, then the final and middle sounds (e.g., "Which picture begins with /m/?"; "Find another picture that ends in /r/").

Segment and produce the initial sound, then the final and middle sounds (e.g., "What sound does zoo start with?"; "Say the last sound in milk"; "Say the vowel sound in rope ").

Blend sounds into words (e.g., "Listen: /f/ /ē/ /t/. Say it fast").

Segment the phonemes in two- or three-sound words, moving to four- and five- sound words as the student becomes proficient (e.g., "The word is eyes. Stretch and say the sounds: /ī/ /z/").

Manipulate phonemes by removing, adding, or substituting sounds (e.g., "Say smoke without the /m/").

Table 2. Ages at which 80-90 percent of typical students have achieved a phonological skill

4

Rote imitation and enjoyment of rhyme and alliteration

pool, drool, tool
"Seven silly snakes sang songs seriously."

5

Rhyme recognition, odd word out

"Which two words rhyme:
stair, steel, chair?"

Recognition of phonemic changes in words

" Hickory Dickory Clock. That's not right!"

Clapping, counting syllables

5½

Distinguishing and remembering separate phonemes in a series

Show sequences of single phonemes with colored blocks: /s/ /s/ /f/; /z/ /sh/ /z/.

Producing a rhyme

"Tell me a word that rhymes with car." ( star)

Matching initial sounds; isolating an initial sound

"Say the first sound in ride (/r/); sock (/s/); love (/l/)."

6

Compound word deletion

"Say cowboy. Say it again, but don't say cow."

Syllable deletion

"Say parsnip. Say it again, but don't say par."

Phoneme segmentation of words that have simple syllables with two or three phonemes (no blends)

"Say the word as you move a chip for each sound."

6½

Phoneme segmentation of words that have up to three or four phonemes (include blends)

"Say the word slowly while you tap the sounds."

Phoneme substitution to build new words that have simple syllables (no blends)

"Change the /j/ in cage to /n/.
Change the /ā/ in cane to /ō/."

7

Sound deletion (initial and final positions)

"Say meat. Say it again, without the /m/."
"Say safe. Say it again, without the /f/."

8

Sound deletion (initial position, include blends)

"Say prank. Say it again, without the /p/."

9

Sound deletion (medial and final blend positions)

"Say snail. Say it again, without the /n/."
"Say fork. Say it again, without the /k/."

Paulson (2004) confirmed the hierarchy of phonological skill acquisition in 5-year-olds entering kindergarten. Only 7 percent of 5-year-olds who had not yet had kindergarten could segment phonemes in spoken words. The production of rhymes was more difficult for 5-year-olds than commonly assumed, as only 61 percent could give a rhyming word for a stimulus. Only 29 percent could blend single phonemes into whole words. Although some young students will pick up these skills with relative ease during the kindergarten year - especially if the curriculum includes explicit activities - other students must be taught these metalinguistic skills directly and systematically.

Moats, L, & Tolman, C (2009). Excerpted from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): The Speech Sounds of English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Phoneme Awareness (Module 2). Boston: Sopris West.

For more information on Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) visit Voyager Sopris .

For any reprint requests, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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Basic listening skills and "word awareness" are critical precursors to phonological awareness. Learn the milestones for acquiring phonological skills.

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Phonological Awareness Activities and Games to Engage Your Students

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Phonological Awareness Activities and Games to Engage Your Students

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"C-a-t. . . . MAP!"

Ever have students who do that?

Even when students know letter sounds, they may still have trouble reading because they don't blend the sounds correctly.

The likely cause is a lack of phonological or phonemic awareness.

Phonological, Phonemic: What's the Difference?

First things first, phonological awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate sounds in spoken words. While phonological awareness can include syllables or parts of words (ex: onset and rime), awareness deals with individual phonemes, or sounds.

For example, blending or segmenting the sounds in the word CAT is a phonemic awareness activity. Identifying the number of syllables in the word CAT is not.

They are both phonological awareness activities, but phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness that deals with phonemes, or individual sounds.
So, in a nutshell:
phonological = individual sounds AND words and parts of words

phonemic = individual sounds

Children need strong phonological awareness skills in order to decode words when reading and it's important to work on these skills starting from pre-K and continuing to 1st grade and even beyond.

Not Sure Where to Start?

Grab my FREE Phonological Awareness Toolkit Here!

Phonological Awareness Activities and Games

So how can you develop these essential skills while having fun? Well, I'm glad you asked! Here is a list of phonological awareness skills and some activities and games to practice them.

Word awareness

Being able to identify discrete words. Sometimes kids have a hard time separating words in a sentence, or they may mistake syllables for words.

Have students repeat words, one at a time. Use mono- and multi-syllabic words.

Count words in a sentence.

Make a gesture after every word in a sentence (stomp, clap, sit, etc).

First, kids learn to recognize when words rhyme. It helps to point out the part that sounds the same so students know what to listen for.

Producing rhymes, or coming up with their own words that rhyme, is a more difficult skill. Scaffold by giving students the first sound and having them say the rime, then blend the word.

Read rhyming books or poems. Emphasize the first word in a rhyming pair and ask kids to call out the 2nd rhyming word.

Rhyming Riddles- "I'm thinking of a snack that rhymes with wookies...cookies!"

Rhyming Circle- Have students sit in a circle. Start by saying a word and go around the circle, asking kids to add a rhyming word to the list. Each student says the words before their turn and adds a new one! *Start with the next child for each new word.

Recognizing when words have the same beginning, ending, or middle sound.

Tongue Twisters!

Name Matching- Say a word and ask kids whose names start/ end with the same sound to stand up/ jump/ raise their hands.

Around the Room- Ask students to find something around the room that begins with the same beginning sound as their name. Or, have them find 2 objects that start/end with the same sound. This is more fun if you have a class set of plastic glasses! *TIP* Read Rosie's Glasses to teach growth mindset at the beginning of the year and gift your students these glasses, then use them throughout the year for reading, read/write around the room, and other activities that have to do with searching! I used these glasses, but I like these colorful glasses too!

Mystery Bag- Place a few items that begin with a target sound in a bag. Give children clues and see if they can guess all of the items. Take one out for each correct guess. "In this mystery bag, I have 4 items that start with /m/. The first one is white and soft, and people use it to make S'mores!"

"When I say. . . "- Say a word and have students say just the beginning/ middle/ ending sound in the word. Make it into a song! Start each with the phrase, "When I say CAT, you say (kids say /K/), CAT, /k/, CAT, /k/!" (Tribute to DJ Kool here! #iykyk)

Being able to separate an individual sound from a word. For example, isolating the beginning sound in the word MAT (/m/). Sometimes the first letter doesn't match the sound (ex: ship). Remember, we are focusing on phonemes (sounds) rather than graphemes (letter representations).

Blending

"Code Words"-One of our favorite phonological awareness games! Say the sounds in a word and have kids call out the word. This could be an item around the room, a snack kids are eating, kids' names, or words in a category, i.e; body parts. This can also be used to blend syllables or onset/ rime.

Talk "whale"- Seen Finding Nemo? It's one of my favorite movies, probably because I can relate so well to Dory's poor memory! 🤣 I also love to speak "whale" (very slowly) and have kids blend the sounds to say the word quickly. Read more about speaking whale for sounding out words here.

Blending individual sounds together to say a word.

Segmenting

Hop to it- Show a picture of an object and have kids hop for each sound. For example, show a pig, kids say /p/,/i/,/g/, hopping 3 times. In my room, we had a rug with squares so kids hopped on a new square for each sound.

Bounce to it- Same as above but bounce a ball once for each sound or syllable.

Use manipulatives- Have kids move a manipulative for each sound. For example, move counters into Elkonin boxes, smash balls of play-doh, or just make it tactile by tapping dots.

Elkonin boxes from my Phonological Awareness Bundle

The opposite of blending, segmenting is separating the sounds in a word.

Phoneme Addition: Adding a sound to the beginning or end of a word (ex: star + /t/ = start)

Phoneme Deletion: Omitting a sound (ex: start - /t/ = star)

Phoneme Substitution: Changing a sound (ex: Change the /t/ to /m/ in start = smart)

Phoneme Manipulation

Although blending and segmenting are the most popular types of phonemic awareness activities. it's helpful for kids to continue with these more are advanced skills:

The Hungry Thing by Jan Slepian is one of my favorite books for phoneme substitution! Print out the food cards from the freebie and place them on a pocket chart, then cut an oval for a dish. Ask kids to make you a breakfast plate with shmancakes, mapples, and wattles (pancakes, apples, and waffles).

It can be hard coming up with examples to use for each of the activities above, but in my Phonological Awareness Bundle, I include skill cards that can be printed or displayed on a whiteboard for whole-group practice.

If you are looking for a way to incorporate more phonological and phonemic awareness into your instruction, it's a great resource to have! Besides the skill cards, it also includes quick warm-ups you can do during your small-group reading or for whole-class practice. Each warm-up has 3 activities with lots of words to use (meant to be used across several sessions, a few words at once).

*Intervention tips for students who struggle with each task are included as well.

In addition, I made practice pages for each skill that you can use for even more practice or as quick assessments.

I don't know about you, but when I have things organized and ready-to-go, I'm much more likely to use them, so having everything in one place is a huge help!

Conclusion

Phonological awareness is one of the best predictors of reading success, so it's essential to have a plan in place for explicit instruction and plenty of practice. Using games to engage your students in practicing these skills makes learning more fun for them, and teaching more fun for you. I hope you got some ideas for implementing phonological awareness games in your classroom!

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Phonological Awareness Activities and Games to Engage Your Students

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Phonological and phonemic awareness games and activities for your kindergarten and first-grade students! Ideas for each skill.

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Experienced teachers know that true literacy is much more than just being able to sound out the letters on the page. Skilled readers need to be able to master both what the words are and what they mean. To do this successfully, they bring together various skills like vocabulary, language structure, and verbal reasoning. The Scarborough's Reading Rope model can help educators better understand what it truly takes to create skilled readers.

What is Scarborough's Reading Rope?

Source: Brainspring

Dr. Hollis Scarborough invented the concept of the Reading Rope in the early 1990s. She used it to help parents understand the various skills their children needed to master to become proficient readers. Originally, she twisted together a model made of pipe cleaners to demonstrate her point.

In 2001, the model was published in the Handbook of Early Literacy Research (Neuman/Dickinson). Reading teachers immediately saw how useful it was, and it became a staple for educating new teachers and parents alike.

Scarborough's Reading Rope contains two main sections: Word Recognition and Language Comprehension. Each of these comprises several smaller strands. Woven together, these strands become the rope that represents complete skilled reading. All the components are interconnected and interdependent. If just one strand is weak, it affects the rope (and the reader) as a whole.

Lower Section: Word Recognition

Source: Payne STEAM Academy on Twitter

The lower section of Scarborough's Reading Rope focuses on word recognition skills. These are the skills we tend to think of most when we talk about teaching kids how to read. Imagine a kid sounding out the letters on a page or putting together phonics sounds and syllables. These are the basics of word recognition.

Phonological Awareness

Put simply, phonological awareness is about understanding that words are made up of sounds. Kids learn to speak without ever needing to see a written word. But when they learn reading, they need to recognize that the sounds they make with their mouths correspond with the words they see on the page. This is a very early skill that sets the stage for what follows.

Learn more: Phonological Awareness/Massachusetts Department of Education

Decoding

Decoding is what we picture when we see beginning readers: kids sounding out the words letter by letter. It includes things like phonics, letter blends, silent letters, and more. Kids proficient at decoding can sound out all the words they see on a page, even if they don't know what the words mean.

Try it: Effective Decoding Strategies and Activities for Emerging Readers

Sight Words

Some words are used so frequently that it makes more sense to teach kids to recognize them on sight. This is an extremely common method used in pretty much every early elementary classroom today. Learn more about sight words here.

Try it: Fun Sight Word Activities That Work

Upper Section: Language Comprehension

Source: @teachloveread

Word recognition on its own doesn't create fluent readers. If kids don't know what the words themselves mean, they're not really reading. Furthermore, understanding the meaning of words on their own isn't really useful. Fluent readers understand the text they're reading as a whole, drawing meaningful conclusions and finding important takeaways. The upper strands of Scarborough's Reading Rope are incredibly key in creating strong readers.

Background Knowledge

This strand of the rope is where cross-curriculum learning can really come into play. Kids reading a novel set in World War II Germany will get a lot more out of it when they understand more about WWII in general. For teachers, this means placing reading choices in context. Use reading (at any age) as part of a larger lesson on any topic. Kids will develop a deeper understanding and improve literacy skills at the same time.

Try it: Ways To Build Background Knowledge-and Make Reading Skills Soar

Vocabulary

Building a rich vocabulary means kids can enjoy reading a wider variety of books. When you have to stop every few sentences to look up a word, you're likely to give up on reading a lot faster. Even worse is when kids don't stop to find out the meaning of a word, since they'll have "read" something without understanding it fully-or at all.

Try it: Meaningful Vocabulary Activities for Every Grade

Language Structure

When we talk about language structure, we generally mean syntax (the order of words) and semantics (the meaning of the text). English has a lot of rules for the patterns and order of words, known as syntax. Semantics delves deep into how words and phrases combine to create meaning and how an author's word choice affects that meaning. It's a complicated topic, which good readers continue to consider throughout their lives.

Learn more: Language Structures: Reading Comprehension/Surrey Schools ONE

Verbal Reasoning

When it comes to Scarborough's Reading Rope, verbal reasoning refers to understanding when and how words are being figurative and literal. It includes things like metaphors, analogies, idioms, and figurative language. Kids pick up some of these things as they grow, but classroom instruction can be helpful too.

Try it: Figurative Language Anchor Charts That You Literally Need Right Now

Literacy Knowledge

Kids gain literacy knowledge by exposure to a wide array of genres and styles. This is why a strong curriculum covers fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in all their forms. Generally speaking, the more types of reading a child encounters, the more advanced their literacy knowledge becomes.

Learn more: Literary Genres/California Department of Education

How can teachers use Scarborough's Rope?

Source: Brainspring

Many teachers find Scarborough's Reading Rope useful in two main ways. First, it helps teachers themselves identify where struggling readers may need more help. For instance, a student may be very good at sounding out the words on the page but lack the vocabulary or verbal reasoning to make sense of what they're reading. Once they identify the weak strands, a teacher can make adjustments or offer enrichment to help that student succeed.

Second, teachers can (and should) share this model with parents. It can help them understand why their child is struggling or why teachers use such a variety of methods in the classroom. It's a good tool to reinforce that reading at home is essential to building the literacy skills kids need in school and throughout their lives.

Scarborough's Reading Rope Resources

Try these free resources to learn more about this valuable literacy model.

How has Scarborough's Reading Rope enhanced your teaching of reading? Come share your thoughts in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE on Facebook.

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What Is Scarborough's Reading Rope and How Do Teachers Use It?

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Scarborough's Reading Rope is a model of the many strands of language comprehension and word recognition that weave into proficient reading.

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As a Reading Specialist, I remember participating in many meetings and having conversations around students who were struggling with reading. Pinpointing exactly what students were struggling with as readers was so crucial in providing students with the appropriate support and interventions to become a fluent reader. We would ask questions like, what were their miscues when reading the passage? Do they struggle with spelling? Do they struggle to comprehend what they read? What I did not realize at the time was that we were using the strands of the Reading Rope to determine where reading was breaking down for this student. Only then could we determine the best way to intervene and support their development as a reader.

What is the Reading Rope?

Many educators are familiar with the image of the Reading Rope, a visual representation of the many strands woven into skilled reading, which was created by Hollis Scarborough. According to the International Dyslexia Association, "The genesis of the Reading Rope dates back to Scarborough's lectures for parents on the complexities involved in learning to read. Originally, she spoke of skilled reading as resembling the "strands" of a rope, using pipe cleaners to illustrate the interconnectedness and interdependence of all the components." This visual is a useful tool for parents and educators, as we determine best practices in reading instruction and think about how our students develop as readers.

The Reading Rope is divided into two parts, focusing on Language Comprehension and Word Recognition. Effective Tier 1 literacy instruction should encompass all components of the Reading Rope so that students learn to both decode and comprehend. Intervention in Tier 2 or 3 instruction is where we can differentiate instruction and target specific skills. As educators plan for instruction and work with students who struggle to read, it is helpful to be aware of and know the parts of the Reading Rope.

Printed word recognition includes phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition. These skills are woven or braided over time so that word recognition becomes more automatic. When a student struggles to decode words automatically, is a disfluent reader, or struggles with spelling, teachers may identify their area of weakness as decoding. Interventions and instruction would focus on foundational reading skills, including phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. Automatic word recognition is required for students to be fluent readers.

The Language Comprehension strands include Background Knowledge, Vocabulary, Language Structure, Verbal Reasoning, and Literacy/Print Knowledge. Language comprehension becomes more strategic so that students can make meaning from what they read; this is the ultimate goal of reading. When a student struggles to comprehend text, teachers can provide intervention that focuses on these strands of the rope.

Heggerty Phonemic Awareness is one strand of the Reading Rope

Heggerty Phonemic Awareness lessons address one strand of the rope: phonological awareness. Systematic and explicit instruction in sounds builds the foundation for students to be readers. As we learn more about how students develop as readers, the foundational skills of phonemic awareness and phonics are necessary for students to decode words accurately. "Poor phonemic awareness and spelling pattern knowledge lead to a weak lower strand, again weakening the whole rope and making fluent, skilled reading for meaning difficult." ( Spelfabet, 2013)

The Heggerty Phonemic Awareness lessons in Tier 1 instruction provide systematic instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness. The lessons work alongside phonics instruction, as students map sounds to print. If the phonological awareness strand of the rope is missing or broken, students will struggle to read. Tier 1 instruction in Kindergarten and Primary classrooms often include these foundational skills, and knowledge of word recognition and strategies to decode words are often assumed to be in place for older learners. Yet, many educators find themselves working with older learners who struggle to decode words, and phonemic awareness instruction becomes part of an intervention. Phonemic awareness is often found to be a missing component for older students.

Phonemic awareness instruction is both oral and auditory and builds students' word recognition skills because students are focusing on hearing sounds in words. Teachers often ask about incorporating visuals into instruction to provide language and vocabulary support during a phonemic awareness lesson. This would provide instruction around the meaning of a word(s) when participating in a lesson. The focus of a phonemic awareness lesson is on isolating, blending, segmenting, and manipulating sounds in words, rather than building meaning, and the lessons can be taught without visual support.

Consider this...

In the example below, does showing the picture of the ladybug help build a child's phonological or phonemic awareness?

Blending words:

lady - bug, ladybug

Segmenting into words:

ladybug, lady - bug

Onset Fluency:

ladybug, /l/

Isolating Final Sounds:

ladybug, /g/

Actually, the picture was not needed to blend or segment the word ladybug, or to isolate the initial or final phoneme. It is okay if students do not know what a word is; they can still hear the sounds without connecting meaning to the word.

As we consider the strands of the reading rope, providing vocabulary instruction during the phonemic awareness lessons, moves instruction away from phonemic awareness, and into language comprehension (vocabulary). It is often more beneficial to focus vocabulary instruction on content language and vocabulary to help students build meaning in their own reading.

Classroom application: What does this mean for teachers?

According to Scarborough (2018), "Weakness in ANY strand can disrupt reading, and weakness in SEVERAL strands can disrupt reading more." We can no longer say that a student struggles to read without identifying the specific area of need and identify what breaks down for the learner. We can ask questions such as, "Can they decode CVC words, like hat?" "Can they decode CCVC words, like flat?" "Can they comprehend what they read?" Use the Reading Rope to identify and target instruction and intervention to meet student needs.

In a webinar titled, Unraveling the Reading Rope, Nancy Hennessy encourages teachers to, "Use their knowledge of assessment and practice in correlation with the rope." Assessment can inform instruction, especially when providing intervention, and the Reading Rope can be used to identify specific areas of need.

Interventions for students who struggle with word recognition and decoding must include explicit and systematic instruction in foundational skills: phonemic awareness and phonics, so that they can develop the decoding skills needed to be a skilled and fluent reader.

As educators, committed to all children learning to read, we can use the Reading Rope to guide our instruction and our intervention. When we come to the table to share observations, progress, and data, the Reading Rope offers us ways to define not only areas of need, but areas of strength for students. This useful tool can guide our conversations and determine the best instruction to help our learners succeed.

Interested in learning more?

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As a Reading Specialist, I remember participating in many meetings and having conversations around students who were struggling with reading. Pinpointing exactly what students were struggling with as readers was so crucial in providing students with the appropriate support and interventions to become a fluent reader.

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"Shifting the Balance" by Jan Burkins and Kari Yates (Heinneman)

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A recent blog post by Tim Shanahan titled "What should morphology instruction look like?" reminded me how important it is to teach students about word parts (i.e., roots, prefixes, suffixes) as a useful tool for determining the meaning of unfamiliar words and growing academic vocabularies.

One of the five components of our Key Vocabulary Routine is Teach Word Learning Strategies, which includes how to look for clues outside the word (use of context) and inside the word (use of word parts) when encountering an unknown word while reading. Outside clues include rereading the sentences before and after the word and using the context of the text. Inside clues come from recognizing meaningful parts of the word, i.e., using morphological knowledge.
Morphemes and Morphological Awareness
Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language. The dictionary defines a morpheme as "a word or part of a word that has a meaning and that contains no smaller part that has a meaning." Morphemes include base words and roots, prefixes, and suffixes. They can be combined in different ways to express particular meaning or to fill grammatical roles. Some morphemes are free - they can stand alone (e.g., cat, walk, govern). Other morphemes are bound - they cannot stand alone and must be attached to another morpheme (e.g., re-, un-, geo, phon, -ed, -ment). Here are some examples:

The word cat contains one free morpheme

The word cats contains one free morpheme (cat) and one bound morphemes (s)

The compound word sandbox contains two free morphemes (sand, box)

The word unfit contains one bound morpheme (un) and one free morpheme (fit)

The word transportable contains three bound morphemes (trans, port, able)

Morphology means the study of word parts, and morphological awareness refers to the ability to recognize the presence of morphemes in words. Research suggests that students can be taught various morphemic elements as a way to determine the meaning of new words (Edwards et al., 2004). Carlisle (2010) analyzed 16 studies about the relation of morphological awareness instruction to key components of literacy development. The findings showed that instruction about word parts was associated with improvements in word reading and spelling, and in determining the meaning of unfamiliar words.
Academic, School Morphemes
Academic vocabulary that must be learned beyond grade three often consists of words that combine a root, prefix, and suffix (e.g., poly + nom + ial = polynomial; manu + script = manuscript). In the upper elementary grades and higher, there are many opportunities to find words in content reading that contain Greek and Latin morphemes. Children in primary grades can begin to learn how morphemes combine by adding common prefixes and suffixes to short Anglo-Saxon words and also compounding them. For example:

jump, jumps, jumped, jumping, jumper

read, reread, reader, nonreader, reading

sunshine, schoolhouse, upstream

There are some limitations to morphemic analysis. Although it is useful, teachers must also make students aware that it doesn't always work. This is because some prefixes are not consistent in meaning (e.g., in- means both not and in). It is also because the meaning of many Greek and Latin roots have changed substantially over hundreds of years, so they no longer lend themselves to literal translation. For example, the literal translation of circumspect should be look around ( circum means around, spect means look), while the real meaning is to be cautious, careful.
Introducing Morphology
One way to introduce word analysis skills is to teach students how words are made up of word parts, and how words can be related in word families, such as the word family below for the Latin root port (to carry).

Keys to Literacy trainers often see examples of teachers using word families when we visit classrooms. Here are some examples:

Another instructional strategy is to have students build word families by providing a main root and then prefixes and suffixes that can be combined with the root to generate words. Word Matrix boxes such as the examples below can be used for this purpose. For more examples, visit Peter Bowers' website
convoy, envoy, convoys, envoys, convoying, convoyed, voyage, voyages, voyaging, voyaged, voyager, voyagers retake, retakes, retaken, retaking, untaken, mistake, mistakes, mistakable, mistakably, mistaken, mistakenly, mistaking, intake, intakes, overtake, overtakes, overtaken, overtaking, undertake, undertakes, undertaker, undertaken, undertaking, undertakings, uptake, uptakes, breathtaking, caretaker, caretaking, takes, taker, taken, taking, takeaway, takeover Teaching Morphology
Here are two additional suggestions from our Key Vocabulary Routine professional development program:

Find opportunistic moments: Often, unplanned moments come up during content instruction to provide examples of word analysis. Words from content vocabulary lists may include common word parts, or an opportunity to make a connection between the root of a new word and a word previously covered in class may arise. Content teachers in particular are in a position to point out examples of words that contain roots, prefixes, and suffixes from content reading material.

School-wide focus: Most of the general academic words that students need to learn are derived words with word parts. A school-wide approach to teaching academic vocabulary involves teachers from different grades and subjects agreeing to focus on a few root words and their associated word families each week or two.

A 2015 piece posted by the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education's blog suggests these strategies for teaching morphology in the classroom based on research by Dr. Nonie Lesaux:

1. Morphology should be taught as a distinct component of a vocabulary improvement program throughout the upper elementary years.

2. Morphology should be taught as a cognitive strategy to be learned. In order to break a word down into morphemes, students must complete the following four steps:

Recognize that they don't know the word.

Analyze the word for recognizable morphemes, both in the roots and suffixes.

Think of a possible meaning based upon the parts of the word.

Check the meaning of the word against the context.

Students also need to understand the use of prefixes, suffixes, and roots, and how words get transformed.
Lists of Roots, Prefixes, Suffixes
There is a significant body of research indicating that instruction of prefixes is beneficial, and many vocabulary researchers recommend instruction of the most common prefixes as the first and best component of word analysis (Graves, 2004; Carlisle, 2007). White, Sowell, and Yanagihara (1989) found that 20 prefixes account for almost 97% of the 2,959 prefixed words that most frequently appear in school reading materials. Given how often these 20 prefixes occur, it makes sense to teach their meaning and use. To access a free list of these prefixes, visit the Keys to Literacy free resources page at our website, and go to the Vocabulary section. You will also find free lists of the following:

Common Numerical Prefixes

Common and Useful Suffixes

Common Greek and Latin Roots

References:
Carlisle, J.F. (2010). Effects of instruction on morphological awareness on literacy achievement: An integrative review. Reading Research Quarterly, 45 (4) 464-487.

Carlisle, J.F. (2007). Fostering morphological processing, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension. In R.K. Wagner, A.E., Muse, & K.R. Tannenbaum (Eds.). Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension. New York: Guilford Press.

Edwards, C.E., Font, G., Baumann, J.F., & Boland, E. (2004). Unlocking word meanings: Strategies and guidelines for teaching morphemic and contextual analysis. In James, R. Baumann & Edward J. Kame/ennui (Eds.). Vocabulary instruction: Research to practice. New York: Guilford Press.

Graves, M.F. (2004). Teaching prefixes: As good as it gets? In James, R. Baumann & Edward J. Kame/ennui (Eds.). Vocabulary instruction: Research to practice. New York: Guilford Press.

White, T.G., Sowell, J., & Yanagihara, A. (1989). Teaching elementary students to use word-part clues. The Reading Teacher, 42.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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Using Morphology to Teach Vocabulary - Keys to Literacy

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Suggestions for teaching vocabulary by analyzing word parts.

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Say It, Move It, Write It (With Visual Vowel Support)

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Developmental Stages of Phonological Awareness

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Developmental Stages of Phonological Awareness

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Bridge the Gap; Phonemic Awareness Intervention Lessons

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Bridge the Gap; Phonemic Awareness Intervention Lessons

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2020 Edition, Phonemic Awareness, Michael Heggerty

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2020 Edition, Phonemic Awareness, Michael Heggerty

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2020 Edition Phonemic Awareness, Michael Heggerty

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UFLI: Irregular Word Answer Key Resource

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Students count syllables and use counters to show how many syllables. Students can see which has more syllables by using a double-pan balance scale .

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Adding OG Practices to Your Existing Tier 1 Phonics Curriculum by Kristyn Kahalehoe

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Adding OG Practices to Your Existing Tier 1 Phonics Curriculum by Kristyn Kahalehoe

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OG practices to Tier 1 Phonics Curriculum - full size 

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Morphological Awareness in the Classroom