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Spelling Inventory: explanation, grading, utility

Short Vowels: short sounding

Breve: (˘) shows short vowel pronunciation

Long Vowels: long sounding, say their name

Macron: (¯) shows long vowel pronunciation

Accented Syllable: stressed syllable emphasis

Unaccented Syllable: no stressed syllable emphasis

Schwa: /ə/ unaccented vowel in unaccented syllable (short u sound)

Vowel Digraphs: two letters making one sound

Vowel Teams: two vowels coming together to create familiar sounds (long)

Vowel Diphthongs: two vowels coming together to create new sounds

CVC: a word made up of a consonant-vowel-consonant sound

CVVC: a word made up of a consonant-vowel-vowel-consonant sound

CVCe: a word made up of a consonant-vowel-consonant-silent e sound (the e makes the vowel say it's long pronunciation)

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Science of Reading: teaching phonics systematically, explicitly, and cumulatively is the key to successful reading instruction

Reading Comprehension: product of decoding and linguistic comprehension (DxLC=RC)

Linguistics: language structure, semantics, syntax, morphology, phonology, and phonetics

Dyslexia: caused by phonological processing problem and have trouble manipulating language

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Scarborough’s Reading Rope | Really Great Reading

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[row][oneHalf][/oneHalf][oneHalf]What is Scarborough’s Reading Rope?In 2001, Dr. Hollis Scarborough created the Reading Rope using pipe cleaners to convey how the different “strands” of reading are all interconnected yet independent of one another. For many students, learning to read is a challenge. Scarborough’s Rope captures the complexity of learning to read. Scarborough’s

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Sound Walls

If you teach K-3, you are in the crux of those "learning to read" years. To be successful decoders, students must learn and master the 44 phonemes (sounds) of the English language. Sound walls help students identify and understand the sounds they should be producing. I once had a student ask how to spell the word . I suggested they check the word wall, but the student couldn't find the word because they were unsure of the letters that represented the /th/ sound. Word walls only work to support students if they already know how to read the word. Sound walls include pictures of what lip and tongue placement looks like. Now when I get to observe classrooms using Reading Horizons Discovery Sound City™ , I watch how the students focus on the sounds and articulation of what they are trying to spell and then go to the Sound Wall to confirm how to spell the sound. So when a student wants to write the word , they start by saying the word, identifying the /th/ sound, and then looking to the Sound Wall to identify that it is that produces that sound.

Mirrors

To springboard off the sound wall, students will absolutely need to have access to mirrors so they can see their own articulatory gestures when making the sounds. It's helpful for each student to have a small, compact mirror available during phonemic awareness instruction. As the teacher explains the lip and tongue movement, students will have the opportunity to check their own mouth and tongue placement to produce the phonemes!

Digital sound walls can be a great tool as students can use their device's video and microphone to practice producing phonemes. Sound production can be recorded and shared with teachers for review.

Systematic Instruction

Using sound walls and mirrors is only as effective as the instruction that corresponds with it. When teaching phonemic awareness and phonics instruction, it is important to ensure the progression of every lesson is clear and systematic.

Systematic instruction follows a pattern like the gradual release of responsibility. One approach, coined by Dr. Anita Archer in the 1970s, was called "I do, we do, you do." But, before anyone can move on to the next lesson, the teacher must ensure that students have mastered the previous foundational skills. Learning to read is a cumulative process that builds on itself. Have students they are ready for the next step. For example, if the new skill for the day is building CVC words, students must have mastered the alphabetic principle before attempting. David Kilpatrick described it as "...the insight that there is a direct connection between the sounds of spoken language and the letters in the written words." Think about it this way: if you've never seen a measuring spoon or a mixer and only heard of an oven, would you be successful at baking a cake? Probably not. But, if someone took the time to help you understand how to measure ingredients and use the mixer and the oven, you might be able to create a scrumptious masterpiece! It's the same with reading. We must teach the pieces before we teach the whole.

Once it's determined that the students are ready for the new skill, use the gradual release of responsibility. Teach the lesson clearly and with precision. This is called explicit instruction , and it prevents the working memory from being overloaded. The "I do" portion should take about 10 minutes. Teach and model clearly to help the students understand, but try to have as little interaction with them as possible. This is listening and learning time for them.

Next comes the "we do." This is a time for students to practice using the new skill they were taught. Let them practice on paper, whiteboards, your whiteboard, etc. This should take about 10-15 minutes. As they practice, walk around and give corrective feedback, positive reinforcement, and all the encouragement.

Finally, the birdies need to fly the nest so the teacher can see who has it down and who still needs some help. This is the "you do." Have students prove to you that they can use the skill they learned and practiced. It is important to practice new skills in context. This can be choral reading and reading decodable books, and you can extend it into appropriate games for the skill, software activities, etc.

Decoding Strategies

We can teach all of the comprehension strategies in the entire universe, but they won't help a bit if students can't read. Decoding is understanding a few patterns to unlock thousands of words, not memorizing four hundred words. When I was young, we'd get the best spelling lists during the holidays. I'd memorize words like , , , , and . I memorized it just enough to spell it on Friday, and then it slid out of my brain while I proceeded to enjoy the weekend. Decoding strategies help the brain understand patterns, and that's what research has determined the brain always wants. Have you ever driven to work, and then thought, "Hmmm...I don't remember driving over the bridge, but I guess I did!" That is your brain on patterns. It recognizes them, even when you don't think you're paying attention. The same is with words. If we teach students that when one or two consonants follows a vowel, the vowel becomes short, and the pattern unlocks thousands of words. If we only teach students to memorize, they're missing out on a great skill! Reading Horizons teaches seven essential skills that you'll want to teach students : At Reading Horizons, we call these the Five Phonetic Skills and the Two Decoding Skills.

Here are the phonetic skills for single-syllable words:

1. One consonant following a single vowel makes the vowel short.

2. Two consonants following a single vowel makes the vowel short.

3. A vowel that stands alone is long.

4. Silent at the end of a word makes the previous vowel long.

5. When certain vowels are adjacent, the second vowel is silent, and the first vowel is long.

Here are the decoding skills for multisyllabic words:

1. When there is just one consonant between two vowels, that consonant will move with the next syllable. Break the word before that consonant, and then decide which phonetic skill each syllable follows.

2. When there are two consonants between two vowels, they will split. Break the word into syllables there, and then decide which phonetic skill each syllable follows.

There are more decoding strategies for students to learn, but these are some of the most important!

Encourage Orthographic Mapping

Orthographic mapping is what happens when the brain can automatically connect sounds to print. You can't help but read something when this happens! Can you look at the words on this screen and tell yourself, "Don't read that!"? Your brain already did it before you could get your command out. It was automatic. How can we practice this in the classroom? Hold up a picture of a cat. Have students isolate each phoneme while putting up a finger for each one: /c/ /a/ /t/. Then blend the sounds to pronounce the word . Using their papers or whiteboards, students then write the letters that represent the phonemes they heard. This practice of hearing the sounds and writing the letters that represent the sounds has been found through David Kilpatrick's research to help permanently store words for immediate, effortless retrieval.

Decodable Readers/Passages

When I first learned the difference between leveled and decodable readers, I had to pick my jaw up off the ground. Decodable readers are usually 85-100 percent decodable based on what the student has been taught and has mastered. Again, reading instruction is cumulative, so, for example, if a student has just mastered -blends, they can successfully read a book that only includes skills up until that point. We wouldn't find the word in the book because the student hasn't had exposure to the /ph/ digraph or the silent . When I realized I'd been asking my emerging readers to decode words that had untaught skills in them, I nearly toppled over. No wonder we were struggling in our small groups!

Many different reading programs offer leveled readers, and more often than not, the same book is used all week long. Repetitive reading promotes memorization, which isn't terrible, but why learn four hundred words when you can learn a skill to unlock a thousand? Leveled readers for small groups are often based on reading levels that represent where a student be at based on grade level. If we were all pulled from the same mold, that might work, but that is not the way of the world.

What if you sat with a child who was reading a book that only had decoding skills in it that they'd been taught? What would you see when they finished reading? Excitement? Self-efficacy? Motivation? These are all things that come from setting students up for success by putting a decodable reader in their hands!

Hands Down/Hold-Ups

Dr. Anita Archer expressed her feelings against "raise your hand" in a . She said we all know the ones who raise their hand-the confident students, the students that aren't shy, the students who don't usually struggle. We're wasting time raising hands when we should be doing "hold-ups." Every student needs paper or, even better, a whiteboard and dry erase marker. That's where we find answers to questions, and while we're doing it, we can be giving effective and corrective feedback. If the teacher asks, "Who can spell the word ?" after a lesson on silent , it's better to see the entire class answer than to see one student do it. Hold up, scan, take mental or physical notes, and move on.

Data to Save Time

Keep ongoing student data. When you're in the "we do" portion of the lesson, check off who's got it, who needs a little help, and who requires intense intervention. Knowing exactly what skills students are struggling with will help to quickly create small groups. Data tracking also helps to avoid reteaching something the student already knows. This is especially important with older students who are still emerging readers. They have a lot of foundational skills, but they have gaps. If we don't pinpoint exactly what skills they're struggling with, we might not be putting our efforts where they need to be.
Reading Horizons Discovery® opens up a world where your next lesson is cued up, student-specific practice is automatically synced, groups are sorted based on needs, and a data dashboard shows where the class stands at any given moment.
Get Moving!

A multisensory approach ensures that students maintain engagement and that all the necessary processors are being used in the brain so students can retain information faster. With a multisensory Dictation, we have covered all the processors in our brain that need to be engaged with the auditory, visual, phonological, and orthographic processors. During an accountable review or during the "we do," have students stand, listen, repeat back, write, and read! All of these work together to trigger each part of the brain involved in accurate and fluent reading. Do all students learn by listening? No way! That is why Reading Horizons also uses hand motions to keep the body moving and creates cues for the student's expectations. (Pic of 4-part processor w/link to dictation video?)

Positivity Pictures

A picture of each child with a caption of something they are really good at is probably the most important thing you can have in your classroom. Unfortunately, it is not widely understood that reading ability and intelligence are completely unrelated. Before your students even get a chance to think that learning to read is difficult, tell them their worth, and tell them what they're good at. Dr. Sally Shaywitz explains in her book Overcoming Dyslexia , "... Every evaluator should take the time to visibly demonstrate to every tested child where his or her reading lies and then where, on the curve, his or her intelligence score lies. When this information comes from an objective authority figure rather than the student's parents, it makes a powerful impact." To the educator, the teacher, the interventionist, the paraprofessional, the principal: with all the energy and love you have, make sure the student understands their ability to decode has absolutely nothing to do with their level of intelligence.

So, what are you going to do tomorrow? Set up a sound wall? Make your lesson systematic? Let us know how you drove the science of reading into your classroom!

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10 Must-Haves for Your Science of Reading Classroom

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What is important to have in my classroom if I want to implement science of reading-based teaching with my students?

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In order for children to reach their full potential they need to be able to understand certain foundational principles. Throughout this section, I have learned about the brain and how neuroscience connects with reading skills. I have also learned what attributes are needed to become a successful skilled reader.

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Phonemic Awareness: conscious awareness of individual speech sounds/phonemes in spoken syllables

Phoneme: smallest segment of speech (phon): sounds (eme): unit of language structure

Isolate: individualize first/final/medial sound

Categorize: differentiate first final/medial sound

Blending: all together

Segmenting: counting

Adding: add letters to preexisting words

Deleting: remove letters from preexisting words

Substituting: change letters

Reversing: flip flop first and last sound

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Phonological Awareness: overall awareness of sounds in spoken language, think/recognize larger chunks in words, recognize/manipulate spoken parts of words

Early Skills: counting words, rhyming (recognition/odd word out/production), syllables (counting/blending/segmenting/adding/deletion)

Alliteration: words begin with same sound

Initial Sounds: isolating first sounds

Onset-Rime: (onset): letters before vowel (rime): vowel and following

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Phonics: system of phoneme-grapheme (sound-symbol) correspondences used for decoding new words and storing in orthographic memory

Decoding: ability to translate a word from print to speech using phoneme-grapheme correspondences

Orthography: a writing system for representing language

Graphemes: letter(s) that represent a single phoneme

Consonant Blends: 2/3 graphemes representing a phoneme and maintaining own sound

Consonant Digraphs: 1 grapheme comprised of 2 letters that represent 1 phoneme

Consonant Trigraphs: 1 grapheme comprised of 3 letters that represent 1 phoneme

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Morphology: the study of meaningful units of language and how they are combined in word formation

more than word parts

can be categorized by both language of origin and grammatical role

Morphological Awareness: explicitly thinking about the smallest units of meaning in language and how they come together to provide meaning about the words we hear and read

Morphemes: the smallest unit of meaningful parts in our language

Free: a morpheme that can stand alone

Bound: a morpheme that must be attached to another morpheme in order to have meaning

Word Types:

Simple: one free morpheme

Compound: two free morphemes

Complex: one free and at least one bound

Compound-Complex: two free and one or more bound

Morphophonological: we spell by sound and morphemes

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Phonemes: smallest sound units

Syllables: larger sound units

Closed Syllables:

contain 1 vowel letter that represents a short vowel sound

end in 1 or more consonants (consonants = closed sounds)

Open Syllables:

contain 1 vowel letter that represents a long vowel sound

ends with the vowel letter (vowels = open sounds)

VCE Syllables:

generally represent long vowel sounds

English Orthography: words in the English language do not end in the letter v (letter e is added)

end with a silent e (the bossy e)

Vowel Team Syllables:

contain 2 (or more) letters that represent long (or short) vowels, variant vowels, or diphthongs (vowel digraphs)

ends with the vowel sound or a consonant

R-Controlled Syllables:

when a vowel is followed by r, the letter affects the sound of the vowel (the bossy r)

Consonant + LE Syllables:

when -le appears at the end of a word and is preceded by a consonant, the consonant +le form the final syllable

always make the schwa sound

keep the consonant +le together when dividing syllables (exposes the 1st syllable as closed, open, or r-controlled)

Syllables and Accent Patterns:

in multisyllabic words, at least 1 syllable receives more emphasis, or greater stress, than the other syllables

in multisyllabic words, more than 1 syllable can be stressed

the vowel phoneme is the most prominent part of the syllable, vowels behave differently in accented and unaccented syllables

affixes (prefixes and suffixes) typically form separate syllables, the accent usually falls on or within the root

in compound words, the primary accent usually falls on or within the first word

the placement of the accent will differ in homographs (spelled the same) that are a noun or a verb, the accent usually falls on the 1st syllable of a noun

if a word contains a double consonant (VCCV), the accent usually falls on the syllable that closes with the 1st letter of the double consonant

most multisyllabic words ending with the suffix -tion, -sion, or -ic, the primary accent will fall on the syllable preceding the suffix

if the last syllable contains a vowel team followed by a consonant, the syllable is most often accented

when there is no other clue, the accent will usually fall on the first syllable of a 2 syllable word

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Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate words and sentences. In short, even before children can begin sounding out words, they must understand the idea of how words work. The earliest reading skills a child learns fall into this category, and come well before actual reading begins. Some examples of phonological awareness include recognizing and identifying rhyming words, recognizing alliteration (words that all begin with the same letter), understanding that sentences are made of unique words, and recognizing that words can be broken into syllables. Once children have a strong sense of phonological awareness, they can then move on to developing phonemic awareness.

What is phonemic awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify letters sounds blend them together to form words. It is important to understand that phonemic awareness is not about reading words, but about understanding the sounds made by letters. This is often an oral practice, rather than a written one. The term phonemic awareness gets its name from the word "phoneme." A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in speech. In the English language, there are 44 phonemes, or individual sounds.

What are consonant phonemes?

In the English language, there are 18 consonant phonemes. It is important when learning these to recognize the difference between phonemes-the sounds created-and graphemes-the letters that represent the sound. It is also essential to understand that some phonemes can be represented by more than one grapheme. For example:

/f/ may be represented by either f or ph

/k/ may be represented by either c or k

/j/ may be represented by g, j, or dge

/s/ may be represented by c or s.

Pro Tip: The consonants c, q, and x do not have their own unique phonemes. C sounds use either th e /k/ or /s/ phonemes. Q sounds would use the phonemes /k/ /w/, as in walkway, while X sounds appear in words ending in /k/ /s/, such as ducks.
Below is a graph showing the 18 consonant phonemes with examples of the words where they are used.

What are short vowel sound phonemes?

In the English language, there are 5 short vowel sound phonemes. While early readers begin by identifying the most common short vowel sound graphemes-a, e, i, o, u-there are several ways represent these phonemes. More complicated spelling patterns are taught as children progress in their phonics instruction.

Below is a graph showing the 5 short vowel sound phonemes.

What are digraph phonemes?

A digraph is a combination of letters that represents a single phonetic sound. In the English language, there are 7 digraph phonemes.
Pro Tip: The phoneme /th/ can be said two different ways: The unvoiced /th/ as in think, thumb, and thimble is pronounced without moving the vocal chords. The voiced /th/ as in feather, mother, and this causes the vocal chords to vibrate. Practice saying these words with your child. It may be helpful to place a finger on your throat to feel the movement (or lack of movement) of the vocal chords.
Below is a graph showing the 7 digraph phonemes.

What are long vowel sound phonemes?

In the English language, there are 5 long vowel sound phonemes. Children often learn these after mastering short vowel sounds and digraph phonemes. As with short vowel sounds, long vowel sound phonemes can be represented by a variety of graphemes. More complicated spelling patterns are taught as children progress in their phonics instruction.

Below is a graph showing the 5 long vowel sound phonemes.

What are OO vowel sound phonemes?

Like /th/, oo vowels look the same but sound different. Below is a breakdown of the two oo vowel sound phonemes.

What are vowel diphthong phonemes?

A diphthong occurs when two vowels work together to form a single sound. In the English language, there are 2 vowel diphthong phonemes.

What are r-controlled vowels?

R-controlled vowels are vowels whose sound changes when followed by the letter r, as in the words car and fir. These words do not make a Short A and Short I sound, but rather a sound inclusive of the r. In the English language, there are 5 R-controlled vowel phonemes.

How to teach phonemic awareness

Phonemic awareness is not an innate skill, but one that must be taught. Children in kindergarten, and even into first grade, are often taught phonemic awareness skills through a variety of approaches:

* Phoneme blending * Phoneme addition * Phoneme deletion * Phoneme substitution * Phoneme segmentation
Pro Tip: With each of these elements of phonemic awareness, it is important to note that changes to words must be based not on changing letters, but on changing phonetic sounds. A child at this level is not expected to know that the word CAT begins with a C, but rather that it begins with the /k/ sound.
What is Phoneme blending?

Phoneme blending is the ability to put sounds together to form a complete word. Often letters are written separately, and children are encouraged to blend them together. For example: /C/ /A/ /T/ blends to form the word CAT.

What is phoneme addition?

Phoneme addition is the ability add an additional phoneme onto an existing word, to form a new word.

Phoneme addition examples:

Question: What word do you get if you add /K/ to -AT?

Answer: CAT

Question: What word do you get if you add /T/ to WAN?

Answer: WANT

What is phoneme deletion?

Phoneme deletion means having a child manipulate words (usually orally) by deleting phonemes from a word. Usually this begins with a sound at the beginning or end of a word. As children grow more experienced with phoneme deletion, sounds can also be removed from the middle of the word.

Phoneme deletion examples:

Question: What word do you have if you remove the /K/ from the word CAT.

Answer: AT

Questions: What word do you have if you remove the /M/ from LAMP?

Answer: LAP

What is phoneme substitution?

Phoneme substitution, or letter substitution, is the ability to change one word into another word by swapping out one phoneme sound.

Phoneme substitution example:

Question: Say CAT, but instead of /K/, say /B/?

Answer: BAT

Question: Say CAT, but instead of /U/, say /A/?

Answer: CUT

What is phoneme segmentation?

Phoneme segmentation is the ability to break word down into its individual phonetic components.

Phoneme segmentation examples:

DOG --> /D/ /O/ /G/

SHUT --> /SH/ /U/ /T/

With a strong sense of phonemic awareness in place, children can move onto learning phonics-the actual relationship between letters and sounds.

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phonemic awareness | phonological awareness

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Phonemic Awareness: A Guide to Phonemes with Visual Examples

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Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate words and sentences. In short, even before children can begin sounding out words, they must understand the idea of how words work. The earliest reading skills a child learns fall into this category, and come well before actual reading begins.

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Click to enlarge

﻿Phonological Awareness: What is it and how does it relate to phonemic awareness?

Phonological Awareness is the ability to recognize that spoken words are made up of individual sound parts.

Word Level Rhyming

Alliteration

Bold big brown bear

Sentence Segmentation

I / see / the / dog = 4 words

Syllable Level

ba-by = 2 syllables
ex-er-cise = 3 syllables

Phonological Awareness is like an umbrella. Phonemic Awareness and other skills exist under this umbrella.

Onset & Rime Level

Phonemic Awareness Level

/m/ /oo/ /n/ moon = 3 phonemes
Phonemic awareness is the most advanced skill of phonological awareness.

National Center on Improving Literacy (2022). Phonological Awareness: What Is It and How Does It Relate To Phonemic Awareness. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Improving Literacy. Retrieved from http://improvingliteracy.org.

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Phonological Awareness: What is it and how does it relate to phonemic awareness?

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If you prefer, read the text-version of the infographic. Click to enlarge ﻿Phonological Awareness: What is it and how does it relate to phonemic awareness? Phonological Awareness is the ability to recognize that spoken words are made up of individual sound parts.

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https://fcrr.org/student-center-activities

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Phonological awareness is a skill that allows kids to recognize and work with the sounds of spoken language. It’s key to learning to read. Find out more.

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Young readers benefit from learning through play, and teachers can introduce familiar games to help support students' literacy growth.

Anastassiya Bezhekeneva / iStock

"You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." This maxim applies 100-fold to getting beginning readers in kindergarten through second grade to practice new phonics patterns. Vinegar: asking students to read aloud a list of 10 words with the short- a sound. Honey: asking students to play bingo with cards that all have words with the short- a sound.

Along the way, game playing also offers opportunities to teach critical educational lessons-learning rules, following them and asking questions for clarification-and the social skills of turn taking, waiting, and being a good winner as well as a good loser. These can't be practiced too often.

Use a Variety of Fun Games With Small Groups

At a time when phonics is being welcomed back into many classrooms as a proven strategy for developing young students' literacy skills, game playing is a useful tool. Keep in mind, though, that games enhance teaching; they don't replace it. They provide the rote practice that most students need to solidify their recognition of phonics patterns and that some need to an even greater degree.

As a result, most of these games work best in small groups, so that there is plenty of playtime and expert oversight. There could even be several different games going at once in a reading group, to keep the numbers even smaller and the focus even tighter.

Although there are many commercial sources of games, and even free ones to download, often simple-to-make familiar games-card games, format games, and board games-work best. These require little explanation and can be aligned directly to the day's lesson. All you need are index cards and a few formats, including a game board.

For game cards, cut 3½-by-5-inch index cards in half. On one side, write short-vowel words, blends, silent- e words, r-controlled words, or whatever phonics element your students need to practice. Save these decks and make more challenging ones as the students progress. You can create your own templates or the use samples I've created for the format and board games described below.

Incorporate Familiar Card Games

These are best for up to five players, depending on age. The player with the most cards at the end wins. Play time will vary with the size and skill of the group and the number of cards you use.

Go Fish: Make 13 four-card sets or 26 two-card sets. You might not use them all for the youngest students or the smallest groups. Players can "fish" for four words with common phonics elements (e.g., the same short vowel, vowel digraph, silent- e, or r-controlled vowel patterns). They could also fish for contrasting pairs (e.g., matching closed and silent- e syllables, as in "I have cap. Do you have cape?").

Memory: Make 24 pairs of matching words or words with matching pictures. Shuffle as many pairs as you think your students can manage comfortably, and lay them out as a grid. One by one, each player turns two cards faceup. If they match, the player keeps them. If not, they return to their spots facedown. In either case, it's the next player's turn.

Uh-Oh! (with special cards from Uno): Make a deck of 50 cards with words on them; all of which follow the same phonics pattern. Add in 15 special action cards and label them "Uh-Oh!" Five should say "Reverse" (the direction of play reverses), five of them should say "Skip" (play passes to the next player), and five should say "Draw 2" (the player draws two cards; then play passes). Each player, in turn, picks and reads cards until an action card appears.

Offer Format Games

These are usually quick games. Tic-Tac-Toe can take as little as one minute; Bingo can take less than five, though often need to learn how to search for words efficiently. Rockets and Submarines can take five minutes with two players, but play time increases with more.

Tic-Tac-Toe: A game for two players. The goal is to be the first to make a line of three (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal). Write target words in each square of the grid. Taking turns, students read and mark with their initials the words on the squares they choose. If you add lines for writing in the squares, this can also be a whole-class dictation exercise, sweetened by playing the game afterward in pairs.

Fill the boxes on as many boards as there are players with words that have your targeted phonics pattern. The words should be in different places on each board. A rotating caller picks from a stack of cards with those words written on them. Students cross out the words that are called, with the goal of being first to fill a column, row, or diagonal. When the phonics pattern is short vowels, silent- e patterns, vowel- r patterns, or a set of five-vowel digraphs, you can sort them into labeled columns. This reinforces pattern recognition and reduces searching time.

Rockets and Submarines (aka Chutes and Ladders): Students will need tokens and one die to progress from "Go" to "Stop." Fill the spaces with practice words to read aloud when a token lands there. Players shoot up with the rockets and dive down with the subs when they land on the tail squares of each. The first to reach "Stop" (or the one in the lead when time is up) wins.

Create Your Own Board Games

Board games are my personal favorite because they can be tailored by theme as well as phonics concept, and students can participate in the design. The goal is to get from start to end first. Students roll a die to move along the board and then read the word on the space where they land.

I encourage them to add special features as well as bridges back and forth. I added this one: "Read the next three words and move ahead one." A student added: "Do three jumping jacks and move ahead two." Combine game board templates in different ways to create unique-looking games. Mount them on stiff paper or in a file folder. Because the timing of board games is often unpredictable, you can announce in advance when you need to stop and declare the winner then, or mark everyone's place for when you take up the game again later.

Board games can even include aspects of comprehension if they are based on a book or social studies topic. Did you just read about the sled dog Balto, who helped carry the diphtheria vaccine across Alaska in 1925? Instead of "start" and "end," use Anchorage and Nome. Encourage students to add drawings or names of important incidents in the story for traps and shortcuts and to make their own tokens based on the characters.

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Using Games to Help Improve Students' Phonics Skills

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Young readers benefit from learning through play, and teachers can introduce familiar games to help support students' literacy growth. Anastassiya Bezhekeneva / iStock "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." This maxim applies 100-fold to getting beginning readers in kindergarten through second grade to practice new phonics patterns.

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SplashLearn Blog - Educational Resources for Parents, Teachers & Kids

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How to Teach Vowels to Kids: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Learn how to teach vowels to kids through fun activities & strategies. Our step-by-step guide offers everything you need for effective early literacy teaching.

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A research-based method of instruction that helps struggling readers is appropriate to use with all students.

The first time I met my adult student Mary, she was skeptical but desperate. She was a treasured bus driver for the local school district and had recently received word that the route she had driven for 20 years was about to change. She would have to navigate a new route filled with unfamiliar street signs. Mary had come to the literacy council where I worked to confront the secret she had kept for decades from coworkers, friends, and family: She couldn't read.

At first, she doubted I could help, and I have to admit, so did I. I had to imagine other, more qualified teachers had tried and failed before.

Although this was my first formal teaching position, I wasn't totally lacking in experience. The prior summer I had prepared for teaching at the literacy council by taking a workshop in the Wilson Reading System, a literacy program based on the Orton-Gillingham method. I practiced the method with students at the Children's Dyslexia Center in New Jersey and found that the approach, when followed with fidelity, effectively taught reading to children in even the most difficult cases. Nothing had seemed to work for Mary before, but maybe no one had given this method a try.

To our amazement, in a few short sessions the concepts that had eluded Mary for decades began to stick, until she was reading and spelling on her own for the first time in her life.

More than once we ended sessions with tears welling, touched by her newfound access to print. But equally palpable was the realization that she could have learned to read all along but hadn't been exposed to the right approach.

What Is Structured Literacy?

Structured Literacy is a term coined in 2016 by the International Dyslexia Association to unify the many names for this research-based approach. Also known as Orton-Gillingham, phonics-based reading instruction, systematic reading instruction, and synthetic phonics (among others), this method has been around for nearly a century.

In the late 1920s, physician Samuel T. Orton partnered with Teacher's College educator Anna Gillingham to create a method of reading instruction that would better support the needs of his patients with reading difficulties. He believed that these difficulties were brain-based and not supported by the popular rote memorization method used to teach reading at the time.

The method Orton and Gillingham devised was phonics-based, systematic, explicit, and highly structured, with multisensory elements to help learners retain the concepts that eluded them. This is the same method we call Structured Literacy today.

Because Structured Literacy was originally devised to support students who struggle with reading, many educators assume that the approach is only for remedial instruction. But Structured Literacy is appropriate for the general education classroom because it supports the reading acquisition of all students.

When a Structured Literacy program is taught in general ed classrooms, teachers may find that 5 to 10 percent of students will still struggle to master the concepts and need to be referred to intervention to intensify instruction. A unified Structured Literacy approach within a school's Response-to-Intervention (RTI) framework allows teachers in each tier to use the same curriculum to scaffold the learning and intensify the instruction as needed, with extra repetition, smaller group sizes, and/or increased instructional time.

How It Works

In Structured Literacy instruction, teachers guide students through systematic mastery of the smallest units of sounds (phonemes) and build upon that knowledge by introducing new, more complex material (morphemes and lexemes) in a structured and cumulative way. Structured Literacy teachers are explicit about the ways English is predictable and unpredictable by teaching the linguistic rules behind spelling and the exceptions to those rules.

In Structured Literacy lessons, teachers work on phonemic awareness, decoding skills (blending phonemes to make words), encoding skills (segmenting words into phonemes or morphemes), sight words, and reading fluency. Teachers follow the scope and sequence, covering one syllable at a time until all six syllable types are taught (closed, open, vowel-consonant- e, r-controlled, vowel pair/diphthong, and consonant- le).

Teachers cover these key components of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, reading (decoding), spelling (encoding), sight words, reading fluency, and comprehension.

Why It Works

In Structured Literacy instruction, teachers review previously taught concepts in each lesson and introduce new material to keep the student stimulated and engaged. Built into this design is the understanding that while a student who doesn't struggle with reading difficulties can master a concept in one to five exposures, a student who struggles with reading difficulties may take upward of 25 exposures to master a concept.

Structured Literacy teachers are also diagnostic, evaluating concept mastery both informally in each lesson (through reading observation and written dictation) and formally at the end of each step in the scope and sequence. Teachers respond to student progress or lack thereof by moving at a pace led by student progress, not the curriculum.

There are many published programs that make implementing Structured Literacy in your classroom easier by providing lesson plan maps, scope and sequence, and detailed explanations of the spelling rules that you'll need to explicitly teach to your students. Some of the programs popular with districts, schools, and teachers are:

I stopped working with Mary after a year due to a cross-country move. I helped her new tutor get training and left my materials with him so Mary could continue the program. A few years ago, I received an email written by Mary herself: "Dear Jessica, the seed you planted all those years ago is still growing. Just thought you'd like to know."

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A Powerful Approach to Reading Instruction

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A research-based method of instruction that helps struggling readers is appropriate to use with all students.

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This morphology post has been a long time coming! I have started and stopped so many times because it feels so big! I have had an interest in morphology for years and have slowly been developing my understanding of morphology and dabbling with how to incorporate morphology in the elementary classroom. I've always been hesitant to complete and publish this post because I still don't have all the answers. But I decided a little snippet about morphology is better than nothing! Morphology is one of the components of a Structured Literacy classroom. To read more about Structured Literacy, click here.

I decided to split this blog post up into 3 blog posts. This first one will provide background knowledge about morphology. I've realized over the years that before I can truly help my students apply morphological concepts, I need to have a better understanding of morphology myself! I hope this first post can provide the background knowledge you need to get started. The second will be about teaching morphology in the primary grades (K-2) and then the third will be about teaching morphology the intermediate/upper grades.

What is Morphology?

Morphology is the branch of linguistics that deals with the structure and formation of words in a language. It focuses on the smallest units of within words, known as morphemes. So, morphology is the study of how morphemes are combined to form words. I have found huge benefits to teaching morphology early and often. Usually in elementary classrooms, we focus on phonology, or the study of sounds in our language. This is absolutely essential! However, I have also found that sprinkling in morphology in the younger grades can set our students up for success by providing a deeper understanding of how words work. Then, by third grade we start to shift our focus from phonology to morphology. If they have some instruction all along, they are primed for more!

Morphological Awareness is the ability to consciously recognize, comprehend, and manipulate morphemes (Kirby & Bowers, 2012). The key word there is "consciously". We manipulate morphemes all the time when we speak but we are not conscious of what we are doing or how we are doing it. My goal with younger students is to help them to become aware of this process.

What are Morphemes?

A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning. I always like to compare it to phonology, which is the study of sound patterns. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound. Letters and graphemes represent those sounds. By itself, a phoneme or grapheme does not carry any meaning. It is just a sound or a written representation of that sound. On the other hand, a morpheme does carry meaning. In her book, Beneath the Surface of Words, Sue Hegland says that "morphemes contribute to the overall sense of a word." She goes on to explain that "Morphemes cannot be further divided without losing the sense they contribute to words."

A morpheme can be an affix (like a prefix or a suffix), a base word, or a root. A morpheme can also be a function word like "to", "the", or "of".

Examples of Morphemes

A word can have only one morpheme or it can have several. I always think it's easiest to understand with examples.

Types of Morphemes

There are two types of morphemes: A free morpheme and a bound morpheme.

A free morpheme can be a word all on its own and it can also add additional morphemes to make new words.

A bound morpheme cannot be a word on its own. It has to have other morphemes added to it in order for it to be a real word.

The image below shows the types of morphemes and examples of each:

Base Words and Root Words

I get a lot of questions about the difference between base words and roots. Here is my understanding of the difference: Both carry the bulk of a word's meaning. Base words can be words on their own, whereas roots cannot.

Base words are the first type of morpheme that we teach. Base words are just regular words that do not have any additional morphemes attached to them. When I first introduce morphology, I begin with the concept of a base word. Base words are free morphemes, so they hold their own meaning and do not necessarily need any other morphemes attached to them to be a real word. Base words can have additional morphemes attached to them, but they don't have to. Roots, on the other hand, do need other morphemes. That is what makes them a bound morpheme. Examples of roots are "ject", "struct", "spect", and "rupt".

Bound morphemes carry their own meaning, but they are not a word on their own. They are simply a part of a word. This includes roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Take the root "ject". It means "to throw" but it is not a word on its own. But, you can add prefixes in-, sub-, or pro- to make the words "inject", "subject", and "project". You can also add suffixes to make the word even bigger: subjective, injection, projector. Because roots are not words on their own, I teach roots a little later. It is easiest to begin with base words with our younger students, then add on simple suffixes or prefixes.

Affixes: Prefixes and Suffixes

As I mentioned, base words and roots carry the bulk of the word's meaning. We tend to teach base words in the primary grades (k-2) and then get into roots later (starting in 2nd, but mainly 3rd grade and beyond). Prefixes and suffixes are both affixes. They are bound morphemes because they are not words on their own, but they are added to the beginning or end of a base word or root to change that word.

Prefixes

Prefixes are affixes attached to the beginning of words. Prefixes modify the meaning of words. "Prefixes negate the meaning of a word, intensify the meaning, or change the direction." (Unlocking the Logic of English by Denise Eide)

Take a look at the example below. All of these prefixes can be attached to the same root. The Latin root "port" means "to carry". They all change the meaning of the word slightly. When you report, you carry back information. When you "import" something, you carry it in. When you "export", you carry it out. Transporting is to carry across from one place to another and deport is to carry from a place. Pretty fun, right?!

The 4 most common prefixes (dis-, in-, re-, un-) in English "account for 97% of prefixed words in printed school English". (Scholastic source here)

These nine prefixes account for 75% of words that use a prefix.

Suffixes

Suffixes are affixes attached to the end of words.

The 4 most common suffixes (-s/-es, -ed, -ing, -ly) "account for 95% of suffixed words in printed school English." (Scholastic source here)

Ten suffixes (-s/-es, -ed, -ing, -ly, -er/or, -ion, -ible/able, -al/ial, -y, -ness) account for 85% of words that contain a suffix.

There are two types of suffixes: inflectional and derivational. (I do not get into these terms with my younger students. I simply use the term suffix. I am sharing this for your background knowledge.)

Inflectional suffixes change the verb tense (-ed, -ing, -s, -es), pluralize nouns (-s, -es), or show comparison (-er, -est). These endings do not change the part of speech.

Derivational suffixes create (or derive) a new word. It changes its meaning. These endings do change the part of speech.

I have created suffix posters (a small size for a morpheme wall and a larger size. You can find those suffix visuals here.

Suffix Changing Rules

Unlike with prefixes, adding suffixes isn't always straightforward. When you add a prefix to a word you just add it. It doesn't affect the base word at all. On the other hand, when adding, the base word can change. But don't worry! There are very consistent suffix-changing rules that you will see over and over again. The consistency of these rules makes them easier for kids to grasp and understand. The rule that applies to a suffix depends on what kind of suffix it is: a consonant suffix or a vowel suffix. ( Consonant suffixes begin with a consonant. Vowel suffixes begin with a vowel.) Most of time, when we add a consonant suffix to a root word, the spelling of the root word remains the same (except the y changing rule). No letters of the base/root are changed or added. However, when you add a vowel suffix to a base or root, changes often may be made.

I first teach the doubling rule at the end of my closed syllable unit. I review it again and again though, because it takes a while to get! I teach the drop e rules with my silent e unit. I teach the change y rule with my open syllables unit. (More about that in the next post!)

Here are some examples of those words in action. I hope it helps!

Morphemes Compared to Other Linguistic Terms

I posted this visual several years ago on Instagram and it seemed to help with understanding these terms.

There is often confusion about the difference between graphemes and letters. There are 26 letters of the alphabet. However, there are 44 sounds in our language. Graphemes are the written representation of those sounds. Graphemes can be one letter or they can be more than one letter. For example, the sound (phoneme) /b/ is represented by the grapheme <b> (which is also a letter). The sound (phoneme) /sh/ is represented by the grapheme <sh>. (The letters <s> and <h> together form the grapheme that spells /sh/.)

If you like those examples, I have created a few more and posted them on Instagram from time to time.

If you would like to download these examples, click here.

Morphemes vs. Syllables

Morphemes and syllables are easily confused. A syllable has to do with sound. It's like a beat in a word. It is chunk of sound that revolves around a vowel. With each syllable, our chin drops and it creates a separation. You can hear and feel syllables. You cannot always hear each morpheme. A morpheme is a piece of a word that has meaning. In short, a syllable is like a beat in a word, and a morpheme is a meaningful piece of a word.

A great example of this is with the syllable -tion. The syllable -tion consistently spells the sound "shun". However, did you know that the suffix is actually -ion?

Let's look at the word "instruction". When I break it up into syllables, I would say in-struc-tion. By contrast, when I break it up by morpheme, it is prefix in-, root "struct" (to build) and suffix -ion (in-struct-ion). The root is "struct" with that <t> being part of the root. The suffix is -ion. By itself, suffix -ion doesn't say "shun". It is only when it is combined with the <t> from the root that is says "shun".

The same is true for syllable -ture vs. suffix -ure. In the word "fracture", the syllables are frac-ture (with -ture saying "cher"), but the morphemes are root "fract" meaning to break and suffix -ure. This may seem confusing at first, but I've taught these same concepts to second and third graders and after much exposure and investigating lots of words, it clicks and makes sense to them. (More to come on that in the third blog post of this series.)

Influences on the English Language

One of the reasons why our language is so complicated (and interesting) is because it has many influences from other languages. The English language reflects English history. I don't get into this with my younger students, but it could be interesting for older students. Here is a quick breakdown. (Information is from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling LETRS: Module 4)

Why Should I Teach Morphology?

Understanding morphology involves exploring how words can be broken apart into meaningful units. Teaching morphology is beneficial for decoding unfamiliar words, expanding vocabulary, and enhancing language comprehension.

Improve Decoding of multi-syllabic words: It is so helpful to be able to quickly identify prefixes and suffixes and common roots or bases while decoding. By the age of ten, morphological awareness is a better predictor of decoding ability than is phonological awareness. (Mann & Singson, 2003).

Building Strong Vocabulary: Teaching morphology helps students break down and understand the meaning of words. By learning about prefixes, suffixes, and root words, our students can figure out the meaning of or have a deeper understanding of so many more words. For example, if our students know that the prefix re- means "again", they can figure out that "rewrite" means to write again. "60% of new words that students read are made up of familiar morphemes that can lead the reader to its meaning (Carlisle, 2000).

Improving Reading Comprehension: Morphological awareness is closely linked to reading comprehension. Teaching students to recognize word parts allows them to figure out complex words and infer meanings. "Researchers have found that a 5th grade student's understanding of word parts, or knowledge of morphology, is a better indicator of reading comprehension than his or her vocabulary level." (Kieffer et al, 2007)

Enhancing Spelling Skills: Understanding the structure of words can really help with spelling! Teaching morphology helps students understand spelling patterns, making it easier for them to grasp spelling rules and exceptions. Multi-syllabic words often are not spelled how they sound. Students who can identify morphemes are much more likely to spell the word correctly. Here are some examples:

If a student is struggling to remember how to spell the word "really" and keeps spelling it "realy" with one <l>, you can explain that the word is made up of two morphemes: base word "real" + suffix -ly. There are two <l>'s in that word because one <l> belongs with the base word and the other belongs with the suffix.

Another example I like to use is the word "different". It sounds like it should be spelled "difrent". When we use morphemes, we can see that it is base word "differ" plus suffix -ent. When we say "differ", we can hear that /er/ sound. There are endless examples like this one.

When spelling the word "rocks", a student may want to spell it like "box" or "fox". Afterall, it does sound the same. The understanding that "rocks" is really "rock" plus suffix -s, meaning more than one rock can help with understanding of the word and spelling of the word. (See Instagram post explaining here.) This is a basic example, but it serves as a foundation for later understanding with more complex words.

(Read more about spelling instruction here. )

English is Morpho-Phonemic

To wrap it all up... English words are made up of two components: phonemes and morphemes. English spelling represents sounds, syllables, and morphemes. Students need knowledge of both phonology and morphology to fully understand English words.

Although we must teach sound-symbol correspondences and spend ample time mastering decoding and encoding early on, we also should begin introducing the concept of morphemes. We want students to be thinking about structures along with pronunciation. Both are equally important.

Morphological elements are spelled consistently even though the pronunciation will vary. Pronunciation can change as we add or take away affixes, but the spelling remains consistent. A schwa sound may move, the stressed syllable may change, and vowels may represent different sounds depending on the affixes you add. "Bases and affixes can have multiple pronunciations, but use consistent spelling to mark relations of meaning." (Pete Bowers)

Pronunciation Changes, Spelling is Consistent

Let's take a look at two examples of related words that change pronunciation, but keep spelling:

In this first example, see how the letters <e> and <a> change pronunciation. You can also see how the letter <t> represents the /t/ sound and then changes to /sh sound when combined with the -ion. The base here is "relate". We add the suffix -ive to make "relative". We add suffixes -ion and -ship to make "relationship". The pronunciation changes but when we look at it through the lens of morphology, it's easy to see the relationships. The only change in spelling was the consistent suffix rule of dropping e before a vowel suffix.

Now, let's look at another example. Here the root is "nat", which means "birth". When suffix -ive is added, the <a> makes a long a sound and the <t> represents the /t/ sound. But, if you add -ion to the root, the letter <t> no longer represents the /t/ sound. Once you another suffix -al, the <a> changes from a long a to a short a. Add yet another suffix -ity, and that second <a> goes from a schwa sound to a short vowel sound and that syllable is not the stressed syllable. See how pronunciation varies so much but the spelling and meaning totally make sense! It's like putting puzzle pieces together.

Irregular Words or Just Misunderstood Words?

Here is another picture from an old post to illustrate the words "do", "does", "doing", "done", "undone", and "redo". Often the word "does" is super tricky for students and we consider it an irregular word. It does seem irregular if we are only considering the sounds in the word. If we were to do phoneme-grapheme mapping, we would break it up like this: d-oe-s with <oe> representing the /u/ sound. However if we were considering morphology, the spelling sure does make sense. The word "does" is base word "do" plus suffix -es. This is similar to "goes". As with other words, the pronunciation changed when a suffix was added but the spelling remains intact.

The word done is base word "do" with suffix -ne (similar to "gone"). I remember reading somewhere that -ne is an irregular version of the suffix -en? That one is a bit trickier but super interesting! I'm sure there is a historical explanation.

The word "said" has a similar structure to "paid" and "laid". Pronunciation of "says" is different, but the spelling shows it is base "say" plus suffix -s. That's much better than trying to "sound out" that word.

One last example is the word "two". The <w> seems like it comes out of nowhere. Long ago, the /w/ may have been pronounced. The /w/ sound is still pronounced in related words, like "twin", "twelve", "twenty", "twice", and "between". All are related to the meaning of two.

This all feels like a lot of information that may be too overwhelming to throw at our students. Well, you're exactly right! It would be too much to just throw at them all at once. This is why we want to give little snippets starting early and continue to review and show more and more examples often! We start very basic and slowly add on.

So how do we do that? Check out my next blog post on how to get started with teaching morphology. Then, read the third morphology post about how to teach morphology in the intermediate grades.

Resources:

I've posted a few videos on YouTube that may be helpful. Click here to get to my morphology videos.

I'm still working on a morphology unit with activities that build and break apart words with roots and affixes. I'm hoping it'll be done soon! In the meantime, check out my other morphology resources.

Acknowledgements:

Eide, Denise. Uncovering the Logic of English: A Common-Sense Approach to Reading, Spelling, and Literacy. Logic of English, Inc., 2012.

Hegland, Sue Scibetta. Beneath the Surface of Words: What English Spelling Reveals and Why It Matters. Learning About Spelling, 2021.

Moats, L, & Tolman, C (2019). Excerpted from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): Module 4

Zafarris, Jess, and Marco Marella. Once upon a Word: A Word-Origin Dictionary for Kids: Building Vocabulary through Etymology, Definitions & Stories. Rockridge Press, 2020.

Home, www.wordworkskingston.com/WordWorks/Home.html. Accessed 14 Dec. 2023.

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Understanding Morphology: Part 1 - Sarah's Teaching Snippets

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Morphology is the study of how morphemes are combined to form words. Understanding morphology helps with spelling, decoding, and comprehension.

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Children start identifying words by their phonemes. Throughout this section, I have learned about how to teach and help students apply phonemes. We discussed different techniques in order for students to advance in their literacy skills.

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In order for children to be successful within their reading skills, they need to fully understand phonological awareness. They learn early skills that will help them reach a proficient level.

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Morphological Awareness: One Piece of the Literacy Pie - International Dyslexia Association

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Children identify different phonemes/graphemes through the progress of phonic skills. They can use these techniques to help them decode new words and advance in their reading/writing skills. It is important to remember to use positive word choice to spark growth-mindset capabilities.

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Understanding syllables as the building blocks of words is key to becoming a good reader and speller. Syllables break down words into chunks which makes it easier for students to encode and decode pronunciation. This also helps them navigate the complex rules of the English language.

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Morphology helps students understand the unit of meaning within words. This strategy breaks apart words into easier chunks to decode successfully. This skill is important when comprehending spelling and reading. Students can access their morphological awareness to investigate the meaning of words.

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Phonics Instruction: start early, keep it simple (learned sounds-spelling into reading)

Scarborough's Reading Rope: language/word components of a skilled reader

Fluency: recognize words accurately, sound out words, use of context clues

Graphophonic: sound-spelling relationships

Syntactic: grammar/language structure, word choice/placement

Semantic: knowledge of world, understanding cues, making sense of sentences

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Helpful Infographic or Visual Representation

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Helpful Infographic or Visual Representation

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In order to become a skilled reader, children need strong instruction on reading framework. They can utilize different tools to progress in critical reading skills. These tools consist of decoding, fluency, comprehension, plus more. Remember to not overdo phonic instruction, all children need modified instruction, and encourage the love of reading.

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Mastering vowels sets a solid foundation for reading and writing. Instruction needs to be broken down into easier chunks to understand. Once mastery of these skills have been met, they should be applied to the bigger picture. These steps will help guide students to become good readers.