Word Study

I have fine-tuned my Word Study program this year. For a number of years, the Word Wall and Word Study 5 Ways (from Katie Wood Ray and Lisa Cleaveland’s About the Authors: Writing Workshop with our Youngest Writers) have been at the heart of our practice of frequently used words. I am continuing that while drawing the words I use from Patricia M. Cunningham’s What Really Matters in Spelling: Research-Based Strategies and Activities. Many of the words are the same ones I have used before, but she makes some choices in order to be sure a range of consonants, blends, and vowel patterns are represented.

In addition she incorporates the study of word families (rhyming words, chunks) into the Word Wall work. While I have done this kind of work with my students, I have not connected it directly to the Word Wall before. This past week we took a break from adding five words per week to our wall (25 words so far). Instead we explored word families based on words we have added to the Word Wall so far.

Word Study 5 Ways

In Language Group we work on studying how words are put together. We cover common spelling patterns. And we practice reading and writing frequently used words. The goal is that these words become part of the children's reading and writing vocabularies, part of the words that the children can read and write without having to break them down.

I have used various approaches to studying frequently used words over the years. The one I like best is from About the Author: Writing Workshop with our Youngest Writers by Katie Ray Wood with Lisa B. Cleaveland. Each student is given a sheet each week with five words from our Word Wall along with a checklist of ways to practice those words. Students are to choose five ways to practice from the checklist. Choosing how to practice the words adds to the students' investment. The list includes everything from rainbow words (writing the words using rainbow colors) to making the words with Unifix letter cubes to back writing to stamping them with letter stamps. A couple of years ago one of the students came up with the idea of finding and pointing out the words on the Word Wall. That way was taken up by the other students and now is on the list each week. This year’s students enjoy exploring the different ways, and each is developing favorites.

Why Generated Spelling

In writing workshop I encourage students to generate spellings for words that they do not know how to spell. The beginning goal in writing workshop is for students to get their ideas onto paper, so that they can develop those ideas into cohesive pieces of writing. Young students who are concerned primarily with spelling words conventionally tend to be more conservative writers: “I love my mom. I love my dad. I love my dog.” They like to stick to words they are sure they know how to spell. Or they rely on others to help them spell, which undercuts their developing independence as a writer. Or they take so long to look for the spelling of a word, they forget what they were going to say next.

A willingness to use generated spelling frees the student to focus on getting those ideas into writing. I find once a student makes this step, the writing becomes more varied, and the student works with more confidence. When I ask students to generate spellings, I ask them to stretch the words out and write down the letters that represent the sounds they hear. The goal is for them to represent the words phonetically. As their understandings of words develop, they can draw on what they learn about how words work, for example using two l’s in spelling wall because they have learned to spell “ball.”

An additional value is that the process of generating spelling is a type of encoding. There is research that shows that the process of working to encode words supports a child’s developing reading skills.

In other parts of our language group work, we do word study. In word study we work to add frequently used words to both the students’ reading and spelling vocabularies. Over time we also begin to explore common spelling patterns and word families. So encouraging generated spelling in writing workshop does not mean that spelling is not important. What is important is to explore it in areas that do not undercut the student's developing independence as a writer.

Word Study

Word Study is work that we do to support both our writing and our reading. One focus in word study is finding the patterns in words. We can identify "chunks" or rimes that a group of words have in common. For example, the chunk -an is in many simple consonant-vowel-consonant words. The word "can" is on our Word Wall and knowing it can help students recognize others words, such as man and van.

We have been adding 5 words a week to our Word Wall. These are all frequently used words or popcorn words, as some call them, because they pop up a lot. The goal is that these words become part of the children's reading and writing vocabularies, part of the words that the children can read and write without having to break them down.

For practicing our Word Wall words I use an activity from About the Author: Writing Workshop with our Youngest Writers by Katie Ray Wood with Lisa B. Cleaveland. Every Monday I give each student a sheet that has five of our word wall words plus a checklist of ways to practice those words. Students get to choose which 5 ways to practice the assigned words. Choosing how to practice the words adds to the students' investment. The list includes everything from rainbow words (writing the words using different colors) to making the words with manipulatives such as letter stamps, Wikki Sticks, or Unifix letter cubes to using a pointer to find the words on the Word Wall. The students enjoy exploring the different ways, and each is developing favorites. They are becoming more comfortable with the 5 Ways routine, so that we are using this time more efficiently.

Word Wall-Encouraging its active use

We have continued to add 5 frequently used words to our Word Wall each week. Every week each student gets 5 words from the Word Wall to practice in Word Study 5 Ways.

Recently I read a post at the Stenhouse Blog as part of their Quick Tip Tuesday that talked about ways to make the children more familiar with where words are on the Word Wall, so that they are more likely to use it as a resource as they write. It was thus interesting to me when not long after that one of my students, Leo, thought of a new way to practice his words. He said he could use the pointer and find each one on the Word Wall. His idea proved popular with the other students, so now I have added it to the list of Word Study 5 Ways list, calling it "Word Wall Find."