Words Their Way:Developmental Word Knowledge Chapter 1 Discussion

Words Their Way: Silver/Fifth Edition by Donald R. Bear, Shane Templeton Marcia Invernizzi. (2012)

This chapter describes the process of literacy as threads of a braid.  These threads begin to intertwine and bond creating a strong bond of literacy skills.

Threads of Literacy:

• Orthography (growing knowledge of spelling)
• Reading
• Oral Language
• Stories
• Writing

The author of the book base their word study on humans natural interest in finding order, comparing and contrasting, and paying attention to what remains the same despite minor variations.

Word Study comes from three decades of research exploring developmental aspect of word knowledge with children and adults. It is based on reoccurring (clusters) orthographic principles studied

1. Errors dealing with the alphabetic match of letters and sounds (FES for fish).
2. Errors dealing with letter patterns (SNAIK for snake), POPING for popping)
3. Errors dealing with words related in meaning INVUTATION for initiation) a lack of recognition that invite provides the clue to the correct spelling.

Word Study: (Efficient and effective instruction) using student’s spellings as a guide, teachers can efficiently differentiate effective instruction in phonics, spelling, and vocabulary.

Word Study teaches student how to look at words so that they can construct an ever deepening understanding of how spelling works to represent sound and meaning. This type of instruction requires 10 to 15 minutes a day.

Purpose of Word Study

1. General knowledge of English spelling (active exploration, examine words, generalize, patterns, conventions)
2. Increase specific knowledge of words (the spelling and meaning)

Words Their Way book is designed to help students explore and learn about words their way, instruction must be sensitive to two fundamental beliefs:

1. Students’ learning of phonics, spelling, and vocabulary is based on their developmental or instructional level or zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1962), students can build on what they already know.
2. Students’ learning is based on the way they are naturally inclined to learn: through comparing and contrasting word features and discovering consistencies.

Word Study

• Students experimenting with alphabetic match of letters and sounds. Teachers can contrast aspect of the wring system that relate directly to the representation of the sound (bed, leg, net, neck)
• Students experimenting with patterns, teacher contrast patterns as they relate to vowels (ay: play, day, tray way) are compared with (ai: wait, rain, chain, maid)
• Students experimenting with conventions of syllables, affixes (prefixes/suffixes) and other meaning units, teachers can help students become aware of the stability of these elements across variations.  Students will see words with similar meanings are often spelled the same. (admiration is spelled with an (i) because it comes from admire.

Stages of Orthographic Knowledge (3 functioning levels)

1. What student do correctly-an independent or easy level
2. What student use but confuse – an instructional level at which instruction is most helpful.
3. What is absent in students’ spellings – a frustration level in which spelling concepts are too difficult.

These stages help with scope and sequence of word study.

Students will build from what is known to what is new rather than rote memorization.  Word Study is active, and by making judgments about words and sorting words according to similar features students construct their own understandings about how features work.  Active, thoughtful practice helps student internalize word features and become automatic in using what they have learned.

Emergent Spelling Stage 1st

It encompasses the writing efforts of children who are not year reading conventionally and in most cases have not been exposed to formal reading instruction. (random marks to letters with relation to sound). Emergent stage is prephonetic (little if any direct relationship between a character on the page and the sound). Letters in their own name is where they begin to pay attention to sounds.

Letter Name – Alphabetic Spelling (3) Stages

This is the 2^nd stage in development and encompasses that period of time during which students are formally taught to read, typically the kindergarten and first grade years and on into the middle of second grade (ages 5-8).  Typically use the names of letters as cues to sounds.

Divided into:

*Early (alphabetic principle primarily to consonants)(lacks spacing) Semiphonic: b/c only some of the sounds are represented.

*Middle ( shows mastery of beginning and ending consonants) Spells high frequency words// uses vowels, long vowels that say their name, but silent letters are absent.

*Late(represent most regular short vowel sounds, digraphs, and consonant blends b/c they have full phonemic awareness.

Preconsonantal nasals (n and m in bunk and lump)

Within Word  Pattern Spelling Stage 3^rd

Students can read and spell many words correctly because of their automatic knowledge of letter sounds and short vowel patterns. (typically begins as students transition to independent reading toward end of 1^st grade though can continue onto 4^th grade {ages 7 – 10}).  This stage last longer because of vowel pattern system of English orthography is extensive.  (Homophones are also in this stage)

Syllables and Affixes Spelling Stage 4th

This stage is achieved in the upper elementary and middle grades, when student are expected to spell many words of more than one syllable.  Students consider spelling patterns where syllables meet and meaning units such as affixes (prefixes and suffixes). (9-14 years old and many adults can be found in this stage). Inflected endings (ed, ing). Principle of syllable juncture to keep vowel short in (LITTEL – little, SUMER – summer).

*** Open Syllable refers to syllables that remain open because they end with a long vowel sound. (humor)

** Closed Syllable refers to syllables that are closed by a consonant or consonants, resulting in short vowel sound. (summer, camper)

Derivation Relations Spelling Stage (5th and final)

Some may reach this stage as early as 4^th and 5^th grade most derivation relation spellers are found in middle school, high school and college and continues on into adulthood.  This comes from when students examine how many words can be derived from base words. Word study in this stage builds on and expands knowledge of wide vocabulary including thousand or words of Greek and Latin origin.  This is referred to as the generative level of spelling and vocabulary instruction because student explore and learn word formation processes or morphology of English.  They are able to generate knowledge.

Synchrony of Literacy Development

This harmony in the timing of development is known as the synchrony of reading, writing, and spelling development.

Emergent Readers (prereading) read pictures, familiar texts from memory, they are not reading in the conventional sense.

Beginning Readers are starting to use systematic letter – sound matches to identify and store words in memory.

Transitional Readers and spellers move into the within word pattern spelling stage (chunks, consonant digraphs and blends are internalized) followed with word families or phonograms.

Intermediate and Advanced Readers are called syllables and affixes and derivational relations. (This stage they can solve abstract problems and reflect meatcognitively on experiences).  They are relatively automatic word recognition, leaving their minds free to think as rapidly as they can read.

Synchrony of Spelling and Reading

Correlations between spelling and various measures of word recognition and decoding have been reported (first grade through college) as students were asked to spell words.  These studies reported correlations ranging from .68 to .86.

**Students’ spelling attempts also provide a powerful medium for predicting reading achievement.

Integrated Phonics, Spelling, and Reading Instruction

Henderson (1981) Word Study because he was convinced that understanding how children learn to spell words could also provide insight on how they read them.  Categorizing written words through:

Word Sorts

Word Hunts

Writing Sorts

enables learners to sort out the relationships between these different types of information.

Instruction should begin where students are using but confusing.  We find this by looking at their uncorrected writing.  Using spelling inventories can guide where to place students and pace the content of word study instruction.