Intended Audience

​The intended audience of this module is 3rd grade - 5th grade self-contained and literacy teachers who give instruction in the area of Word Study or Spelling. These teachers may have some background in the area of Word Study instruction. Teachers who are well versed in the area of Word Study may not gain new insight into the subject area but may obtain new ideas for instruction.

Learning Target

In this module, we are learning to:

• Identify ways the area of Word Study has changed with the rebalancing of literacy according to the Science of Literacy
• Plan Word Study instruction that incorporates: reading, writing, phonetic awareness, encoding, decoding, and handwriting. 
• Adapt Word Study resources provided by schools to incorporate the phonetic necessity of reading and writing instruction

Success Criteria

Each module will have its own Success Criteria listed that will directly correspond to the Learning Targets expressed above. These criteria will be listed at the start of each module.

Norms

• I will remain respectful in my communication.
• I will be open to the opinions of others.
• We are all here to improve our understanding of phonemic instruction.
• We will accept that we have made mistakes in our instruction practices, but are open to growing in new methodology.

Module Structure

This module will start by defining word study and the necessary changes being made to instruction in order to honor the shift from a Balanced Literacy approach to an approach that incorporates The Science of Reading. 

From there, the module will follow a day-by-day instruction method that will incorporate the areas of reading, writing, phonemic awareness, encoding, decoding, and handwriting. In the resource section of the introduction, you will find a link to a downloadable packet that we will use as a model for teaching. The lessons in this packet are intended to be 15-20 minutes with direct instruction and independent work for students. 

The project for this module will be a week-long lesson plan for Word Study, as well as a reflection on how you will these implementations will change your word study instruction moving forward. 

Downloadable Resources

• ​Word Study Packet (PDF)
• Lesson Planning Document (PDF)

Reading Materials

• ​Shifting the Balance (3-5) 
• NRP 2000 Findings

Technology Resources 

(These are great for formatting and designing documents)

• Canva
• Google Slides

Fig. 1: Hume, C. (2017). Words of Knowledge. Unsplash. photograph, Unsplash. Retrieved October 14, 2023, from https://unsplash.com/photos/k2Kcwkandwg.

Success Criteria

• I can identify changes in literacy instruction methodology brought on by The Science of Reading.
• I can communicate my understanding of current phonemic instruction.

Diaz, L. (2023, September 18). Balanced literacy vs science of reading: What’s behind this debate? the shift to structured literacy. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGr5V7_9jCs

The video above does an excellent job of mapping out a timeline for phonetic instruction in America. Up until the 1920s, phonetic instruction was the main way we taught reading and spelling. However, in the 1930's a rote memorization model was adopted. By the 1940's, students were struggling to read and America started to inch back toward phonetic instruction being a necessity.

In the 1970's, Balanced Literacy was adopted. Phonetic instruction was not a focus and was believed to harm a student's relationship with reading and books. Instead, students were taught to memorize sight words and to cue for words in reading by guessing. 

In 1997, The National Reading Panel (NRP) was formed by the US government to determine what exactly was the best practice for reading instruction. In 2000 their findings were published. They found explicit instruction in Phonemic Awareness had an effect size of .86 (anything over .4 is found to be very effective practice). It also found that, in the area of spelling, Phonemic Awareness Instruction had an effect that was lasting and generalized when taught in kindergarten and first grade. (National Reading Panel,2000)

So why wasn't The NRP successful in making Phonemic Instruction part of the American reading programs? As the podcast, Sold a Story, explores in their episode The Battle, it came down to politics. Democratic teachers admitted they didn't believe that it was good research simply because they did not agree with George Bush, the Republican president presenting the evidence. So Balanced Literacy continued to reign supreme, and students continued to fail as readers and spellers. 

Now, we have adopted The Science of Reading, which is not a reading program,  but simply research about reading strategies that activate the parts of the brain that help us learn. One of these strategies is phonemic awareness instruction, much like the NRP research discovered. So as we rebalance our thinking about reading and writing programs, we now have to determine where phonemic awareness instruction fits into our day for instruction. 

Primary grades, kindergarten through second grade, have had some phonemic awareness instruction built into their programs for years, but intermediate grades have been left to wonder where their duty is to phonemic instruction.

This word study program is intended to attack what a student knows about a whole word. Students will be expected to write (handling writing), spell (encode), read (decode), gather meaning from words and use words fluently in their daily practice in areas of speech, reading, and writing.

The "Why?"

In the book, Teaching Phonics and Word Study in Intermediate Grades by Wiley Blevins, ten reasons for explicit phonics instruction.

1. Phonics instruction can help learn to read

2. Explicit phonics instruction is more beneficial than implicit instruction.

3. Students who are poor readers tend to have weak phonics skills.

4. Phonics affects decoding ability.

Phonics knowledge can make word recognition automatic.

5. Good decoders rely less on context clues than poor decoders.

6. Phonemic awareness is necessary for phonemic instructon to be effective

7. The reading process relies on attention to each letter in the word

8. Phonics instruction improves spelling

9. The teacher's knowledge of phonics affects phonics instruction

10. Knowledge of common syllable patterns and structural analysis improves reading, spelling, and understanding of multisyllabic words. 

With this and the findings of the NRP, we can determine that if we improve our explicit phonics instruction, then we will improve our student's reading abilities. One takeaway from these findings is phonics instruction does not just include a student's ability to read and spell words, but the student's ability to find meaning in the words. 

Moving Forward

Over the next five lessons, we will explore what a five-day lesson looks like for phonemic awareness. This lesson is primarily focused on 4th-grade instruction over vowel pair syllables. The methods in these lessons incorporate phonemic awareness, reading, writing, and handwriting.

Update

Read this article by Vox.

As an educator navigating this shift in literacy instruction, you may feel guilt or feel like you have been in malpractice in your past literacy instruction. One of our norms is that we give ourselves grace from how we have been taught in the past. We accept it and move on. Think of where you have been as an educator and where you would like to move toward as we learn more about literacy instruction. Write an update explaining your thinking and the promises you make to yourself and your students as you learn. Comment on at least two peers' posts.

Fig. 2: Blaz Photo. (2017). No Title. Unsplash. photograph, Unsplash. Retrieved October 14, 2023, from https://unsplash.com/photos/zMRLZh40kms.

Success Criteria

• I can introduce phonetic skills.
• I can utilize word maps to spell individual sounds in a word

Day One

In the Word Study Packet, day one instruction consists of three parts: 

In total, this lesson should take 15-20 minutes.

The last two pages of the packet consist of teacher directives for instruction. The directions read as follows:

• Have students trace the words and then mark the syllable breaks. Have the students underline or highlight vowel teams
• In the word mapping boxes, have the students spell out the following words: pointed and Monday
• Students will read through Building Automaticity and underline or highlight vowel teams

​Explicit Instruction (5-7 Minutes)

This section starts by calling on students' background knowledge. It is understood that the students understand what a syllable is, however; they may not have an understanding of what a vowel team syllable is. Students may start to notice the patterns in the words as they trace and break the words into syllables.

This instruction is best done if the teacher is projecting their own work under a document camera or on a SmartBoard.

Students start by tracing the words on the lines. In our district, we have determined handwriting to be vital to our reading instruction program, and we honor this by including it in our word study time. Students will then draw a line in the word to indicate where the syllables are located.

The first traced word is "teacher", so your students should draw their line as follows:

tea/cher

The teacher will then give explicit instruction on what a vowel team syllable is:

Vowel team syllables have two or more letters that stand for a vowel sound. These letters are always in the same syllable.

• -ow is a vowel team because the letters together make a vowel sound
• In the wordplay the consonant y in -ay also stands for a vowel team

The teacher will then show where the vowel team is in the first syllable of the word "teacher". The word will now look like this:

tea/cher

Have the students underline or highlight the vowel pairs in the rest of the traced words. 

When adapting this lesson for future spelling patterns, this will be where you introduce the spelling pattern and the rules associated with those spelling patterns. Your word study resource provided by the district will direct you on what pattern you are learning and what it wants you to teach the students about the pattern.

Areas areas addressed in this section: Handwriting, reading, phonics, decoding

Word Mapping

Screen Shot of word mapping boxes from packet

Word mapping is a vital part of word study since it allows us to bring awareness to our students about the sounds they are producing when they are encoding and decoding. 

In this section, students will spell the words pointed and Monday.​ Students will write the sounds in each box as they spell. This means that students may have more than one letter in a box in the area of vowel teams like -oa and -ea. It also means that students may have more than one letter that could possibly go in a box to make a sound (like in the instances of c and k or j and soft g).

Student work will look similar to what is below. This is intended to be done together as a class. Students may not be independent in this yet. I recommend having students complete this work in pencil, so they may erase as they go.

Screen shot of student work

Areas addressed: Encoding, Phonics, Handwriting

Building Automaticity

The third page of the document is the Building Automaticity page. Students will read through this page using skills they have learned to decode words. They will break the words into syllables and identify the vowel teams in those syllables by underlining or highlighting the parts in the words. 

Students may work in pairs to time one another to see how many words they can read in one minute. 

Areas addressed: Phonics and Decoding

Moving Forward

​This day is one of the heavier days for teacher-driven instruction. As we move forward with instruction, you will see the students become more independent with their work. This will allow the teacher to meet with intervention groups more toward the last few days of instruction. The Word Mapping Boxes will be vital to intervention groups, so it is important for students to have whole-group exposure to these maps throughout the week. 

Update

Write and update about how you see this fitting in to your word study time at school. What are some of the benefits of structuring your day like this? What are some of the potential or percieved challenges to this instruction?

Comment on two posts made by your peers. 

Success Criteria

• I can review phonetic skills.
• I can utilize word maps to spell individual sounds in a word
• I can use context clues to find meaning of unknown words in text

Day Two

In the Word Study Packet, day two instruction consists of four parts:

In total this lesson should take 18-25 minutes. This is the longest day of instruction. 

The last two pages of the packet consist of teacher directives for instruction. The directions read as follows:

• Have students mark the syllable breaks. Have the students highlight or underline vowel team pairs
• In the word mapping boxes, have the students spell out the following words: Player, counter, contain, enjoy
• Students will complete the context clues page
• Then students will read “The Wolves Return”

Explicit Instruction

Today's explicit instruction is much shorter than the previous day. You will review a vowel team syllables. In the lists below, students are given examples of vowel teams in the first and second syllables. Students will follow the same procedure as Day 1: they will mark the syllable break and then highlight or underline the vowel team in the first or second syllable. 

Areas Addressed: Phonics, encoding

Word Mapping

Students will practice word mapping with four words. For this area of instruction, we will follow an "I do, we do, you do" method. Using the first word, player, model mapping the word. For the second word, counter, have the students help you map the word. Have students work independently to map the last two words. As they do this, walk the room and offer assistance to students as they map the words. Remind the students that it is okay to try again if the word does not look right. 

Areas Addressed: Phonics, encoding, handwriting

Context Clues

Screen shot from packet of context clues chart

Review with students the ways we can figure out the meaning of unknown words. This will act as a preview assignment for the reading that will be done next. 

Screen shot of workspace in packet

Model the first word for the students. Read the sentence, and go through each strategy to determine which one will help you find the meaning of the word. Circle the strategy that helped you and then write a definition for the word. 

Areas addressed: reading, decoding, handwriting

Reading

This text will be used multiple times throughout the rest of the packet. Today, you will read this text aloud to your students. Then you will have them read this one more time to themselves. 

Areas Addressed: reading, decoding

Moving Forward

The story read today contains many words that have vowel pairs. We will use this story on day three to answer some comprehension tasks that involve writing. At this point, you may be wondering why a spelling list has not been given for this week. The use of this packet does not utilize the skill of memorization in word study except for high-frequency words. Any other words should be decodable utilizing past skills. On day three, we will have a dictation practice in order for students to prepare for a dictated spelling test on Day 5.

Update

How are you feeling about letting the use of memorization go in the area of Word Study? How will this change the way you teach spelling and Word Study? Write an update expressing your thoughts. Comment on two of your peers updates.

Success Criteria

• ​I can utilize the dictated spelling check to determine students in need of spelling intervention. 

Day Three

​Day three instruction is broken into three sections. This day of instruction involves more independent work time for the students. This day does not have any explicit instruction except to explain the task progression for the period of time. 

Altogether, this lesson should take between 15-20 minutes.

Dictated Spelling Check

While there is no explicit spelling list given to the students at the start of the week, there is a spelling test given during Day 5's lesson time. The expectation is for students to be able to encode and decode words given orally using any strategies or phonics instruction given throughout the week. Today you will follow the teacher's instructions from the packet and administer a spelling check to your students. 

The spelling check consists of three words and a dictated sentence. While the students are working on the re-read and writing assignment for the rest of the period, you may choose to have students come visit with you one-on-one to check their work or you can walk the room and check their work. 

Some things you may look for:

• Students who have consistent spelling errors in the word and sentence
• Students who miss vowel teams

Based on the patterns you see, you can develop a list of students who may need to be pulled for small group instruction on Day 4.

Areas addressed: Handwriting, encoding

Re-Read and Writing

As we rebalance our literacy approach, it will become more and more important for our students to write about what they are reading. The writing part of this day's instruction should be limited to 5 minutes. You may find your students need to more room to write or struggle to write for the full five minutes. This will be an area of growth for your students to free write. 

Areas Addressed: Reading, writing, handwriting, decoding

Moving Forward

​The next day's instruction is meant for full independence in order to give the teacher time for small group instruction. 

Update

​What are other small group strategies you could utilize on day three instruction? What will you have as an extension for students who finish their word sort early?

Comment on two peer updates

Success Criteria

• I can utilize small group time for intervention during word study
• I can utilize word mapping to decode and encode words. 

Day 4

​There are two parts to today's instruction and they occur concurrently. Students will complete the independent task of sorting words based on skills they have learned this week as well as skills they have learned in the past. While students are working independently, the teacher is pulling an intervention group to work on word mapping. 

This lesson should be 15-20 minutes long

Independent Work

At the start of the lesson, you will see that the information about vowel teams from Days 1 and 2 is reiterated again. It is the intent that the students will use that statement independently and it should not need to be addressed by the teacher. Students will sort words into three categories based on vowel teams, closed syllables, and open syllables. With closed and open syllables being reviewed from previous lessons. 

Small Group

While students are working on independent work, the teacher will call students in need of intervention to work in a small group. There is a page of word maps given. Use this page to have students map words. You can use your own words you think of, use words from building automaticity or words given in other lessons.  

Moving Forward

Tomorrow will be the spelling test for this week's skill. We still have not given them a list of words to study so the student is encouraged to use spelling skills they have learned through the week.

Screen Shot From Word Study Packet

​Day 5

Today is intended to get further information about your student's skills. In total, this test should take 15-20 minutes and contains three parts: word pattern dictation, high-frequency word dictation, and sentence dictation. These words were taken from the resources provided by the school district.

You will notice the difference from traditional spelling instruction is we do not provide the spelling words at the start of the week to practice at home throughout the week. The intention with this is that the students are provided with explicit phonemic instruction and practice with encoding throughout the week. Students should be able to utilize the skills they have learned throughout the week to encode the words without practice.

As a district, grade level team, or on your own, you will need to decide if you want to grade your assessment on a whole word or word pattern. Students tend to score higher when they are tested based on getting the word pattern correct. However, you may choose to grade based on whether or not the word is correct despite getting the word pattern correct. This may change year to year based on the class you have. 

Moving Forward

​Chances are, you know the students who will need further intervention in spelling and word study skills. Use this test to provide data for progress keeping and small group instruction as well as RTI or MTSS data.

Update

​Now that we have worked through an entire week's lesson, what do you feel these lessons are missing? What do you expect to be a blocker as you move forward with these lessons? What are you excited about?

Comment on two peer updates.

Project

​For this project, you will utilize the skills we have learned about incorporating reading, writing, handwriting, and phonemic awareness to encourage encoding and decoding in your word study block. Using the planning sheet, found in the introduction, you will create word study documents for your students as well as a word study module with the intended audience of your class. 

You will be graded on your incorporation of reading, writing, handwriting and phonemic awareness into your lesson. 

Dombrowski, J. (2017, April 1). Teacher gives fake spelling test as April fools prank official. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwnBAHtc1D0

In this module, we have learned to:

• Identify ways the area of Word Study has changed with the rebalancing of literacy according to the Science of Literacy
• Plan Word Study instruction that incorporates: reading, writing, phonetic awareness, (encoding and decoding), and handwriting.
• Adapt Word Study resources provided by schools to incorporate the phonetic necessity of reading and writing instruction

As we rebalance our literacy programs, word study is going to become more and more prominent. I hope this module has given you insight into ways you can make your phonics programs more encompassing of all aspects of literacy.