Word Awareness Activities Grades 4-12

Word Awareness Activities

(Adapted from Teaching Phonics and Word Study in Junior and Intermediate Grades (p. 58-59)  

While the initial introduction of phonics skills is best using an explicit approach students also benefit from playing with, and exploring letter-sounds. In fact, because it takes time and loads of experiences reading and writing words for that knowledge to be mastered, playing and exploring letter-sound relationships is crucial for students of all ages in order to consolidate and solidify their learning of how words work.  Word awareness activities can be seen as types of "exploratory" activities that provide essential "thinking" time for students as they incorporate new learning into already established learning. 

Word Building and Word Sorts: The two best types of exploration exercises that increase a student's word awareness are word building and word sorts. Both should be an important part of phonics instruction for each skill introduced. In word building, students are given a set of letter cards and asked to create a series of words in a specified sequence. This can occur during both whole- and small-group lessons. Generally each new word varies by only one sound-spelling from the previous word (can be more variance as students progress in skills). 

For example, students might be asked to build, or make with letter cards, these words in sequence: sat, mat, map, mop. Notice how each word varies from the preceding word by only one sound-spelling. 

As students move up the grades, word building should continue with students using syllables instead of individual letters to build increasingly more complex words.

Word Building Activities

There are two types of word building, each with a clearly defined instructional purpose:

1-Word Building: Blending Focus

In this type of word building, students are asked to make a word, such as sat. They are then told to change the letters to the letter m and read the new word formed. Thus, the primary goal is for them to blend, or sound out, the new word formed. This is the type of blending you might want to start out with at the beginning of an instructional cycle. It allows students time to decode many words with the new target phonics skills, while also reviewing previously taught skills.

2-Word Building: Word Awareness Focus

In this type of word building, students are asked to make a word, such as sat. They are then told to change sat to mat. This is cognitively more demanding than the blending-focused word building. Why? Students have to consider how the words sat and mat vary (i.e., which sound is different), which letter must be removed from sat, which added to form mat, and in which position in the word. That's a lot of thinking about how words work! This is why word building is so beneficial. Students gain flexibility in how to use sound-spellings in words. This type of word building is one you can do later in the week after students have had more exposure to the skill. And, by repeating the word building sequences multiple times throughout the week with different instructional focuses, you only need to create one set of words and one set of letter cards-saving you valuable planning time.

Word sorts

Word sorts also allow students time to think about how words work by drawing their attention to important and common spelling patterns. Generally, in word sorts students are given a set of words that have something in common (e.g., all contain the same vowel sound, but with different spellings as in -oat and -oad words for long o). 

Students are asked to sort the words by their common features. There are many types of word sorts, each with a distinct instructional purpose. Below are three of the most common types.

1-Open Sort: In these sorts, students are not told how to sort the words. That is, students are given a set of words and allowed to sort them in any way they want. This is a good first sort with a set of words because it tells you a lot about how students are thinking about words and what aspects of words they notice. 

For example, if you gave the students these words-boat, road, throw, grow, soap, show-and they sorted them by first letter-sound, that would indicate the students are noticing very simplistic aspects of words (initial letter-sounds) and not noticing what is truly common among these words (they all contain the long o sound spelled oa or ow).

2-Closed Sort: in these sorts, students are told how to sort the words. So for the preceding long o sort, students are told to sort the words into two piles, each representing a different spelling for the long o sound (oa or ow). These are fairly simple and direct sorts since students are visually scanning each word for a specified spelling pattern. The value in this type of sort is the conversation you have with students following the sort. 

For example, you should ask students questions like: What do you notice about these words? What do you notice about these spellings for long o? Do you know other words with these spellings? 

Then you guide students (if they don't notice on their own) that the oa spelling for long o rarely appears at the end of the word. This is really valuable information about how words work that will have positive benefits on students' future reading and writing. That is, when a student encounters a new word when writing (e.g., the word snow), what do they do? They think about each sound and the associated spelling. When they get to the long o sound at the end of the word snow, they know they have two options that they've learned-oa or ow. Which is a better option? Well, if you've had the discussion during the sort, the student will know that the ow spelling is the only option since oa cannot appear at the end of a word. This is the kind of thinking and knowledge building we want to have happen as a result of word sorts. Word sorts are far more than a quick, visual, sorting task.

3-Timed Sorts: In these sorts, students are told how to sort a set of words, but are given a limited amount of time to do so. This is an ideal type of sort to do with a set of words students have been working with all week (having already completed open and closed sorts). Adding the element of time creates a game-like feel to the task that students enjoy. However, even more, it provides an important benefit. Getting students to readily notice larger word chunks in words, such as these common spelling patterns, is essential to reading longer, multisyllabic words. As students progress up the grades, the words they encounter will increase in length. Instead of reading new words like cat, soap, and barn, they begin to encounter words like unexpected, predetermined, and unhappily. It becomes inefficient for students to attack these words letter-by-letter.

Instead, larger chunks of these words need to visually 'pop' out so the reader has fewer word parts to tackle, making the reading easier. Doing timed sorts helps to train the eye to see quickly these larger word chunks in new, unfamiliar words. Plus, it's a great way to extend the practice with the word card sets you have created for the week-giving you

more bang for your time in creating and organizing the materials for these sorts. You can also set up these timed sorts on a whiteboard using simple word cards and a timer for students to practice during independent work time alone or with a partner. Other common sorts include sound sorts, pattern sorts, meaning sorts, buddy sorts, blind sorts, and writing sorts.

Word Sort and Word Building Routines

Word building and word sorts should be a key component of each instructional cycle for every new phonics skill. These types of word awareness activities create students who become word detectives-curious about words and on the lookout for what is common among words. This improved word awareness has generative effects as students progress through the grades and encounter words with prefixes, suffixes, spelling changes, and Greek and Latin roots.

Below are instructional routines for each.