Word Work/ Spelling/ Word Study

Common Definition: Lessons that teach students to understand the relationship between written letters and spoken sounds. Students learn about the alphabetic principle, patterns, phonological and phonemic awareness, and orthography. Lessons are taught in a whole group systematic structure and can be revisited in guided reading/writing.

Benefits: Students develop an awareness and understanding of the oral and written English system and are able to apply this knowledge as they read and write. Students learn the relationships between letters an sounds.

When: Word work is a part of the literacy block. The minimum recommended time is 10-15 minutes of daily instruction.

Assessment: Informal formative assessments and observations, anecdotal notes, student work and writing samples

Teacher Actions

  • Explicitly teaches language and connects work work to reading/writing
  • Direct and multi-sensory instruction on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, decoding, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension
    • Phonemic awareness-An aspect of phonological awareness focused on developing the understanding that language is made of a series of small sounds. It includes oral activities, rhyming, blending, segmenting, etc.
    • Phonics - The study of the relationship between words and sounds. Used to promote word recognition, comprehension, and spelling.Students learn to put words together and to take words apart and ultimately to decode.
    • Fluency- Students learn to read quickly, with expression, and to decode. They move from blending sounds to whole word recognition. The teacher notices issues with fluency during guided and shared reading and uses this information for mini lessons.
    • Vocabulary- The teacher creates an environment that exposes student to words and models strategies for how to learn new words. Students are encouraged to use new words when they speak, write, read, etc.
    • Comprehension- The students ability to understand and remember what he/ she has read. The teacher explicitly teaches comprehension strategies to the whole class and previews texts to introduce specialized vocabulary.

Student Actions

  • Actively engages during instruction and applies knowledge
  • Make connections between letters and sounds and demonstrates orally or in written form
  • Collaborate with peers

Professional Resources

Heggerty

Word Study Lessons: Phonics, spelling, and vocabulary, Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell

Words Their Way Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction, Donald R. Bear, Marcia A. Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, Francine A. Johnston

Word Ladders, T. Rasinki

www.fcrr.org, Florida Center for Reading Resources (click on resources tab, then click on center activities

DCPS ELA Resources on Canvas - http://dcp

RTI book for phonics section