Oh Maya, she spoke such powerful words. Such truthful words.
I am guilty of always trying to be the best. If I learn something new, I want to be an expert at it immediately. Forget the productive struggle, I just want to be excellent from the start. Ha!
Are you like that too?
When I teach a new concept to my students, I want the lesson to go flawlessly. I want 100% engagement. I wanting soaring student success! Of course, this doesn't happen all the time...but a girl can dream, right? AND...I can ALWAYS reflect and do better for the next time. Just like Maya Angelou said!
Teaching word families can be a powerful way to get kids reading and spelling....which means I want to know THE BEST instructional tips for word family instruction.
I am sharing the EIGHT top instructional tips for teaching word families with you.......so keep reading!
1. Teach word families AFTER students have mastered basic grapheme-phoneme correspondence
Basic grapheme-correspondence is another way of saying letter sound mastery. Why should word family instruction come AFTER letter by letter decoding?
Dr. Linnea Ehri has done extensive research within the realm of reading and spelling acquisition. In Ehri's body of research, she concludes that word families come AFTER letter-by-letter decoding.
Before students get to the consolidated alphabetic phase, where students begin to notice patterns including common word families, they must first progress through the full alphabetic phase. Ehri describes this phase as where kids are learning to accurately decipher words by attending to each letter.
Students must master the full alphabetic phase before their brain is ready for the consolidated alphabetic phase. However, once students are in the consolidated phase their automaticity in word reading really takes off!
2. Start with short vowel word families
In The Timing and Teaching of Word Families, Dr. Francine R. Johnson does not identify a correct sequence to teach word families, but she does suggest starting with short vowel word families.
Dr. Johnson says short vowel word families are a better choice than long vowel word families, as students at this stage in reading development are typically not aware of silent letters needed to represent long vowels.
Additionally, short a word families (-at, -am, -ap, etc.) make a great starting place because they are very common in reading materials for young students.
3. Teach one word family at a time (in the beginning)
In the beginning start by only teaching ONE word family at a time. For example teach /-at/, before you move on to /-an/. The study of one family at a time stabilizes your child's sense of rhyme and gives them a visual support that rhyming words not only sound alike but can look alike too.
In-depth studies of one word family at a time could take up most of the school year. So, once your data tells you that your students are understanding and mastering picking the word families you have introduced begin introducing two, three or even four at a time!
4. Don't teach in isolation
Don't just teach word families in isolation. Include word families during word study by helping kids discover the patterns in other places.
For example once the word family -at is auditorily and visually mapped it can be used to read and spell numerous one syllable words like cat, chat, flat and spat. In addition it is a syllabic chunk in larger words like category, acrobatic and problematic. Students likely won't be able to read these multi-syllabic words, but we can point out their presence.
It is our job to help students crack the code of our language and one way to do that is by showing students the patterns that are present in our language. Our brains LOVE patterns, so lean into that love by teaching word families!
5. Word Study
If your students are zipping through word family activities with accuracy, it is time to move on to the study of other patterns. Typically, kids become experts at chunking and identifying rimes to read and spell new words rather quickly. Basically don't hold kids back--if they are ready to move on, move them on!
Word study should continue throughout the grades as students continue to examine words for commonalities (sounds, spelling patterns, etc.). The study of word families is not the entire answer for word study--but is a GREAT starting strategy to help kids become adept readers and spellers.
6. Use a variety of activities
When we make instruction multi-sensory and fun retention soars.
Make sure to include multisensory activities which engage more than one sense at a time. For example moving a letter tile while also saying its name and sound. Or, saying the letters as you are writing them. Give students a chance to use sight, sound, movement and touch.
Keep kids engaged with fun games like Roll, Read and Color, Slap Words or Color by Codes. Add pyramid sentences or decoding drills to literacy centers.
7. Use the 37 most common rime units
Students can read and spell 500 primary words if the 37 most common rime units are taught! Whoa! Download a **free**list of the 37 most common rime units by clicking the image below.
8. Use Data
As always, pay attention to your data! I mentioned before many students will pick up on word family patterns quickly and will be ready to progress to phoneme blending (letter by letter tasks ex: c-a-t).
However, you may have some students that need more work with word families. So, make sure you have a good data tracker to keep kids moving!
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