Ideas for lessons using Structured Word Inquiry

Natashya Hays, Grade 2 teacher JIS, Indonesia, February, 2015

Vowel importance discovery lesson.

Why are vowels so important?

Do a discovery lesson with kids looking vowel letters in words in books.

Learning to count syllables

Begin to teach syllables - For the purpose of discovering that every spoken syllable in a word needs at least one vowel letter (a vowel grapheme) to represent it.

Teach students to count syllables with fingers of one hand falling and staying on the back of the other hand -- one for each syllable while saying words out-loud in normal speech.

AVOID clapping syllables. Clapping has more than one movement per syllable, forces you to speak strangely -- often adding syllables

For example, try counting syllables for and then counting with fingers if you say the phrase “mystery novel”. Clapping will lead you to count 3, but in typical speech you will only use two.)

When is a vowel?

Use concept attainment chart to help guide this lesson. You can make connection to syllable purposes here, in a word like .

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Pete Bowers (WordWorks) made small adaptations to this document by Natashya Hays after he visited her classroom during a 3-day consultancy at JIS in February, 2015. See the video at this link in which Natashya walks Pete through many of the images posted in this document and describes how this organic learning develops.

http://www.yahoo.com/http://www.yahoo.com/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrYYixwnnl4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrYYixwnnl4

Terms grapheme & phoneme

Teach the words grapheme and phoneme along with symbols - create poster.

Perhaps show the word sums to highlight the meaning structure. Think of other words with and to link to the ideas of “writing or mark” and “sound, voice”.

! graph + eme ➔ grapheme! ! ! phone/ + eme ➔ phoneme

Word Family Web & Morpheme Sticky-Note Chart

I like to start with a word like .

From that, we can introduce the idea of base and suffix, prefix.

Make stickies to put on chart from the word web.

Introduce the connection between the matrix, word sums and spelling-out word structure.

Teach how to use a matrix as a class.

From the matrix write word sums. Teach how to spell the parts aloud as you write.

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Teach this symbol “➔” as the “rewrite arrow”. Announce in a word sum as “is re-written as”.

(See resources from WordWorks on spelling-out word structure here.)

Pronunciation of morphemes shift -- spelling stays the same

Investigate the three different pronunciations represented by the suffx: /t/ /id/ /d/

This is a great activity to follow up with the previous word family work. It is easy for kids to make the connection between the suffix should be used instead of just the pronunciation, like /t/.

With this activity, we encounter the key concept:

A morpheme does not have a pronunciation until it is in a word.

This idea with the suffix can be followed up with an investigation of the different pronunciations that suffix represent.

Perhaps start by identifying what the idea of a plural by using the words: and

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Click HERE to see Lyn Anderson’s wonderful post “Start ing the learning journey...word families, word webs, matrixes word sums at her excellent blog “Beyond the Word”.

http://www.wordworkskingston.com/WordWorks/Spelling-Out_Word_Sums.htmlhttp://www.wordworkskingston.com/WordWorks/Spelling-Out_Word_Sums.htmlhttp://wordsinbogor.blogspot.ca/2013/08/starting-learning-journey.htmlhttp://wordsinbogor.blogspot.ca/2013/08/starting-learning-journey.htmlhttp://wordsinbogor.blogspot.cahttp://wordsinbogor.blogspot.ca

Model a sentence using each one and adding the to make it plural.

Notice that in each word: the represents a different pronunciation /z/ and /s/.

One dog, but two dogs: dog + s ➔ dogs ! ➔ /z/One cat, but two cats: cat + s ➔ cats ! ➔ /s/

Next, you can encounter words like and to discover that it is not just suffixes that can represent /s/ and /z/, but also the grapheme!

Plurals or ?

Next, approach and . How do I know when to use which one? BEFORE doing this lesson (which will take more than one lesson) kids need to have these concepts:

• Importance of the vowel letters• The difference between singular and plural • How to count syllables

So, this suffixing concept is now connected to the syllable lessons.....

Do some grapheme/ phoneme connection lessons.

This helps to develop the idea that there is usually more than one grapheme to represent a phoneme - hence “sounding it out” cannot be our only strategy.

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What are the jobs of single, silent ?

Analyze base words that end with a final, single silent .

This is a great discovery and Flow Chart lesson. Be sure to build the flow chart with the kids many times before gluing it down. Also, be sure to run many words through the chart and build them together.

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Click HERE to see Lyn Anderson’s wonder fu l pos t “AnExcep t i ona l Learning Tool: The Flowchart” at her website Beyond the Word”.

For those new to structured word inquiry instruction, explore this WordWorks Newsletter on “Getting Started” with tons of free resources and lesson ideas.

http://wordsinbogor.blogspot.ca/2014/02/an-exceptional-learning-tool-flowchart.htmlhttp://wordsinbogor.blogspot.ca/2014/02/an-exceptional-learning-tool-flowchart.htmlhttp://wordsinbogor.blogspot.cahttp://wordsinbogor.blogspot.cahttp://wordsinbogor.blogspot.cahttp://wordsinbogor.blogspot.cahttp://www.realspellers.org/resources/wordworks-newsletters/1132-ww-newsletter-76-on-getting-startedhttp://www.realspellers.org/resources/wordworks-newsletters/1132-ww-newsletter-76-on-getting-startedhttp://www.realspellers.org/resources/wordworks-newsletters/1132-ww-newsletter-76-on-getting-startedhttp://www.realspellers.org/resources/wordworks-newsletters/1132-ww-newsletter-76-on-getting-started