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Word Level

Once your student gets to this point, they are doing a lot more reading and writing but continuing to discover the patterns of English in simple sorting exercises.

Remember! You can download charts here and progression of lessons here.

  • Look the Same,  sound different

Prepare as list of words, each with the target spelling.  I like to introduce the idea using <y>  baby, July, yet, myth

Ideally, the distribution on your list should match the distribution in the language.

Give each student a piece of paper with a place to write the target spelling <y> and as many columns as ways to pronounce the target spelling.  For <y> you’ll need 4 columns.

The students read each word out loud and decide on the sound of the <y> in the word.

They then write the word in the correct column, saying the sounds as they write.  This can be done in a small group or individually with the teacher circulating and making sure people are saying the sounds.

Because every word has the letter <y> (or whatever target spelling you’ve chosen) it is almost impossible, even for good readers, to do this in silence.

  • Sound the same, look different

Prepare a list of word each of which has the same sound. Again, the list should reflect the distribution of the spelling variation in everyday English words.

I introduce the idea with “k”  cat , kit,   black ,  scheme,   occur,  antique – though I don’t usually include this one.

Give each student a piece of paper with a place to write the target sound “k” and as many columns as there are spelling variations for that sound.  For “k” you’ll need 5 or 6. For “ay” you’ll need 9 columns which I spread out across two “landscape”  A4 boards.

Have the students read each word out loud and decide which bit is the spelling for “k” in that word.  Write, saying the sounds in the correct column.

This activity is tempting to do by sight because you can just look at the word and guess, visually, which bit is the “k” sound.  Therefore it is very very important that each student is reading the word out loud, and saying the sounds as they write.

The goal of this lesson is NOT to have a perfectly completed chart or even to know how many ways there are to spell “k”.  The point of the activity is to further reinforce your students’ understanding of the relationship between the symbols they see and the sounds they say.

  • Spelling with Puzzles

Keep on doing exactly what you were doing through the Foundation levels.  See here for a reminder.  Scroll down to Foundation Lessons – Word Level- Multi-syllable

  • Sorting Sound the Sames for Spelling

Sometimes I get a student who reads quite well but is a terrible speller.  See my ThatReadingThing posts about working with an adult visual learner.  One of the activities we did was the spelling version of sorting Sound Clones.

Give each student a board or paper set up as per the normal Sound Clones lesson.  The difference is that you hold onto the list of words.  Read each word and have the students decide which spelling of the target sound is in that word.

You can also do this to review a sound.  You may want to help them by setting up all the sounds across the columns (from most to least common is possible) or, you might want them to figure them out for themselves.  This is a good whole class activity.

  • Spelling help

You may meet students who really struggle with the idea of matching sounds to symbols.  The following is reprinted from thatreadingthing.com

If your student can’t get to grips with the idea that words are made up of sounds…….

Sometimes you get a student who has spent years depending on complex but faulty strategies for spelling. They hang every word on another and look for words within words even when they make no sense. Quite often, these students resist saying the sounds as they write because they are so used to using only visual memory. Here is something to try.

Sound the same, look different

Have sound blanks (the little squares) on hand as well as the Sound Clones board. Instead of showing the student the word, ask: “What are the sounds in ____?”

Put down a blank for each sound.

What are the sounds in claim?

“k” (put down a blank) “l” (put down a blank) “ay” (put down a blank) “m” (put down a blank)

If they say “kl” for the first sound, ask for the sounds in “kl”.

If they say the letter name, explain that we’re only talking about sounds and repeat the word. For instance, if the word is “ate”, they don’t have to worry about whether it’s ate or eight. You may have to model it a couple of times for them.

After all the blanks are on the table, have the student fill in the sounds, saying them as they write. I have a student who can’t seem to think in “sounds” but is happy to answer the question, “How do you draw the “ay” sound in claim?”

Finally, have them write it on the Sound Clones (sound the same, look different) board. This is slower than a normal Sound Clones lesson so you might get through only half the words. It works particularly well for students who have a large sight vocabulary but very weak spelling. It forces them to spell within the constraints of the sound blanks, one for each sound.

Note: when the sound is a Split Vowel, i.e. ate, then there will be only 2 blanks for “ay” and “t”. When is comes to filling in the blanks, you will have to add a blank for the final e. I have my students underline the split vowels to show they are one sound.