Word Families Can Help Struggling Readers
Imagine how confusing our language must appear to emerging readers! Sometimes vowels are long, sometimes they’re short, and sometimes they sound altogether like another vowel. How can a struggling reader make sense of it all? Word families (also known as phonograms or “chunks”) can really help your students “crack the code” of our inconsistent language by providing some predictable patterns within words. As you and I learned to read, we picked up these patterns effortlessly, and they still help us when we try to decode new words. When we direct our students’ attention to these same patterns, they too will be able to untangle the seemingly unrelated sounds of English. What patterns are these? Here’s an example: I see the word, “C-H-A-L-K “. Now, how can I figure out how to say that word? I’ll try breaking it into chunks that I’m familiar with. What words look like “chalk”? Well, there’s walk” and “talk”, so maybe “chalk” rhymes with those words. I know that “ch” has it’s own sound, soif I add it to the “alk” chunk, I get “chalk.” That’s it–“chalk.” Can you see how much easier this method of using “chunks” of letters is compared to sounding out one letter at a time? We break words into chunks naturally, and we can teach our students to do the same. It gets even better! Once your students become familiar with the 37 most familiar chunks, they can use them to decode 500 words. (Wylie & Durrell, 1970) Word families are indeed an efficient way to get your students reading. Scholastic andother publishers have prepared excellent resources for teaching word families, below. Reference: Wylie, R.E., & Durrell, D.D. (1970). Teaching vowels through phonograms. Elementary English, 47, 787-791. See our other pages on word families: See our other pages on word study and sight words: Resources for Teaching Word Families
Easy Lessons for Teaching Word Families, Grades K-2, Judy Lynch, ￥ 1,376 Phonics Poetry: Teaching Word Families, Timothy V. Rasinski, ￥ 3,603 Word Families, Grades Prek-2: 20 Interactive Word Mini-Books That Help Every Child Get a Great Start in Reading (Reading Success Mini-Books), Mary Beth Spann, ￥ 3,845 Write-and-learn Word Family Practice Pages, Grades K-2, Scholastic Inc., ￥ 12,088 20 Week-by-Week Word Family Packets: An Easy System for Teaching the Top 120 Word Families to Set the Stage for Reading Success (Teaching Resources), Scholastic, $19.45 Word Family Sing-Along, Teddy Slater, ￥ 3,666 Word Families: 50 Cloze-Format Practice Pages That Target and Teach the Top 50 Word Families (Fill-in-the-Blank Stories), Linda B. Ross, ￥ 1,446 The Word Family Activity Book, Grades K-2 (Professional Books), Mary Rosenberg, ￥ 1,831 Word Family Stories & Activities, Level B (Word Family Stories and Activities), -, ￥ 3,096 Word Families: Turn to Learn Wheels in Color (Turn-to-Learn Wheels inColor), Liza Charlesworth, ￥ 2,649 Word Families, Grades K-2 (File-Folder Games in Color), Immacula Rhodes, $16.24 Phonics Poetry: Teaching Word Families, Timothy V. Rasinski, $22.89 Hands-On Word Family Activities for Young Readers: Ready-to-Use Lessons and Activities for Building Literacy Skills, Roberta Seckler Brown, $29.86 Word Family Bingo Ladders: Fun-and-Easy Reproducible Games That Teach Kids the Top 25 Word Families, Violet Findley, ￥ 1,580