Dear Parents, April 13, 2015
Ok this is a long one, but I hope you read it all. You're children have brought home word family trees. We use these several times a day when writing in our journals or while we speak. At random we volunteer a sentence with a word of their choice. I'm sure you have seen the Word Family trees that have gone home or the word wheels, well parents their is a purpose for the madness.
(Parents these are not the high frequency words we have in our word wall)
When we consider all the elements that go into becoming a skilled reader it seems a monumental task and yet some how young children learn the many different decoding skills necessary to them and most become proficient readers within the first few years of school.
However not all young children learn to read with ease and even those who will eventually succeed face struggles on the road to success. One easy way that parents can help smooth the path to reading success for their children is through the use of word families.
Word families, sometimes called phonograms or chunks, can really help emergent readers begin to understand our complicated, and often 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.
When learning to read, patterns are important. Children recognize word patterns and this makes it easier when sounding out words.
For example, let us consider the "all" word family. First, show "all" to the child and have them repeat the sound. Then show the word "ball" and demonstrate how you can "read" the word by first making the "b" sound and then the "all". Repeat it slowly and then more quickly. Now continue with some other members of the "all" family such as call, fall, hall, mall, stall, tall, wall.
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 as skilled readers and teaching children this skill can help them learn to read.
What is even better is that once children learn the 37 most common word families in English they will be able to decode 500 words. That puts emergent readers well on their way to mastering the entire decoding process. The most common word families include: ack, ain, ake, ale, all, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ide, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck ,ug, ump, unk.
Word families are indeed an efficient way to get children reading. Once children learn these one-syllable phonograms then they will more easily be able to decode longer words, too.
Word families are groups of words that share the same ending pattern, such as "hat", "mat", and "cat". Words in a family will always rhyme; however, not all rhyming words belong to the same word family. "Hair" and "care" both rhyme, but come from different families.
What Kids Need to Learn
Children will need to learn to recognize the "chunks" that make up many different word patterns. For example, in the words "shake", "take", and "make", kids will learn to recognize the "ake" as a whole chunk, instead of needing to sound out the letters individually.
Putting It In Context
In kindergarten, children learned the alphabet and how to sound out words letter by letter. In first grade, they learn to see word sounds in chunks and patterned groups, so they recognize parts of the word faster and can read more fluently. In second grade, children will tackle some of the harder families of words, and the easier ones will become automatic.
Why It Is Important
When children begin to read, they must sound out every letter. This is slow and breaks up the flow of the words, making it hard to figure out the meaning. When learning families of words, children are able to read familiar patterns of letters quickly and fluently.
When kids progress past these simple words, the patterns, or chunks, that they learn now will continue to help them to decipher longer words.
Word family patterns help children's spelling. They are able to recognize spelling patterns and apply these to other words of the same family.
Challenges Kids Might Face
Some children may have trouble perceiving or remembering word patterns and insist on sounding out every letter, every time. Others may confuse similar patterns, such as -air and -are, especially if these are taught too close together.
One common problem when moving beyond the simple decoding of words is that often there are several words in a word family that are rarely used, and children may not know what they mean. This is especially true for language learners. To learn the "-ark" family, for example, kids are taught the words: mark, bark, dark, spark, shark, lark. "Lark" is rare even for most adults (unless they are bird watchers, or enjoy cavorting on a mountaintop) and when words are meaningless to kids, learning is less secure.
How to Help Kids Who Are Struggling
Teaching Reading
Present each word family one at a time; don't mix them up until children have begun to master those patterns.
Start with short vowel families like -ap, and wait till later to move on to long vowel families like -ape. Allow some time between the two.
Do not introduce confusing word patterns near each other. Wait until children are extremely strong in one, such as -ail, before introducing the very similar -ale.
Many rhyming books are perfect for showing kids spelling and sound patterns. Have kids look through books or nursery rhymes to find words from the same family.
Introduce them in logical sets, so children have less to remember. For example, learning -at, -an, and -ack words near each other will help them remember the short /a/ sound and apply it to similar patterns.
Give kids one word and ask them to try and think of other words from the same pattern. For language learners, you might encourage all guesses and write "real" words in one column and "silly" words in another. This way, they get to practice using the pattern without worrying about whether it is a real word.
Remember--every child learns differently. Doing word family activities and playing word family games are a great way to involve kids' whole bodies to reach kids of many different learning styles, and help struggling learners.
But don't put all your eggs in one basket; spend time on other reading strategies as well, and you will be likely to find the thing that most helps your child read.
Thanks you read this all the way!!!
I appreciate it. So here's the thing...since you read this all the way, you're child may wear free dress on Thursday, yes this Thursday April 16th. Once again the only parents who will know would be the ones who read this whole amazing letter I wrote for you.
Miss Zavala