Word Study Calendar of Spiraled Skills What is this document? This is a document that can be referenced when planning for the word study block. This will give you examples of sight words, word families, words to blend, and other skills that you can practice with scholars. This will ensure that our classrooms are vertically aligned (i.e. the same sight words are taught in a Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade classroom). This document also outlines the purpose of each skill so that teachers will know when to transfer a certain skill from the word study block to a guided reading lesson based on scholar need. How was this document created? This document was created referencing the objectives in the MAP Learning Continuum, the TEKS for every grade level, and the Journeys common resources that campuses share. There was a focus on specific skills (blending, segmenting, etc.) as well as specific words that we want scholars to know (sight words, word families, etc.) This allowed data to drive when we introduce certain sight words and word families as well as ensuring that our 2nd grade was being pushed in a rigorous way to be ready for 3rd grade. Any specific word family, sight word, or word referenced for blending/ segmenting comes from a specific MAP objective, TEKS, or Journeys. How can I use this document? This document should be used to determine how to build your whole-group or small-group word study lessons. Not only should specific words be introduced, practiced, and mastered, but there are vital skills that should be practiced repeatedly for scholars over the course of the year. This is the best way to ensure that scholars understand phonics rules with specific words but also specific skills that are needed to make them a fluent reader. This document can also explain how specific skills come together to create a fluent reader and how those skills progression from a kindergarten classroom to a second grade classroom. The purpose of each set of skills is listed so that when a scholar is struggling in guided reading, the teacher can reference a word study lesson and have that scholar practice that skill in context. Word Study Skill: Sight words Purpose: Sight words are words that scholars cannot sound out. Scholars should memorize how these words so that they can read them in context and spell them correctly in writing. Sight words are not the same as high frequency words. High-frequency words are words that scholars could sound out but have seen the word so often that they can read or spell instantly. Guided Reading Transfer: Scholars can practice, reading writing, and orally spelling sight words out of context of a book. If a scholar is struggling to read a sight word in a text, refer the scholar to the word wall. If you have introduced and practiced that word, that should be a reminder to the scholar that they cannot sound out this word and it’s a sight word. Kindergarten 1st Grade 2nd Grade what, for, have, pretty, go, like, the, boy, girl, have, do, please, I, no, said, and, day, now, she, come, they, by, her, we, to, me, my, you, how, all, he, make about, again, all, always, animal, any, are, ate, away, baby, bear, because, before, birthday, both, bring, buy, carry, came, could, does, done, eat, every, family, far, fly, four, friends, from, full, funny, goes, gone, grow, have, head, here, hold, hurt, know, laugh, learn, live, made, money, more, move, myself, now, oh, of, old, once, one, only, other, own people, please, put, read, right, said, saw, says, should, small, some, thank, the, their, there, these, they, think, those, together, two, use, very, walk, want, was, watch, eater, wear, went, were, what, when, where, which, white, who, why, would, write, yellow, your most, second, sleep, three, work, air, cried, pictures, told, try, window, eye, few, happy, high, open, starts, afraid, dark, kept, many, might, show, better, really, another, hard, heard, light, against, along, different, morning, night, part, someone, everything, first, slowly, store, story, two, world, front, hair, never, party, sky, warm, after, care, ever, knew, off, thought, also, fly, horse, look, river, something, blue, doing, else, studied, sure, teacher, turned, anything, been, draw, mother, soon, under, words, good, sound, talk, too, begins, being, flower, ground, ready, stood, tall, very, across, behind, house, how, nothing, out, took, voice, everyone, field, floor, found, toward, coming, down, give, great, idea, knew, large, though, began, brother, brown, Earth, surprised, without, hear, leaves, our, through, young, ago, alone, follow, called, even, father, maybe, outside, tomorrow, town, water, above, enough, happened, sorry, want, while, eight, near, paper, seven, upon, wash, woman, almost, dear, pushed, remember, sometimes, years ** There are more than 25 words (what the TEKS says) because MAP lists more words to get to the college-ready quintile.** **The TEKS references 300 high-frequency words. Suggest start at BOY with preassessment from previous grades sight words to see which need to be taught whole/ small group. The mastery of the 3 lists combined will meet the 300 requirement of TEKS. Words should not be repeated unless preassessment data indicates this. **There are 100 sight words (TEKS wording) suggested to introduce 4 words per week. ** Word Study Skill: Word Families Purpose: Word families allow scholars to develop blending and rhyming skills by starting with the initial sound and onset rime. This allows scholars to see how changing one letter can change an entire word. This build as scholars learn how to blend sounds and then chunk words in order to read them in context. Guided Reading Transfer: If a scholar is struggling to read a word and it’s a word family that you have covered, you can ask them if there is a part (word family) of the word that they recognize. This will allow the scholar to read the word on their own. Kindergarten 1st Grade 2nd Grade Short vowels/ simple word families Long and short vowels/ more complex word Word families focus on alternative spellings, superlatives then prefixes, suffixes, etc. ab, ad, ag, am, an, ap, at, ed, en, et, ig, families in, ip, it, ob, og, op, ot, ub, ug, un, ut, ar, ox ail, ake, eep, ell, ee, ing, ime, ow, oat, ain, ant, ink, onk, ick, ent, ine, ill, are, all, ack, ock, ank, ay, ump, one, ust, ame, unk, age, ide, ew, ask, eat, eck, ike, uff y i, ore, ight, arm, art, est, ild, ind, ine, ite, ood, ook, ork, orn, oy, are, air, ear, ite, tion, sion, Word Study Skill: Blending/ Decoding Purpose: Blending sounds to create words is the foundation for scholars to read independently. Scholars first learn to manipulate just the sounds of letters to create words. This begins with blending an initial sound with the onset rhyme (i.e. /f/ /eet/). This aligns with word families and begins the process of blending sounds. This moves then to blending 3 or more phonemes (sounds) to create a word (i.e /f/ /ee/ /t/). The progression of skills moves to scholars blending CVC words in isolation, then blending longer, more complex words. Finally scholars are given sentences and paragraphs where they blend words in context. Guided Reading Transfer: When a scholar is struggling to read a word in a book, take a notecard and write the word on it. Have the scholar practice blending the sounds together out of the context of a book. Once the scholars can blend/decode the word outside of the text, then have the scholar go back to the sentence with the word and have them reread that sentence. This allows the scholar to build blending and decoding in isolation and within the text. Scholars may struggle to make the connection if they see the same word again, keep the notecard you used visible to the scholar. This will allow you a quick reference to practice if the scholar struggles again. Kindergarten 1st Grade 2nd Grade 1. Blending only initial sound and the on 1. Blending words with 3-5 sounds. This is done 1.) At this point, blending is done visually in complex sentences similar to choral reading. set rime (word family) at the end of the orally with scholars practicing repeatedly Scholars should be practicing with multiple word. For example: book is /b/ /ook/ with many different vowel sounds. These syllabic words, sight words, words with 2. Blending CVC words OR words with 2-3 sounds will involve beginning and ending alternative vowel spellings, r controlled sounds. This is done orally with scholars blends as well as long and short vowels. vowels, different tenses, etc. Scholars should have practice identifying individual sounds in a practicing repeatedly with many When you introduce an alternative vowel word and then blending those sounds different vowel sounds. For example: spelling, give multiple examples of words together. As an introduction to chunking, have am is /a/ /m/; book is /b/ /oo/ /k/; and that have this spelling so that scholars can scholars blending beginning and ending blends cat is /c/ /a/ /t/ practice. For example: truck should be together. For example, there are 3-4 sentences 3. Blending CVC words with 2-3 sounds broken down by /tr/ /u/ /ck/ AND /t/ /r//u/ on the board. Word by word, scholars identify sounds and blend sounds together. Scholars with visible words in isolation. For /ck/ ; play should be broken down /pl/ /ay/ should identify independently that a word is a example, the word cat is one the board and /p/ /l/ /ay/. sight word and that they can’t blend those and scholars blend sounds as the 2. Blending words with 3-5 sounds with visible sounds to make the appropriate word. teacher touches each letter. words in isolation. These sounds will involve 2.) In some of the complex sentences 4. Blending CVC words with 2-3 sounds in beginning and ending blends as well as long mentioned above, scholars should be explicitly taught how to find chunks in unknown words context of 1-2 sentences intermixed and short vowels. When you introduce an to help them decode those words. For with sight words. For example: The red alternative vowel spelling, give multiple example: If a scholar gets to the word bag is big. examples of words that have this spelling so “information” and cannot read the word, have that scholars can practice. For example, the them find a chunk that they know (“in” or ‘for”) Now have the scholar sound out the word truck is one the board and scholars word but chunking those parts that they know. blend sounds as the teacher touches each “/in/ /for/ /m/ /a/ /tion/” letter. 3.) By the end of the year, scholars should be 3. Blending words with 3-5 sounds in context able to blend/ decode 4-6 sentences presented to them. Scholars should self-identify words of 1-2 sentences intermixed with sight words. For example: I saw a boy and girl play that they will need to chunk in order to blend/ decode the word. Prefixes and suffixes can be together for a long time. introduced/ referenced as chunks of words to ** Even if a scholar can read a word as a high frequency word, they should still practice blending sounds together. This will ensure that blending is done automatically in context as well as in isolation. This ensures that is a habit for scholars and doesn’t require prompting from the teacher when reading a text. ** help scholars. Scholars will struggle more the longer the text is that they have to blend. Scaffold by increasing the amount of sentences as well as the complexity of words. Word Study Skill: Segmenting/ Syllabication Purpose: Segmenting is the foundation for scholars to be able to accurately spelling a word. This skill ensure that scholars can hear a word spoken, break down that word into sounds, and then write the correct spelling that corresponds to that sound. The more a scholar has practice blending and segmenting, the more practice they have seeing alternative spellings and identifying the correct one for the word that they are trying to spell. Blending and segmenting go hand in hand. If a scholar is struggling to identify the correct spelling that goes with a sound, you can give that scholar words in isolation or context to blend in order to give that scholar context to be able to spell the word correctly. Syllabication is tied to chunking. Just as a scholar should identify chunks of a word that they can blend or identify easily, they should do the same when they are trying to spell a word. The syllables are the chunks that the scholar should use as reference to spell the word. Guided Reading Transfer: If a scholar is struggling to spell a certain sound spelling, during guided reading find example of that sound spelling and point it out as the scholar is reading. Have the scholar read the words and identify similar characteristics of the words. Then have the scholar segment the word, the teacher should be focuses on sounds that the scholar is missing when they segment these words. Then remove the text from the scholar’s sight and have the scholar segment those words again and try to spell them orally. Make note of any sounds scholars are struggling to identify or spelling wrong. For segmentation, when a scholar gets to a multisyllabic word that they are struggling to blend, have the scholar break down the words into syllables and blend each syllable individually and then finally blend all the syllables together. Kindergarten 1st Grade 2nd Grade 1. Scholars begin segmenting words into 1. Segmenting CVC words into beginning, 1. Scholars begin segmenting 2-3 syllables two parts: initial sounds and word middle, and ending sounds. This is done words with a variety of spellings family ending (on set rime). For orally (with kinesthetic hand motions) and in (beginning and ending blends, alternative example: The teacher says the word print throughout the year. Scholars are vowels, r controlled vowels, different “cat,” the scholar identifies the given a word and write that word. This tenses, etc.) Scholars should be able to beginning sound as /c/ and the final allows the teacher to know which sounds break down the word into syllables and sound as /at/. This is done with a the scholar can identify and find the then segment the syllables one by one. variety of CVC words with mostly short matching sound in print. This should be done orally and in print. vowels. Scholars practice orally at first. 2. Scholars then begin segmenting CCVC, CVC, 2. Scholars should develop their visual 2. Segmenting CVC words into beginning, and CVCC words (beginning and ending checking system using what they know ending, and middle sound. Most blends). This is done orally (with kinesthetic about word families. This knowledge scholars will find identifying the middle hand motions) and in print. Scholars should should be used to determine is a word sound the most challenging. This is be able to identify the blend that they hear “looks right” and scholars should be able done with a variety of CVC words with in the word and then the letters that make to connect to another word they know. mostly short vowels. Scholars practice up this blend. This will allow scholars to For example if a scholar is trying to spell orally at first. master spelling these blends. the word “compare,” they should write 3. Segmenting CVC words into beginning, 3. Scholars then begin segmenting words with out choices for spelling the word middle, and ending sounds. This is done alternative vowels spellings. The focus on “compare, compair, and compear” Then in print towards the middle of the year. this is their ability to determine the correct scholars should refer to the word families Scholars are given a word and write vowel spelling when they are writing the they know. Is there a word family that has that word. This allows the teacher to word. This is how we develop a scholar’s words that sound similar to the one they know which sounds the scholar can visual checking system while writing. For are trying to write? If so, does that help identify and find the matching sound in example: “ea”, “ee,” and “e_e” make the them pick which word is spelling print. long e sound. If a scholar is trying to spell the correctly? 4. Throughout the year, scholars are word “keep” then a scholar should write 3. By the end of 2nd grade, scholars should identifying how many syllables a word “keap,” “keep,” and “kepe.”Then they be able to independently know that when has and “clapping out” those syllables. should determine which spelling “looks they want to write a word they aren’t Since scholars are really just writing right.” This can connect to word families. sure of spelling, they should break up the CVC words and sight words, they aren’t 4. Throughout the year, scholars are identifying word into syllables, break down each chunking word in print yet. how many syllables a word has and syllable, spell each syllable individually, “clapping out” those 2-3 syllables. Words and then combine those spellings to spell with 1-2 syllables should be broken down the entire word. This connects to their into syllables and then segmenting in order chunking ability because if they know how to spell them. For example if a scholar is to spell a chunk of the word, then they given the word “uplift,” they should identify should just focus on the chunk they don’t the 2 syllables: up and lift. Scholars should know. Scholars should be able to edit segment each syllables and then write them their own writing for words that “don’t as one word. look right.”
