Category: SPELL-Links/Learning By Design

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SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists Review and Giveaway

In 2020 I reviewed a product kit (instructional guide and cards) from SPELL-Links™ Learning By Design, Inc. entitled Wordtivities: Word Study Instruction for Spelling, Vocabulary, and Reading. Today, I am reviewing a companion to that product kit: SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists. This 180-page guide contains sets of pattern-focused word lists for whole class, small group, and 1:1 word study instruction purposes. Each grade-level word list supports the simultaneous development of pattern-specific phonological (sound), orthographic (letter), and semantic morphological (meaning) skills. The aim of this guide is to systematically address spelling, reading, speaking, and listening all together by developing a neural network for literacy and language.

SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists are useful for students 5+ years of age who have or are in the process of developing the following knowledge and skills:

  1. Letter-name knowledge
  2. Alphabetic letter writing ability
  3. Mastery of early phonological awareness (PA) skills by being able to segment words into syllables, understand and create rhyming words, and isolate sounds in words
  4. Basic concept knowledge of directionality (left/right; top/down)

The book is organized by patterns and grade levels (K-6 grade) and by the instructional focus. For each pattern, word lists are organized to support a specific instructional focus: phonological code, orthographic code, morphological code, storage and retrieval of orthographic representations, and writing application.

The Word Lists feature 128 patterns across grades K through 6. The number of patterns taught at each grade level ranges from 9 (K) to 25 (grades 4 and 5).

Here’s an example of a 4th-grade instructional overview:

Overview of Weekly Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Pattern: Prefixes pre- (before); mid- (middle); post- (after) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Pattern: Prefixes over- (above, more than); super- (superior, exceeding); under- (below, less than);
sub- (under, subordinate) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Pattern: ‘l, r’ Clusters ‘lb, ld, lf, lk, lm, lp, lt, lth, lve, lse’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Pattern: ‘l, r’ Clusters ‘rd, rf, rm, rn, rp, rt, rsh, rch, rth, rve, rge’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Pattern: ‘l, r’ Clusters ‘rse, rce’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Pattern: Homophones Set 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Pattern: Suffixes -ion, -ation, -ition (N) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Pattern: Suffix -ment (N) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Pattern: Suffix -en (V, ADJ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Pattern: ‘m, n, ng’ Clusters ‘nd, nt, mp, mph, nth, nch, ngth, nge’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Pattern: ‘m, n, ng’ Clusters ‘nk, nc’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Pattern: ‘m, n, ng’ clusters ‘nce, nse’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Pattern: Homophones Set 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Pattern: Syllabic-r Vowel Sound as in bird, father . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Pattern: Suffix -ward (ADJ, ADV) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Pattern: Unstressed Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Pattern: Syllabic-l Vowel Sound as in bottle, pencil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Pattern: Suffix -al (ADJ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Pattern: Suffixes -able, ible (ADJ) …………………………………………….. 109
Pattern: Suffix -ous (ADJ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Pattern: Suffixes -ive, -ative, -itive (N, ADJ)………………………………………. 111
Pattern: Suffix -ure (N) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Pattern: Contractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Pattern: Prefix tele- (far); micro- (tiny) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Pattern: Prefixes mono-, uni-, bi-, tri-, quad-, oct- (number affixes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Pattern Review

The weekly instruction will look as follows:

  1. Monday-Tuesday: Review of Phonological and Orthographic Codes (these word pattern lists are organized into 3 groups to support differentiated instruction)
  2. Wednesday–Thursday: Morphology
  3. Friday: Mental Orthographic Representations and Application to Sentence Writing

The book comes with access to digital Materials Library, which contains access to the following materials:

  • List of pattern-loaded stories
  • SPELL-Links™ Pattern Inventory & Analysis Tool (PIAT)

The appeal of the product for me is that it offers numerous group-based opportunities for the solidification of evidence-based instructional practices.  The book comes with very detailed implementation instructions. A variety of daily activities allow students to further advance their abilities in the areas of prefixes and suffixes, numerous homophones and clusters, unstressed vowels and even contractions. The kit also offers several appendices that review the spelling rules for word roots prefixes and suffixes, as well as detailed recommendations for pattern-loaded reading materials. To me, the appeal of this curriculum is rather multifaceted. It continues to be very difficult to find an evidence-based group instruction curriculum, and Wordtivities Word Lists once again fit the bill for it. Because it focuses on skills integration of spelling, reading, speaking, and listening it allows the students to engage in contextually based opportunities to become better listeners, speakers, readers, spellers and writers.

You can find this kit for purchase on the SPELL-Links™ Learning By Design, Inc. Store HERE.

And now for the fun part. Want to win your own copy of SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists? Enter to win here: I want to win SPELL-Links Wordtivities Word Lists! | Learning By Design They’ll send one lucky person a copy of SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists. Entries are accepted until 3/1/24 at 5 pm CST. The winner will be notified by email.

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Review and Giveaway of Strategies by Numbers (by SPELL-Links)

Today I am reviewing a fairly recently released (2014) book from the Learning By Design, Inc. team entitled SPELL-Links Strategies by Numbers.   This 57 page instructional guide was created to support the implementation of the SPELL-Links to Reading and Writing Word Study Curriculum as well as to help students “use the SPELL-Links strategies anytime in any setting.’ (p. iii) Its purpose is to enable students to strategize their way to writing and reading rather than overrelying on memorization techniques.

SPELL-Links Strategies by Numbers contains in-depth explanations of SPELL-Links’ 14 strategies for spelling and reading, detailed instructions on how to teach the strategies during writing and reading activities, as well as helpful ideas for supporting students as they further acquire literacy skills.  It can be used by a wide array of professionals including classroom teachers, speech-language pathologists, reading improvement teachers, learning disabilities teachers, aides, tutors, as well as parents for teaching word study lessons or as carryover and practice during reading and writing tasks.

The author includes a list of key terms used in the book as well as a guide with instructional icons screen-shot-2016-09-24-at-10-57-10-amscreen-shot-2016-09-24-at-10-56-46-am

The goal of the 14 strategies listed in the book is to build vocabulary, improve spelling, word decoding, reading fluency, and reading comprehension as well as improve students’ writing skills. While each strategy is presented in isolation under its own section, the end result is for students to fully integrate and apply multiple strategies when reading or writing.

Here’s the list of the 14 strategies in order of appearance as applied to spelling and reading:

  1. Sound It Out
  2. Check the Order
  3. Catch the Beat
  4. Listen Up
  5. A Little Stress Will Help This Mess
  6. No Fouls
  7. Play By the Rules
  8. Use Rhyme This Time
  9. Spell What You Mean and Mean What You Spell
  10. Be Smart About Word Parts
  11. Build on the Base
  12. Invite the Relatives
  13. Fix the Funny Stuff
  14. Look It Up

Each strategy includes highly detailed implementation instructions with students including pictorial support as well as both instructor and student guidance for practice at various levels during writing and reading tasks.  At the end of the book all the strategies are succinctly summarized in handy table, which is also provided to the user separately as a double sided one page insert printed on reinforced paper to be used as a guide when the book is not handy.

There are a number of things I like about the book. Firstly, of course it is based on the latest research in reading, writing, and spelling. Secondly, clinicians can use it the absence  of SPELL-Links to Reading and Writing Word Study Curriculum since the author’s purpose was to have the students  “use the SPELL-Links strategies anytime in any setting.’ (p. iii).  Thirdly, I love the fact that the book is based on the connectionist research model, which views spelling and reading as a “dynamic interplay of phonological, orthographic, and semantic knowledge.” (iii). Consequently, the listed strategies focus on simultaneously developing and strengthening phonological, orthographic, semantic and morphological knowledge during reading and writing tasks.

You can find this book for purchase on the Learning By Design, Inc. Store HERE. Finally, due to the generosity of Jan Wasowicz  PhD the book’s author, you can enter my Rafflecopter giveaway below for a chance to win your own copy!

 

 

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