Our First Footsteps into Word Consciousness...

After attending the PLD: Supporting students to become confident and competent spellers run by Louise Dempsey I put some of my new learning into place. About 1/3 of our class are participating in the STEPSWEB program which opens up a slot on our timetable for the other 2/3 of our class to focus on growing their own word knowledge.

Introducing affixes:

I used a template shared by Louise that shows how base words become completely different words with the introduction of prefixes and suffixes. We began by defining base words as being a complete word by itself that prefixes and suffixes can be added to make a new word. The example we used was the base word, happy. I then challenged my learners to make new words that had the word happy in them. At this stage we had only the knowledge of affixes that we brought to the lesson. As the words were generated from known words I filled in the template on the board (see image below).

We then explored possible reasons why I might have written some parts of the words in different sections of the table. A question that opened the doors for the introduction of the words prefix and suffix, and allowed us to unpack what these words might mean and what effect they had on the base word. All devices were closed at this time which gave me the opportunity to introduce the dictionaries and thesaurus' that were in all honesty, sitting on the shelf gathering dust. Having become so used to opening Chromebooks and defining words meant a quick lesson was needed on how to use a dictionary (or 'paper google' as it has now become known as).

After this I set my learners the challenge of building a word list using the base word excite. To make sure we were selecting actual words, only words generated that could be found in the dictionary were able to be recorded. We then unpacked what each of the affixes meant and explored how they changed the based word.  

Eg: the prefix over (too much or more than normal) + the base word, excite (being enthusiastic or happy) = over excite (more than normally enthusiastic or happy). 

Deziah's blog post explains this activity - (shared with permission).

Qu. #2 - Why we judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year...

Last week after talking to the teachers I am mentoring in the RPI program I was reminded of the Reading for Enjoyment survey I did last year to get to know my learners as readers. In a conversation with Dianne afterwards, I suggested that we could try to create a similar survey that would help us get to know our learners a spellers. Our Principal understands our concerns with regards to spelling abilities in our current class and is fully supportive of our proposed inquiry into word consciousness. 

The results of this survey are below.

Link to presentation

We judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year as the results here affirm our initial thinking that a deficit in word consciousness and a 'fear' of getting words wrong, limits the level of vocabulary used in independent writing, and causes meaning to be lost in reading. It will be interesting to analyse the self efficacy rating and the spelling level given when the e-asTTle writing assessment data is complete. (NB: Our plan is to look at the current and historical data of the e-asTTle writing, PAT Reading and the Peter's spelling test to identify trends). 

PLD: Supporting students to become confident and competent spellers - Louise Dempsey

To grow our own knowledge and strengthen our connections to teaching phonics, morphology and spelling conventions Dianne and I signed up to the PLD: Supporting students to become confident and competent spellers run by Louise Dempsey.

Aims of the two workshops:

• Develop subject knowledge about phonics, morphology and spelling conventions

• Unpack the progression of skills (phonics, spelling conventions, and morphology)

• Learn high-impact strategies and activities to teach word and sub-word level skills

Here are my notes

My takeaways:

• Spelling is an obstacle that gets in the way of reading and writing. However it is a learnt skill that can be taught and is an integral skill to make meaning. If learners can spell, they can read and write.
• Children need a decent bank of words to allow them to pick up and use a wider vocabulary
• Confidence comes when children can hear identified sounds
• Encourage self correction
• Phonics and spelling patterns are crucial for our students when writing
• Fluent writers need to be aware of spelling conventions, morphology/affixes and word origins
• Decode in reading and encode in writing by applying rules
• Spelling skills are learnt progressively - the list below was unpacked with valuable examples that are recorded in my notes
• Phonics: letters and sounds
• Analogy: rime eg: cat/sat/mat
• Try: say - listen- write -try and underline to show unsure = taking risks
• Analogy and affixes help strengthen vocabulary eg: look/looks/looked/ looking
• Spelling conventions: rules
• Morphology: know affixes and how to add them to base words
• Word origins eg: bio = life + ology = study of so biology = study of life

After attending these sessions Dianne and I decided we need to co-construct with our learners a 'working' wall display that we build alongside our learning of morphology, spelling conventions, phonics at our level. This not only makes it visible, but also makes it rewindable.

Resources to support development of word consciousness:

• Spelling bank - Link
• The Literacy Place books - Link

Qu 1: Student Inquiry Foci...

This year Dianne Fisi'iahi and I will be undertaking a collaborative inquiry. What this will look like exactly at this stage is still on the drawing board although we do know our purpose. This year we want to find out if a focus on spelling conventions will foster an environment where word consciousness strengthens connections to the learning.

We teach a Year 7/8 class with 40 learners, all who bring a wide a varied connection to the conventions of spelling to the table. We know from past experience and from what we have observed so far this year, that our learners physically stop writing, stop reading and avoid sharing back to the class when they lose the connection to words needed to continue to make sense of the learning. There are many reasons as to why this happens but rather than focus solely on that, we want to focus on how we can prevent this pattern from continuing to evolve into a hurdle that is too challenging to get over. Our thinking is that if we begin to develop these skills and understandings, the transition to language of instruction used in Y9 may be strengthened by stronger connection to word knowledge.

Having decided on our inquiry focus this year, Dianne and I spoke with Anna Salmon, our Reading Recovery teacher about the barriers children in the junior school face with spelling, and how she helps the students she is working with to overcome these barriers. We came away from a very rich learning conversation with lots of ideas to pull together a tentative pathway forward. Here are the notes we made to help us formulate a plan going forward

'Word consciousness involves being aware and interested in words and word meanings (Anderson & Nagy, 1992; Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2002) and noticing when and how new words are used (Manzo & Manzo, 2008). Individuals who are word conscious are motivated to learn new words and able to use them skilfully '(Sourced here). Our challenge now is to find out why the links in the chain appear to be broken again. Last year I began my inquiry by getting to know my learners as readers through a survey. This year we plan to use this strategy to get to know our learners as spellers. To do this we will be looking at shift or change in:

• Disposition
• Data
• Word consciousness
• Student voice
• Strategies used to make sense of new or unfamiliar words

Further Reading/PLD to grow my own knowledge kete:

• Supporting students to become competent and confident spellers - Louise Dempsy

• Literacy Lines
• Learning during read-alouds: word consciousness
• Building Vocabulary Knowledge: What Does It Mean to Know a Word?
• Fundamental Spelling Rules for Everyone to Know
• The Vocabulary-Rich Classroom: Modeling Sophisticated Word Use to Promote Word Consciousness and Vocabulary Growth