• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

In SWI courses we learn to work with linguistic tools like those sampled below that make sense not only of the Structured Word Inquiry meaning connections between related words, but also how On-Line Courses those connections help us make sense of grapheme- phoneme correspondences. Inform your literacy instruction with Click HERE for a brief introduction to SWI research and orthographic understanding practice. Presenter Pete Bowers, Phd Founder of WordWorks, teacher & researcher who introduced the phrase “structured word inquiry” Email Pete <[email protected]> to inquire about joining or starting any of the courses described on the next pages. Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) is the phrase I used to describe the explicit instruction I used in the vocabulary teaching study (Bowers & Kirby, 2010) that showed generative vocabulary learning and provided the basis for my teacher resource “Teaching How The Written Word Works”. SWI builds on the simple premise that literacy instruction should accurately reflect how our writing system works. In SWI we apply the principles of scientific inquiry to study how English spelling actually works. The amazing thing is that when we take that scientific approach, it becomes evident that English spelling actually makes perfect sense. www.WordWorksKingston.com Page 1 Real-Time On-Line SWI Zoom Courses (not recorded) The SWI community has been working with Zoom for years Working with Zoom now. I lead workshops with schools and on-line courses Zoom is a free video conference software that is particularly regularly. In the era of the coronavirus, I have been doing effective for real-time on-line study. People attend sessions many more on-line courses, and expanded the options. from their own computer from all over the world. The screen shot at immediately below shows how Zoom lets All of my on-line courses are live, interactive courses that me share my screen so that all participants can follow as we are not recorded. I present investigations and the group is work through orthographic investigations during the invited to “interrupt” and ask questions at any time. (See sessions. illustration at right.) All of these courses welcome novices and experts in the same sessions. When time allows, I usually stay on-line with those who are interested to discuss more in an informal way after the ‘official time’ is over. While these courses have a fee, also see information on my free weekly “SWI Digital Drop In” HERE. 5-Session General SWI Course This is the basic course I’ve been doing for years now. This course is for novices and experts reviewing the orthographic concepts and instructional practices of SWI. Each session is 1.5 hours usually once-a-week, sometimes twice a week. Either way, by the end of each session, participants have ideas to practice with students and/or on their own before the next session. Participants email questions and during the next session we take up discoveries and questions and move onto relate topics. Click HERE for a document with more detailed information on these courses. Cost: $200 USD for full course. www.WordWorksKingston.com Page 2 5-Session SWI Course for Early Literacy (co-led by Pete • Consistent spelling of morphemes despite pronunciation Bowers & Carolee Fucigna) ($300 USD) shifts I teamed up with Carolee who was the architect of SWI in • Identifying grapheme-phoneme correspondences that Pre-school at the Nueva School for about 6 years until her work not just for one word, but for the pronunciation of retirement last year. Carolee brings a wealth of knowledge all of the members of the morphological family from decades of pre-school education including a deep • The link between the meaning of members of a understanding of Reggio Emilia practice. She was also morphological family and the historical root (drawing on instrumental in bringing Early SWI instruction alive at etymological references) Nueva. We have just finished our first joint course and plan • Morphological problem-solving to test affixes and bases to do more in the future. and suffixing conventions Targeted, Practical SWI Courses • Introducing spelling-out-loud These practical sessions target specific topics teacher/ Understanding the Tools of SWI and Working with tutor learning. Many students would find these sessions Teaching How the Written Word Works engaging as well. Those working with students/children Three 2-hour sessions ($120 USD) are welcome to have them join for as much or as little of these sessions as they like at no extra charge. This course combines working with lessons from my book (see previous Working with Teaching How the Written Word Works course) but also goes beyond those Single 2-Hour Session ($50 USD) lessons to teach participants to work with Etymonline and construct I take participants through the first series matrices (see next course of lessons in my teacher resource book. description), grapheme-phoneme This process helps participants deepen charts and how to work with their understanding of key orthographic morphological word webs and flow concepts and practices that support charts to make sense of and practice lessons in this resource book. This the suffixing conventions. course includes files of lessons we work with from the book and other resources. It Novices can take this course to see how these tools make sense of is not necessary to own the book to take the course. struct + ure/ + ed → structured English spelling and how we can in + struct + ion → instruction Concepts addressed in this 2-hour session include: teach it. Experts in SWI will find Bound base <struct> from the details of how we can use • Working with the matrix and the word sum Latin root stru(ere), struct(us) “build” these tools to deepen their www.WordWorksKingston.com Page 3 understanding and add precision to their instructional learning of how our orthography system works. You can practice. It was while tutoring students and working with see illustrations and descriptions of this process on my constructing flow charts that I realized how valuable some website HERE. of these practices are that made me realize that I needed Participants will see how those that take on this practice to add a course targeting working with these tools. are forced to address all the orthographic structures in words -- morphemes, graphemes and orthographic markers -- as well as any suffixing changes. The 3-hour time for this session provides time to practice this process in real time but also to address key orthographic concepts like orthographic markers that are little understood outside of SWI, and to look at how this practice links to key learning theory such as cognitive load theory. This course would be an excellent follow-up or set up to either of the other single-session courses or Spelling-Out Orthography: Writing-out-loud, spelling- the 5-session course. out-loud and how SWI draws on instructional 2-Session Course: Investigating Etymological/ recommendations from Cognitive Load Theory Morphological families, constructing matrices, Two 2-hour Sessions ($90 USD) reading Etymonline and working with the 4-Questions I provided a basic description of this practice in the (2 hours sessions) ($90) Bowers and Kirby (2010) intervention study that introduce The matrix and word sum are often the first image people the term structured word see of structured word inquiry. Matrices which reveal the inquiry. My experience with <quest> in <question>, the <act> in <action> and the teachers and students, and <do> in <does> are very powerful for revealing how the link to cognitive load morphological structure can make sense of spelling- theory have increased my meaning connections that are not previously recognized. emphasis on the practice. But to use structured word inquiry for our instruction, we While I originally need to understand how to construct our own matrices developed this practice for which requires working out for ourselves which words student learning, I’ve really share a base. discovered that it is equally important for teacher www.WordWorksKingston.com Page 4 What is going on with <divide> and <division> or 1-Session Course (2 hrs): Homophone Principle & <permit> and <permission>? Clearly these words are Function and Lexical (Content) Words: Make sense of connected in spelling and meaning, but do they share a countless high frequency ‘irregular’ words ($50 USD) base? These are the kinds of questions that teachers encounter that cause confusion if they do not understand Consider the following set of words children encounter the interrelation of morphology and etymology. from the beginning of literacy instruction. Further, while Etymonline is a particularly rich and a to, too, too their, there here, hear powerful free on-line tool, understanding how to read and the by, buy, bye of off use it for orthographic inquiry is not intuitive. A small number of key conventions for how to read and use gives be, bee no, know is was teachers a means of becoming independent in investigating and understanding the spelling-meaning Many students struggle to remember how to spell these connection of words. words, and in the case of homophones, which spelling is This course is in two parts so that participants can for which (witch?) word. Instruction that presents these as practice assignments modelled in the first session and “irregular” simply adds them to a large pile of words then revisit and go deeper kin the second session. words children are faced with memorizing because they “don’t make sense”. Especially for those who struggle with learning to read, this situation just builds a sense of frustration and learned helplessness. Does your current instruction offer your students a possibility of understanding these spellings? SWI builds its instruction on established conventions for English orthography. As a result it uses words like these (and many others) to introduce the fascinating topics of the “homophone principle” and “function words” and “lexical words” and how those concepts make sense of countless spellings including those in the list above.

Load more

  6

Copy Link