Contact: Peter Bowers PO Box 295 Wolfe Island, ON, Canada K0H 2Y0
Phone: (613) 385-2084
Email: wordworkskingston@gmail.com
WordWorks Newsletters & Resources
Click HERE for this Newsletter sparked by a blog post by a pre-school teacher at the Nueva School that provides such a rich account of early SWI instruction. I add multiple stories of instruction of the interrelation of morphology, phonology and etymology in the early grades
Click HERE for this Newsletter sparked by a blog post by a pre-school teacher at the Nueva School that provides such a rich account of early SWI instruction. I add multiple stories of instruction of the interrelation of morphology, phonology and etymology in the early grades at Nueva and many other schools. I also address the research supporting this practice and invite researches who remain skeptical of this instruction to come and study with us!
Click HERE for this Newsletter sparked by a blog post by a pre-school teacher at the Nueva School that provides such a rich account of early SWI instruction. I add multiple stories of instruction of the interrelation of morphology, phonology and etymology in the early grades at Nueva and many other schools. I also address the research supporting this practice and invite researches who remain skeptical of this instruction to come and study with us!
Click HERE for an inspiring story from a tutor that illustrates the fact that far from inhibiting the learning of grapheme-phoneme correspondences, studying these conventions within the context of morphology is a necessary condition for making sense of how grapheme-phoneme correspondences work.
Videos of Pete teaching full class lessons
Click here to see videos Dan Allen posted on his blog of my lessons with students in Grade 1 - 5 classrooms and with teachers during my visit to the Zurich International School.
Click here for a document with background on each video and related resources. To help you get started with my teacher resource book, see the first video in which I teach from the first lessons.
The screen shot at right is from my visit with Dan’s students!
Revised <sign> Lesson in “Teaching How the Written Word Works”
Books printed after May 2013 already include the revised lesson. You know you have the revised version if you see on <ify> suffix on the <sign> lesson on page 8. Even if you have the revised version, I recommend you download this pdf to gain from the explanation that helped me understand why this revision was needed.
(Scientific Word Investigation)
“Word Scientists” look for the deepest word structures that make sense of the greatest number of words.
Click HERE for background on SWI.
Marcia Henry on WordWorks:
Marcia Henry is past president of The International Dyslexia Association
and former director of the Center for Educational Research on Dyslexia at San Jose State University
sign + al → signal
re + sign → resign
de + sign + ate → designate
sign + ate/ + ure → signature
do + es → does
do + ne → done
do + ing → doing
go + es → goes
go + ne → gone
go + ing → going
Making sense of how words work by investigating morphology, etymology and phonology.
English base <sign> from Latin root signum
"mark, token, indication, symbol”
Applying the Principle of Backwards Design from UbD to Structured Word Inquiry
enduring understandings of how the written word works.
"This article by Pete Bowers makes some interesting connections between UbD, Real Spelling and the development of critical thinking skills in students."
Bill and Ochan Powell - Education Across Frontiers
Resources for Spelling-Out and Writing-Out Word Structure with Word Sums
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Click here for information on spelling-out word sums including a free pdf guide for teachers who want to use this process for learning, instruction and assessment.
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Spelling-Out Word Structure: Targeting Central Concepts, Assessment & Instruction
See a new article and video addressing these ideas all building on a practical lesson growing from a Grade 1 student’s question, “Why is their an <h> in school? You don’t hear it.”
Click here for a video of an on-line Skype session addressing this topic with Grade 2 teachers and an article addressing how this topic links to the UbD.
Upcoming 2019 Workshops
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June 17- 21: San Francisco -
Annual SWI Nueva Institute!
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Three options: 2-day intro, 3-day advanced, or full 5-day workshop
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Click HERE for details
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June 24-25: Fort Vermilion School Division (north of Edmonton) 2-day teacher workshop.
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July 9-12: Melbourne Australian Literacy Educators Association (ALEA) Annual Conference
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Pete is presenting a Keynote Address at the main annual literacy conference in Australia. Other presenters on SWI topics include: Lyn Anderson & Ann Whiting (Caught in the Spell of Words) Fiona Hamilton (WordTorque) and Julie Shepherd.
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July 13: Melbourne -- full day SWI workshop ALEA Post-Conference led by Pete. Special guests Lyn Anderson & Ann Whiting (Caught in the Spell of Words) and Fiona Hamilton (WordTorque).
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July 30 - Aug 2: 12th Annual Wolfe Island Summer Course!
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The course is filling up with amazing folks. Click HERE for information.
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Oct 17-18: San Francisco -- Pete presenting at the Innovative Learning Conference
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Oct 24: Chicago -- Everyone Reading Illinois (ERI) Conference
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Pete runs a 3-hour SWI workshop
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Nov 15-16: Switzerland public workshop hosted by Zurich International School (Details being confirmed now -- Save the Date!)
2020 Workshops
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January 16 -17: Winnipeg
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Details TBA
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January 22 -23: Hobart, Australia
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Details TBA
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March 5-6-7: Bangkok
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With Fiona Hamilton (WordTorque) Details TBA
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March 11-12-13: Hong Kong
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On-site workshop with Hong Kong International School (HKIS)
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Details TBA
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March 14-15: Hong Kong
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Keynote at 12th Annual Literacy Institute Confernece hosted by HKIS.
Host a workshop?
See this document on possible models, including hosting classroom-embedded workshops. Also see this WW Newsletter for more on this topic.
Note: If you see that I am giving a workshop at a location near you, feel free to contact me to see if I can add a visit to your school on the same trip.
I also do on-line workshops & model lessons via video conference all the time.
Email Pete or call 613 385 2084
Must See Links
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A New Hub for Research Related to SWI: Jeff Bowers’ Blog
More importantly, Jeff does a great job of explaining the context of this research in his blog posts. I highly recommend exploring this page often, and adding your comments to the discussion!
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Scientific Word Investigations in the Classroom & Beyond
Click here for a post from Rebecca Loveless on “Word Bag Excitement” that offers teachers a sense of this excellent activity for studying word families modeled on Lyn Anderson’s work. This is a great reference for jumping in. Rebecca’s site has many more posts to explore too.
Click here for Mary Beth Steven’s brilliant recent post “Outer Beauty Attracts, but Inner Beauty Captivates.” This is a wonderful way to compare studying real “word families” compared to words that simply rhyme. Explore her whole blog!
Click here for an inspiring post, “Comprehending Spelling” from Sue Hegland’s excellent blog, “Learning About Spelling”. This is a short, accessible and eloquent case for why we should do the obvious -- teach our written word works.
Tools for making matrices
Free trial versions of matrix making software for morphological analysis available for download
Click here for a “User’s Guide” for working with this computer tool including links to tutorial films, complementary resources and links to related research.
Video introducing the new “Mini Matrix Maker”
Watch this video to see how teachers and students can easily create matrices from word sums on Mac or PC computers with Neil Ramsden’s “Mini Matrix Maker”.
See an introduction to WordWorks and Structured Word Inquiry
(including videos) here
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On-Line Resources Supporting Structured Word Inquiry
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✦Latdict (Investigate twin bases!)
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Classroom Blogs
Key Links
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Related Websites
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✦Beyond the Word (Lyn Anderson, AUS)
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✦LEX (Gina Cooke)
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✦Language Innerviews (Scott Mills)
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✦Word Torque (Fiona Hamilton, Bangkok)
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✦Learning About Spelling (Sue Hegland)
<s> → /s/
E.g., sign, signal, assign
<s> → /z/
E.g., design, resign,
does, goes
Explore Lyn Anderson’s excellent blog with illustrations and resources about structured word inquiry for all ages at this link .
Lyn has been developing her understanding and practice in this area for over a decade. Her lessons and ideas for morphological instruction from the start are just exceptional.
Structured Word Inquiry at
The Nueva School
See the video above for a short video with Pete discussing SWI at the Nueva School.
Click HERE to see the new page on the Nueva School website describing how Structured Word Inquiry has transformed the instruction at this top US private school
WordWorks Literacy Centre
Spelling it like it is!
Nothing motivates like understanding
Two On-line, real-time SWI Courses with Pete in September
Click HERE for a pdf of the document (at right) describing these upcoming on-line courses.
These on-line courses have proven to be extremely effective. They begin by someone emailing me to organize dates, times and a specific focus (if they have one). Ideally, they find 2-3 others who can work at the same time.
People who could not take the current course have already organized two new courses in September. One is timed to suit people in North American time zones. The other is timed for people in Asia and that general region.
This document has details on the course and registration.
Recent publications related to SWI
Click HERE for the document (at right) with information and links about these three recent publications related SWI and the research.
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Washington Post article (Bowers & Bowers, 2019) -
A chapter in the latest publication by the Primary English Teaching association of Australia (PETAA) (Anderson, Whiting, Bowers & Venable, 2019)
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An article in the prestigious psychology journal Current Directions in Psychological Science (Bowers & Bowers, 2018)
Images from a joyful, busy summer with WW
In addition to the dates/locations listed above, that document has a full list of all of my booked workshops into 2020.
Look for visits to:
Winnipeg, Australia, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Vancouver, & Ohio
Email Pete if you are interested in booking a workshop in connection to any of those trips.
6th Annual SWI Nueva Institute June 17- 21
Over 50 participants got to study with Pete and Nueva teacher presenters including Carolee Fucigna, Karen Tiegel Rebecca Loveless at this rich annual event.
July 9-12: Melbourne Australian Literacy Educators Association (ALEA) Annual Conference
Organizer Julie Shepherd with Sus & Pete
Educators discuss their orthographic investigations at my post-conference session on July 13
Pete during opening plenary session
July 30 - Aug 2: 12th Annual Wolfe Island Summer Course
2019 Summer Course Class Photo
“Orthography fortified by gastronomy”
Sus’ meals offer one of the richest learning contexts of the week.
Our 11-year-old co-learner leads the groups learning in a discussion with the Old Grouch
Late night orthographic conversations spill over into the General Wolfe apartments
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San Francisco Oct. 17-18 -
Chicago: Oct 24
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Zurich: Nov 15-16
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New Jersey: Aug 29
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Calgary: Oct 8
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Edmonton: Oct 9 and/or 10
Upcoming Public Workshops open for registration!
A growing number of educators in Switzerland and Europe in general are working with SWI. Take advantage of this opportunity to study with Pete and educators from the region diving into this work.
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•Click HERE for a flyer with info.
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• Email Pete to reserve your spot!
1- or 2-Day SWI Workshop in Toronto Sept 22 or 22-23
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•Click HERE for a flyer with info.
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• Email Pete to reserve your spot!
