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Contact: Peter Bowers PO Box 295 Wolfe Island, ON, Canada K0H 2Y0
Phone: (613) 385-2084
Email: wordworkskingston@gmail.com
WordWorks Newsletters & Resources
WW Newsletter #99: SWI in context -- Greta Thunberg & Climate Crisis
Click HERE for this Newsletter.
This Newsletter was inspired by my trip to Australia that happened to occur in the midst of their catastrophic climate crisis fueled fires. I use a speech by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg as the context for a large archive of possible orthographic inquiries. Teachers can use those resources to investigate the words I highlight in the context of this speech, or in any context they choose. My hope is that this Newsletter provides a rich example of how SWI can be used as leverage for studying and understanding about any subject area.
As another example of SWI as leverage for content learning, see this post on The Language of Math: Using SWI to teach math vocabulary by Nancy Martin. She is the Reading Department Chair at Eagle Hill School - a school for dyslexic students and a recent alumni of my summer courses who has been studying hard for a couple of years now with her colleagues.
Click HERE for this Newsletter. The main resource it points to is a new video addressing the deeply misunderstood topic of the explicit instruction of grapheme-phoneme correspondences from the very beginning in structured word inquiry. Also see the Newsletter for a number of orthographic investigations and updates on SWI workshops around the world.
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.
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
REVISED (May 25, 2018)
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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.
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 video of Nueva pre-school teacher Carolee Fucigna as they create a morphological web on the base <rain>. See how straight froward it is to investigate morphological families with readers and non-readers.
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
Click HERE to see the page on the Nueva School website describing how Structured Word Inquiry has transformed the instruction at this top US private school. It includes a video illustrating how this work is integrated across the grades.
WordWorks Literacy Centre
Spelling it like it is!
Nothing motivates like understanding
Summer Workshops & Conferences (Hoping they will continue, but we’ll see)
Free, weekly open-ended on-line SWI sessions with Pete
(Mondays North America; Tuesday Mornings Australia)
There is no sign up, just a regular date and time to join. I tried to pick a time that works for as wide a range of locations as possible.
Adults are welcome to have their kids join the sessions as well.
Click THIS LINK for more details. Note that the times given apply every week, the date is just for the first class.
Click THIIS LINK for a document (screen shot below) reflecting on learning from the first session that is filled with links to free resources to build understanding of scientific word investigation.
April 6 -- What about the <eigh> letter sequence?
This topic was raised by an elementary student at the end our our last session. She’s sent me a great bank of words to address this common question that has so much to teach us.
Email me <peterbowers1@mac.com> to inquire about on-line workshops
On-line, real-time (not recorded) SWI courses
with Pete Bowers
Tuesdays: Mar. 24, 31, Apr. 7, 14, 21
Start times -- 6:30pm PST, 9:30pm EST
Click HERE for a flyer with details and to register
Thursdays: Mar. 26; Apr. 2, 9, 16, 23
Start times -- 8pm Melbourne; 5pm Perth
Click HERE for a flyer with details and to register
13th Annual Wolfe Island Summer Course
July 7 - 10, 2020
7th Annual Nueva SWI Institute June 22-26
Click HERE for details and to register.
This course includes the following options:
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•Two-day intro (Mon-Tues)
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•Three-day advanced (Wed-Thurs)
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•Five-day full course for novice or experienced teachers and/or parents.
This course has the huge advantage of time and presentations by Nueva teachers from pre-school to middle school. This includes Rebecca Loveless, the current SWI coach at Nueva who is there for the full five days. She presents on a few topics and provides context from learning throughout the institute.
Click HERE for details and to register.
In many ways this 4-day course is the richest of the year the limited space (15-17 people), the setting and joining together over Sus’ meals makes this a unique study/learning opportunity. This on is filling up before I’ve even advertised properly!
As one example of the generative nature of this course, see this post on The Language of Math: Using SWI to teach math vocabulary by Nancy Martin, a recent alumni of these summer courses.
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)
Host a workshop?
See this document on possible models for hosting a WW workshop. 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. Also consider on-line workshops, model lessons tutoring or specialized sessions via video conference. Email Pete or call 613 385 2084
Three single session SWI on-line courses
(Two 2-hour courses and one 3-hour course)
Click HERE for a pdf (screen shot at right) with details on the content in each session and how to register.
1) Working with Teaching How the Written Word Works
April 1 (9am - 11am PST, noon - 2pm EST)
2-hours ($50 USD, $70 CAD)
Click HERE to Email Sus Bowers and register.
2) Constructing Morphological Matrices and Working with the 4 questions of SWI and Etymonline
April 1 (3 pm - 5 pm PST, 6 pm - 8 pm EST)
2-hours ($50 USD, $70 CAD)
Click HERE to Email Sus Bowers and register.
3) Practicing spelling-out-loud, writing-out-loud and tapping out word structure
April 3 (9am - 12 PST, noon - 3 pm EST)
3-hours ($60 USD, $80 CAD)
Click HERE to Email Sus Bowers and register.
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Two 5-session courses (1.5 hours each) Starting next week!
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Three single-session courses (2 & 3 hours) April 1 & 3
Click THIIS LINK for a document (screen shot at right) with information on all the currently booked on-line sessions I have booked. Some are my own courses, and others are organized by other groups. This includes a full-day on-line workshop.
Full list of on-line SWI courses open for registration.