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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
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.
Some past Newsletters / Special Publications...
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.
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
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)
Upcoming Public Workshops & Conferences open for registration
Click HERE for the document below with links to info & registration
This course was initiated by educators in Melbourne who were unable to attend my courses set for North American time zones. This time also makes it possible for more educators from Asia, Africa and Europe to attend.
Annual SWI Workshop with Pete Bowers & Fiona Hamilton (WordTorque) in Bangkok March 5-9, 2020
I 
have had the good fortune to learn and work with Fiona Hamilton (WordTorque) with SWI for well over a decade, but our annual co-led workshop has been a particularly rich collaboration which has inspired remarkable learning at schools in Bangkok and many schools in the region including Vietnam and Japan. With Fiona’s support, NIST has been doing great work with SWI and they are once again hosting our workshop. There are a variety of options for study within the March 5-9 dates, or people can attend the full set of workshops. Click HERE or information and to register. Visit Fiona’s WordTorque for more on her excellent work and many rich resources and videos.
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
Australian Public SWI Workshops Jan-Feb, 2020
2-Day SWI Workshop hosted by ALEA
I’m very excited about this 2-day session in Tasmania.
Click HERE for details and registration.
1-day workshop hosted by David Hornsby
I’m so honoured to have David Hornsby work so hard to help educators deepen their orthographic understanding to inform their literacy instruction
Click HERE for details and registration.
Feb 28-29, San Francisco: 2-Day or 1-Day SWI Workshop
Click HERE for the flyer with more information and to register.
Option #1: 2-Day Workshop with “Classroom-embedded” portion
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•Friday: Pete will teach SWI lessons (younger and older classes) building on the on-going studies of the children. Participants observe the lessons and then debrief with Pete, the host teachers and visiting participants.
Option #2: 1-Day SWI Workshop
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•Saturday: Attendees from Friday’s classroom embedded sessions join other educators, researchers and parents for a standard SWI workshop. This session (and the first) are appropriate for educators brand new to SWI and those who have been studying for some time. Those who attended Friday will be able to bring that experience to the discussions and activities with people in the 1-day workshop.
Support Australia during this crisis, and the global climate movement
We are all horrified by the catastrophic climate fueled fires in Australia. Sus and I are conflicted about my flying there for these upcoming workshops and all the flying I do in general. Besides buying carbon off-sets for air miles, we are still unsure of how to deal with this part of our work.
In the meantime, we hope you consider donating to Australian relief organizations and/or 350.org which has been at the forefront of this global crisis for years. Consider clicking the links provided here or choose your own.
