Must See Links
(Recommended as a an introduction to the ‘big picture’ of SWI)
Click HERE for this 18 min video of my talk at this TEDx event organized by students at The Nueva School near San Francisco that has done such seminal work with SWI. This video provides a brief overview to the theory and practice.
Click here for a page with notes on the talk and links to further resources.
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.
Click here for this video on how morphological and etymological families work. This video is a collaboration between myself and Marie Foley. The video goes into many details about this topic that is so important for anyone teaching from an SWI frame.
Contact: Peter Bowers PO Box 295 Wolfe Island, ON, Canada K0H 2Y0
Phone: (613) 385-2084
Email: peterbowers1@mac.com
(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
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.
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
On-Line Resources Supporting Structured Word Inquiry
✦Latdict (Investigate twin bases!)
Classroom Blogs
Key Links
Related Websites
(Lyn Anderson, AUS)
✦LEX (Gina Cooke)
✦Literacy Dr. (Jennifer Petrich)
✦Word Torque (Fiona Hamilton, Bangkok)
✦Learning About Spelling (Sue Hegland)
<s> → /s/
E.g., sign, signal, assign
<s> → /z/
E.g., design, resign,
does, goes
Beneath the Surface of Words (Sue Hegland)
Backpocket Words (Gail Venable)
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
More WordWorks Resources
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.
Free SWI Digital Drop In Sessions Monday’s 5pm EST
Monday Sept 23 marks the 200th Monday Session!
I began offering this free weekly session at the beginning of the COVID pandemic in an effort to ensure teachers and parents had a place to pose questions about SWI whether or not they could afford to attend more formal on-line courses.
The response has been so rewarding (and fun) that I’ve only missed a handful Mondays since the first session on March 23rd, 2020. I plan to continue indefinitely even once we are past the pandemic.
There is no sign up, just a regular date and time to join. Most weeks we simply address questions people bring. Some weeks we have a special guest, or planned investigation to share. Every week has novices and experts who come to share their questions/experience, or just listen in.
Click THIIS LINK for a document reflecting on learning from the first session that is filled with links to free resources to build understanding of scientific word investigation.
Upcoming SWI Sessions with Pete
Click HERE for a flyer with all this information
•Mon Sept 23, 5-7 pm pm EST Special 200th Free SWI Digital Drop In! (Zoom link here)
Presentations on a great new SWI implementation guide and new video from Marie and me.
•Sept 26, 2024 7-9 pm “Hot Topic Webinar” Hosted by Reading with TLC“Vocabulary Development for All Ages and Abilities using Structured Word Inquiry”
(Live and Recorded) video is available for a month after session for participants.
Click HERE to register. ($40 USD). Click HERE for a flyer to share.
•Click HERE to rent my previous Hot Topic Webinar “SWI in the early years (PreK - Gr 2)”
Other “Hot Topic” webinars hosted by Reading with TLC include sessions by figures including Maryanne Wolf, David Kilpatrick, Louisa Moats, and Jan Hasbrouck.
•Two courses hosted by EduSpark (real-time and recorded) starting in October
•General SWI Course (Five 1.5 hr ea) Weds Oct 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 (7:30-9:30 EST) $ 240 USD
Click HERE for more information and to register. Detailed course description is HERE.
•Tools of SWI Course (Three 2 hr ea) Thurs Oct 31, Nov 7, 14 (7:30-9:30 EST) $ 150 USD
Click HERE for more information and to register. Detailed course description is HERE.
•Introduction to SWI Friday Oct 11 (3-5pm EST; 1-3pm MST) Hosted by NRLC in Alberta
Click HERE for more information and to register. ($90 CAD)
•Spelling-out orthography course (Two 2-hour sessions)
Saturdays Oct 12 & 19 (9:45 - 11:45 EST) $ 90 USD Detailed course description is HERE.
Real-time study only, no recordings. Email me peterbowers1@mac.com to register.
•In-person full-day workshop Washington State (2hrs from Seattle) Sat nov 16, 2024
Sunfield Waldorf School in Port Hadlock is hosting this full-day workshop. More details soon. Space is limited. Email me to inquire/reserve a spot. See and share this flyer with more info
Latest WordWorks Newsletter #113 Sept 23, 24
Introducing “combinatoriality”
Click HERE for Newsletter #113
•A new SWI teacher guide book
•A free chapter for an SWI framed chapter from a great children’s book ‘Dr. Peanut: 12 Nutty Tales
•An introduction and background on a new orthography film by me and Marie Foley and the concept of “combinatoriality.”
I go into detail about how this film fits with a major new work “Blueprint for a universal theory of learning to read: The Combinatorial Model” by David Share (in press). This article was my introduction to the concept “combintorialiity” as a feature of all languages. In our soon-to-be-released video and this newsletter, I show how our study of grapheme-phoneme correspondences in the context of morphology with the matrix and the word sum is perfectly in line with not just English, but languages in general.
Recent Videos on Research & Practice
See newly posted video of my April 12 talk on SWI research, theory and practice for the “Bristol Conversations in Education” series from the University of Bristol
Click HERE for a page on the Bristol University site with notes on the talk, and links to resources for further study.
My video on how to construct a matrix from word sums
Click HERE to see this “how to” video on a process for teaching how go from word sums to construct your own matrix. I also use this video to help people understand why this morphological analysis is necessary for understanding how grapheme-phoneme correspondences work in English.
Video of interview on “Spelling-Out Orthography”
For more on this key practice in SWI lick HERE for a recent video in which Shawna Pope-Jefferson interviews me on “Spelling-Out Orthography.”
This is an in-depth hour-long talk that includes discussing videos of young students using this process. To jump directly to that part of the video, click HERE.
Click the image at left to see one of the videos you can find on that page with students and teachers using this practice of “spelling-out” for reading, spelling, and vocabulary learning.
Click THIS LINK for details about my on-line and in-person PD, fees etc.
Click THIS LINK for descriptions of all my on-line courses.
Resources, Courses & Remembering William VanCleave
May 21, 2024
WordWorks Newsletter #111: Ripples of Orthographic Learning Courtesy of Michel Rameau
February 5, 2024
Explore my archive of WordWorks Newsletters and Special Publications at THIS LINK.
Here are a couple of recent special publications about learning in my courses with many orthographic concepts and resources to support your learning.
Click HERE for a story about frustrated 9-year old dyslexic who finally gets traction with English spelling when his tutor changes gears to great effect an they go on the hunt for suffixes.
Click HERE for a story about A 7-year old dyslexic and his tutor new to SWI are determined to make sense of English spelling
Click HERE for my most recent special publication of a teacher new to SWI having great success with her pull-out group.