Bringing Word Study to Intermediate Classrooms

Abstract

This article addresses word study for upper elementary and middle school classrooms. Word study is often neglected in classrooms due to misconceptions and fears of classroom teachers, especially teachers of older students. Conclusions from a research project conducted with teachers reveal both positive and negative understandings of implementing word study. In addition, the research indicates that teachers demonstrated three levels of word study knowledge and practice in the classroom. The research provided the rationale and motivation to develop short, integrated word study units that intermediate teachers could implement: incidental word study activities. The authors provide a brief conceptual overview of word study and describe the four incidental word study units that can be implemented by teachers. These units include daily root activities, homophones—within word pattern, homographs—syllable juncture stage, and word endings—derivational constancy activities. The authors include a word sort, an application activity, and a reinforcement game for each unit. With these activities, teachers can begin their own adventure with word study.

Using word study instruction with developmental college students

“…The growth that took place during this intervention period was significant and suggested that college students enrolled in developmental reading courses may excel rapidly when provided with consistently appropriate explicit word study instruction based on their developmental level of orthographic knowledge. This conclusion aligns with findings documenting the effectiveness of the word study approach in multiple grade‐level school and nonschool settings (Abbott, ; Beckham‐Hungler & Williams, ; Bloodgood & Pacifici, ; Fresch, 2000/2001; Greenberg et al ., ; Massengill, ; Shaw & Berg, ; Shaw & Berg, ; Williams & Hufnagel, ; Williams & Lundstrom, ; Williams & Phillips‐Birdsong, ; Williams et al ., ). Additionally, this approach benefits the orthographic knowledge of students regardless of their age (Henderson, ; Henderson & Beers, ; Templeton & Bear, ).…”

Word Study Instruction and Second-Grade Children's Independent Writing

“…We believe now, however, that this arrangement did not provide sufficient time for word study instruction, which may have contributed to the lack of use in our study. Teachers in the Bloodgood and Pacifici (2004) investigation, which examined teachers' attitudes toward implementing word study instruction, also indicated that they had limited flexibility to make word study a part of their instructional program due to "district mandates to use a set program in a prescribed manner" (p. 252) as well as pressure to cover curriculum content and to test students. Documenting use of instruction is also an issue that needs to be addressed.…”

“…Our goal was to identify studies that specifically examined the efficacy of a systematic word study program for supporting young children's spelling processes during open-ended writing activities. We found copious articles describing a myriad of word study activities that help children to explore and learn specific orthographic principles (e.g., Aiken & Bayer, 2002;Barnes, 1989;Bloodgood & Pacifici, 2004;Fresch, 2000;Fresch & Wheaton, 1997;Fresch, Wheaton, & Zutell, 1998;Invernizzi, Abouzeid, & Bloodgood, 1997;Johnston, 1999;Richards & Gipe, 1993;Zutell, 1998). We also located several articles that examined the impact of word study on young children's spelling achievement (Abbott, 2001;Brandt & Gielbelhaus, 2000;Joseph, 2000;Sabey, 1999) as well as their reading development, particularly at the word level (Carlisle, 2000;Joseph, 2002Joseph, , 2003Lovett, 1999;Rasinski & Oswald, 2005;White, 2005).…”

“…We also located several articles that examined the impact of word study on young children's spelling achievement (Abbott, 2001;Brandt & Gielbelhaus, 2000;Joseph, 2000;Sabey, 1999) as well as their reading development, particularly at the word level (Carlisle, 2000;Joseph, 2002Joseph, , 2003Lovett, 1999;Rasinski & Oswald, 2005;White, 2005). We even identified a study that examined preservice and inservice teachers' awareness of and attitudes toward implementing word study instruction in their language arts programs (Bloodgood & Pacifici, 2004). However, we found only three investigations that specifically addressed word study instruction and young children's writing, and just one of these was published in a refereed journal.…”

The Latin–Greek Connection

“…Moreover, the reality of the classroom is that teachers are generally not familiar and not comfortable with anything more than dictionary definitions and the use of sentence context to teach vocabulary (Berne & Blachowicz, ; Blachowicz, ; Bloodgood & Pacifici, ). On the basis of their findings, Bloodgood and Pacifici suggest that teachers need to be introduced to new approaches to word study to build their “knowledge base and implementation strategies” (p. 253).…”