Love Learning

How to use the Quick Draw Kit to improve reading and spelling skills

Components of the Quick Draw Kit

If you want a Quick Draw Kit already made for you, see our pre-made kit.

It contains a whiteboard, dry erase marker, eraser, instructions for playing the game, and directions on how to do finger-mapping.

If you would rather assemble your own board, you can go to Lowe’s or another home improvement store and have a nice little man cut up a shower board for you. Then sand the edges so they will be smooth. Find a set of dry erase markers. The instructions for how to play Quick Draw are in The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns, which also provides you with a comprehensive set of lessons that teach all the sound spellings in our language in leveled lessons.

Some background on Quick Draw

One year in the last decade, I was hired to design a Title 1 program for a school K-8. I ended up serving over 60 students who did not qualify for special education services but who were far below grade level in reading, grades K-8.

I met with the groups of 5-8 children by grade level 2-3 times a week. Time was limited, considering the numbers of children I met with and considering how far behind they were in reading. Best of all, the older the children were, the more discouraged they were and the more resistant to another attempt at learning to read better.

Accidentally, I decided to take their weekly spelling lists and work on those words as a means of killing two Goliaths with one smooth stone. I figured if they could pass their spelling tests, it might help them learn to read better as well. What I didn’t understand was how incredibly powerful that approach would turn out to be.

Let me HASTEN to say that we did not “do spelling” in the traditional way! While I didn’t really know for sure what I was doing, I did know that to repeat multiple times what had already not worked for these children was a foolish undertaking.

I followed my instincts which were

    1. To try a vastly different approach to learning so they would not be reminded of their failure with the traditional method.

    2. To teach them in a way that didn’t require them to memorize anything at all.

    3. To teach them in a way that utilized a different region of their brain and body than they were used to using when they failed.

Other things I did:

    1. Asked a lot of questions about how they remembered.

    2. Watched them intently for any sign of my having lost them.

    3. Kept the bar very high. Our standard was 100% correct or we’d do something different.

    4. Helped the children realize the strengths they did possess that would help them learn.

Each week on Friday morning I would take the stack of spelling words for each grade level 2-8 and would focus on the spelling patterns in the list of words. Then I would make silly sentences that linked groups of words together based on their common sound spelling (example: play, may, spray, stay, stray). Finally I would sketch out a cartoon that illustrated the sentence. What happened was far beyond what I intended. I set out to make the learning experience explicit, unforgettable and fun. It turned out that the children gobbled up the learning and learning was permanent.

Here is an example of a sentence that highlights a spelling pattern, has a cartoon, etc.

 

 

The sheep on 

Sweet Street

have wheels

of cheese.

 

 

I challenge you to study this a bit quietly to let your brain take a snapshot of the image while you say the sentence to yourself. Then tomorrow, see if you can recall the image and the sentence that goes with it. Better yet, try it with a child.

This is the kind of practice we did with our kids in Title 1. By the end of the year, all but a small handful of children were at or beyond grade level for reading.

How to play Quick Draw

    1. Select a sound spelling (ex: “ee” or “ay” or “ough”).

    2. Generate a list of words that use your sound spelling.

    3. Practice breaking each word into its individual sounds before teaching the lesson. (example: play is P-L-AY – sounds, not letter spellings).

    4. On the day of the lesson, instruct the children to listen for the word and listen to you breaking it into sounds.

    5. Say, “PLAY.” “P-L-AY.” “Now you do it.”

    6. Children will sound out the word with you, and then write it while they sound it out aloud once again. Tell them their ears are going to be telling their brains what to write.

The reason this works when memorizing spellings of words does not is that a child can hear and word and can learn to represent that word by using letters that represent the sounds.

The key is to make sure they know the sound spellings in our words (refer to The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns for the comprehensive list) and have them sound out loud.

I promise you: they will love learning!

How SnapWords (sight word picture cards) help with reading comprehension, reading, and spelling

Very often when children are learning to read, they focus so much on naming words that they don’t absorb the meaning of the words they are reading. Poor reading comprehension is a problem that plagues thousands of children. So I'd like to suggest some tools and strategies that will go a long way toward helping children improve their reading comprehension over time.

Basically when we read, we need to create a mental scene that shows the action or the content of the material we read. For me, and for other right-brained or visual learners, this mental scene is a global picture that is formed when we read. We actually see pictures in our minds and when action occurs, we see what might be called mental movies. I cannot speak for how dominant left-brained people react to print. I have heard that they think in words and I am not sure what that means nor what that looks like (please feel free to comment if you can shed light on this question).

Images help children improve reading comprehension

So, when teaching children who struggle with comprehension, it is really helpful to have images accompany words and sentences. The image is like a stepping-stone to creating mental images for themselves. In fact, during early learning when children are just beginning to learn words, it is critical to embed images into the words because so many young children believe their goal is to learn to say the words they see, or to sound them out. Often, no one tells them the words carry meaning! So to embed a picture from day one will help them avoid reading comprehension problems. As these children are learning their first words, talk to them about making mental images for themselves and how important this skill is.

How to teach visualization

The first step toward creating mental images is to use stylized picture words such as SnapWords™, where the images are already embedded. Have the child study the image and notice details. Next, have the child close his eyes and “see” the image with word embedded in his own imagination. The more you do this, the stronger the imagination/visualization muscle will become. And if you share with the child that visualization is a powerful learning tool, they will come to habitually practice visualization without being prompted to.

Try it yourself. Here is a word to study and then to visualize with eyes closed. How long do  you think you will remember this word and the picture? I designed this stylized word a long time ago; yet any time I think of the word “enough,” I picture these characters and I believe sincerely that they just had Thanksgiving dinner and ate too much and that the little girl is managing to vocalize the fact that she had more than enough to eat! The character playing the part of the G is content to let her speak for him, while the H character is gazing off into space in a sated euphoria.

Word pictures also help with spelling

The meaning behind this word is very clear. Point out that the two L’s are guys who are  helping the first guy pull on the rope for their team. Then, talk about the size of the first guy… the big muscley chest. Next have the child close her eyes and see the word in her imagination; doubtless she will be able to read, comprehend and know how to spell the word after doing all that.

In fact, try this. Have the child, still with her eyes closed, describe the image she sees in her mind. How many boys are pulling on the rope? Which one has a big muscle-bound chest? How many are tall and thin? When she is finished describing what she sees, have her open her eyes and write the word she saw in her mind on paper.

(Two weeks from now, check your own memory of this image, and then check the child’s memory.)

Images are worth a thousand words

It is difficult for me to when I'm learning a new concept to only have someone’s words as they speak to me. For me, images make all the difference. A confession here. I am middle aged and truly did not understand the difference between a sea and an ocean. I always assumed (because I never really thought about the difference) that they were used interchangeably and that “sea” was used in more romantic, sentimental, poetic occasions. For instance, it's used in a lullaby I heard my mother sing when I was really little, which I had the pleasure and delight of singing to my new grandson this winter.

Sweet and Low

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sweet and low, sweet and low,

         Wind of the western sea,

Low, low, breathe and blow,

         Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow,

         Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

         Father will come to thee soon;

Rest, rest, on mother's breast,

         Father will come to thee soon;

Father will come to his babe in the nest,

Silver sails all out of the west

         Under the silver moon:

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

 

This song has always captured me, and it is what I associate “sea” with… a poetic, evocative scene illustrated with vivid images in my mind.

However, I abandoned my right brained-ness long enough to consult an expert about the difference between sea and ocean, and this is what I found:

“Many people use the terms "ocean" and "sea" interchangeably when speaking about the ocean, but there is a difference between the two terms when speaking of geography (the study of the Earth's surface). Seas are smaller than oceans and are usually located where the land and ocean meet. Typically, seas are partially enclosed by land.”
Office of Coast Survey
A History of Charting America's Waters, NOAA 200th
Anniversary Web Site

This was great to learn about. So here are two stylized sight words: “ocean” and “sea.” The image for ocean conveys more the depth and vastness of the body of water, while the image for sea allows the child to see where seas might be located: on the edges of the ocean, but partially surrounded by land. In the stylized sight word for “sea,” there are three seas and each has a sailboat. In the picture, the whales will help lead into a discussion about the ocean and the huge body of water where the whales are swimming, but the seas are actually somewhat protected by land in a side or more.

After staring at this word for a few seconds, I can see how permanently the word, complete with meaning and spelling, is branded on my mind. I can image standing on the island (e) and watching the whales and feeling the salt air blowing me around a bit. I can hear sea gulls and the waves lapping.

This is a complete learning experience —far different from showing a child the word SEA and telling them a sea is a body of water on the edge of an ocean that is partially surrounded by land. That learning experience may or may not stick!

Lets band together to help our children love learning!

 

How to Teach Sight Words and Sound Spellings Using a Big Book Story

Something I discovered during my years as a classroom teacher is that it works so well to pre-teach specific sight words and sound spellings (phonics concepts) using a big book as the children are sitting around you on a rug. Rather than jumping right in and reading the story to them or with them, pre-teach and give them the lay of the land ahead of time. Doing this will help the focus concepts jump off the page and reading the story will be more successful.

Following is one way to teach sight words and sound spellings using a big book. We are going to use the story A Moose Is Loose, and the mini-lessons will last for a week because there are so many concepts to teach in this story!

 

A snapshot of the concepts taught from this story  

Long U and OO spellings:

OO – moose, loose, scoop, troop, rooting, hoot, snoozing, roosting, soon.

EW – newspaper, flew, crew, knew, stew, new.

OE – shoes, canoe.

O – to, do.

-UE – cue, blue, glue.

UI – suit, fruit, cruise.

Compound Word – Newspaper

Adding –ING – rooting, roosting, snoozing

Sight Words – By the time the children get to this story, they will have already learned and practiced all the sight words in List B, so it is a matter of reviewing and searching for the words that appear in this story.

Words included in List B:

am, ask, be, cut, got, him, into, its, let, run, us, yes, away, from, funny, may, must, of, put, say, that, them, they, went, any, fly, just, last, many, she, show, than, try, what, when, why, ate, fast, good, our, pull, saw, sing, then, too, took, who, with, about, all, eat, gave, new, read, still, take, tell, work, your

 

Basic Procedures

Day 1, introduce the book title page and ask the children what they think the story is going to be about based on the title.

Next, display this chart.

Tell the children you are going to be looking for words that have the OO sound as in the word MOO! But there are different ways to spell that sound, so each day when you read the book together you will be hunting for a particular sound. When you have found the words that match that sound spelling, you will write them on the chart.

Day 1, hunt for OO and O words. You can use colored film to put over those words in the big book so they will stand out nicely when you read.

Day 2, search for EW words and even during other times of the day when you find another EW word, add it to the chart.

Day 3, add the OE words.

Day 4, add UI words.

Day 5, add UE words.

 

Follow-up Activities

Days 1- 2, practice adding -ING to words such as RUN, SNAP, FAN, PLAN, SLAM, CHAT, TAP, and CLAP. Say that if you just stuck the -ING on the end of the word, the I would reach around and pinch the vowel, making it yell its name (FAN would become FANING, PLAN would become PLANING, etc.), so you have to double the final letter.

Days 3- 4, add -ING to these words: name, tame, flame, rake, wake, wait, yank, tramp, call, salt, etc. These words either already have a Pinchy E making the first vowel long, OR they have two consonants at the end of the word that prevent the I in -ING from pinching them. So NAME becomes NAMING (remove the final e), TAME becomes TAMING, BLAME becomes BLAMING, CAMP becomes CAMPING, FALL becomes FALLING, etc.

Day 5, practice compound words. Break up the following compound words into single words and write each word on an index card. Write words that begin a compound word in one color and words that end the word in another color (example: AIRPORT becomes AIR PORT). Here are the words: anyone, baseball, bedroom, cookbook, daylight, dugout, football, forever, itself, into, inside, indoor, himself, homework, hilltop, herself, haircut, jellyfish, maybe, myself, nobody, outside, rainfall, rosebud, sailboat, seashell, seesaw. Have the child use the cards to put small words together to make compound words. Of course each compound word they make will have one red word and one blue one.

 

Example page from Day 1 when you are highlighting OO spellings

On the following days, you would add colored film to the words that contain the sound spellings you are focusing on.

After reading, talk about the plot. What would the children have done had they been the newspaper reporter who was called on to help with the animals that got loose? What solution would they have created? It would be fun for the children to WRITE an alternate solution. They can use the words in this story as references for spelling.

Most of all, have fun with the story and for sure, love learning!

Playing Can Dramatically Improve Reading and Spelling

As is so often the case in life, it is frequently the smallest gaps in understanding that cause the biggest learning issues for children learning to read. So our reaction to struggles with learning to read tends to be that we implement a really big, complicated, sometimes expensive program, or that we slow the lessons way down, cut the list of items learned in half, talk more loudly and deliberately and so forth. None of these reactions brings that much in the way of progress, so we end up reinforced in the belief that the students in question are just slow and won’t get it. They must be disabled or something.

There is absolutely nothing in the world like facing a struggling student to try some little fix and watching his lights suddenly go on. It is like witnessing a miracle, a rebirth. One activity I began to use ten years ago came as a result of searching for something that would help groups of children who were very far behind in reading. Of course if they were behind in reading, they were also abysmal spellers. This activity resulted in lights going on for so many students from kindergarten to middle school.

It was so great that the activity was simple because our time together was very limited. This little magic activity that resulted in so much change was called “Quick Draw,” and we could play a lesson in 15-20 minutes in groups of 4-8 children. Another thing that made Quick Draw special was that it was not like anything the children had already been exposed to and failed with. We kept expectations super high, but offered all the support necessary to help build the children’s confidence in their own ability to learn… using a different strategy… one that worked for them.  They had to learn first that they COULD learn before their emotions and minds were freed up to soar.

How to Play Quick Draw

Quick Draw requires whiteboards and markers. If you have a classroom whiteboard, let the kids stand at the board. Otherwise, have them use individual whiteboards. (See our Quick Draw Kit.)

1.)    Say the first word while the children listen.

2.)    Hold up fingers to show the structure of the word, one finger for each letter. If two or more letters combine to make a sound, those fingers will be close together. (Refer to instructions for fingermapping.)

3.)    As you point to each finger, sound out the word, making sure the children are watching and sounding with you, keeping their eyes on your finger map of the word.

4.)    Say, “Sound and write.” The children need to each say the sounds in the word as they write. Many will try to just go straight to writing, but it is important for them to orally sound as this will guide them into correctly writing the word. If your child struggles with writing, let him or her use pull-down letters to form the words. (What is significant about this step in the game is that the child’s brain is processing the sounds in the word he is saying, and each time he says a sound in the word, he is hearing it and also seeing his hand as it tangibly forms the letters representing that sound on his board. This is the main magic right here.)

5.)    Do a quick visual check for errors. If there is a mistake, do the fingermapping again, asking the child to sound with you to find out where the error is. Please refrain from using names of letters as we do in traditional spelling lessons (say AH instead of A). These children will not be able to remember letter names in a sequence beyond that very moment. Better for them to learn to rely on hearing themselves say the sounds in a word as they write them.

But where can I get word lists to use?

The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns is all the resource you will need, no matter the age or skill level of the student. The one book is for K- adult, really. There are 55 units in the book, each unit covering one sound in our language. Inside each unit are varying levels of difficulty, which is why you can use this to teach beginners or non reading adults. All sounds in our language are included and so if you complete the units, you will have taught all the sounds and their spellings that make up all the words in our language.

So how is this different from plain, old phonics?

Plain old phonics relies on a student being able to 1) learn rules, 2) remember them during reading, 3) and know where and when to apply them; oh, and still read and understand what they are reading. Plain old spelling counts on the student’s ability to memorize, remember, and later correctly use sequences of letters that represent all the words in our language. Many, many children/adults cannot perform with phonics or spelling either one.

The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns approaches the topic of phonics very differently. Rather than phonics rules and spelling lessons, it utilizes mini stories and cartoon illustrations to group words together that enjoy the same spelling pattern. Visual learners can study the page for a bit and later retrieve the lesson in its entirety—sentences, visuals, sound spellings. It is magical to watch! Visual memory is so much more powerful and lasting than anything else. The humor and downright goofiness of the lessons also bring an element of novelty and enjoyment to the otherwise tedious and dusty-dry topic. And we all know if a person is enjoying what they are doing, those positive biases will help them learn even better!

The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns is not consumable. You can use it with many people if you are a tutor; a classroom teacher can also purchase the PDF version for use with SMART or Promethean boards. In this way, the teacher can model for the students as they mark up their photocopied page from the book.

What are the results of using this book and kit?

When I used this approach with failing children in grades K-middle school, nearly every child was brought up to grade level for reading within that one school year. The older and more delayed the child was, the more advances he/she made. The reason for this unexpected outcome is that these students had more “stuff” floating around in their heads from exposure (however grim) to reading. Once their various holes were plugged, they took off like sweet little rockets!

If you want to skip getting a Quick Draw Kit from us…

That is totally fine! But do get the book. Then go to a building supply store and find a piece of showerboard. If you ask really sweetly, a nice person there can probably cut the board into pieces about 12 x 18 for you. Sand the edges slightly. Find dry erase markers for each child. You don’t need to buy erasers; just have each child bring an old (WASHED) tube sock from home to use for an eraser. My students would each keep their marker in their tube sock. Then while we played Quick Draw, they would wear the sock on their non-writing hand. This served a great purpose: they didn’t misplace their eraser and it kept their non-writing hand out of trouble!

I’d love to hear from you if you choose to try this activity…or if you need clarification. Either leave a comment below or write me at info(at)child-1st(dot)com.

Q: What should I do about using keywords for complicated spelling patterns if my students struggle with spelling basic words?

A: Basically, ALL children I have taught who struggled with reading also struggled with spelling, and phonics was unfortunately unusable for them. So we bypassed that entirely by focusing on the sounds in words. The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns contains a list of keywords to help children with more advanced spelling patterns. However, you can’t start a child out with more advanced spelling patterns that require a keyword if they are still struggling with CVC words. Don’t even worry about keywords for beginners. Keywords are going to help out a lot with children who are reading but are challenged to read longer words that have various word chunks in them.

For beginners, use the very early lessons in the Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns book that teach short vowel sounds in 3 (or four) letter words. Children with dyslexia will be unable to look at a word and keep the letters in the correct sequence. However they can learn to read and write if you tie the sounds to something tangible and visible such as the fingers on your hand, teach them to rely on listening to the SOUNDS (not letter name) of each letter in the little word, and tie each sound to one finger. The scenario that completes this cycle for them, however, is to have them use whiteboards. See the sequence below.

How to teach:

1.    Identify the word to be studied. Say, for example, FIT.

2.    Hold up three fingers to be a visual, tangible, map for the sounds.

3.    Sound out the word FIT, saying Ffff as you point to the first finger, Iiiii as you point to the next one, and Tttt as you point to the last one.

(The reason this practice is important is that it provides the children with a spatial, visual map that shows them the construction of the word. They can see how many sounds there are and where they fall in the word.)

4.    Next, and this is super important, have your children sound the word with you as you point to the fingers for each sound.

5.    Right away, then, they need to sound FIT again orally as they write each letter on their whiteboards, one sound per letter written.

This simple activity utilizes multiple pathways to the brain, essential for children who struggle to read when taught in traditional ways. Children use spatial / visual abilities as they see the word on your fingermap, they hear themselves sounding out the word as they see the visual map, and when they write as they are sound out the word, they are producing the word from inside their own brains with their mouth and ears directing what they write. It is a very simple activity, but very powerful. This system has worked with children who had not been able to learn to read after years of trying.

Once they learn to listen to sounds, they will be able to apply this skill to more difficult spellings, such as 2-4 letter sounds like the ones outlined in the Sounds Book. They will understand that one sound is sometimes written with multiple letters and that all letter symbols in a word are “used up” in making the sounds for the words.

This practice is one I did daily without fail with all my students, struggling or not. In addition, I used the SnapWords™ sight word cards to give them instant word recognition. They need to understand that the collection of sounds has a meaning, and that you can see the word and not have to sound it out. Put both SnapWords™ sight word cards and The Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns together for a complete teaching cycle for these young children.

How to Teach a Right-Brained Learner to Recognize Sound Spelling Patterns

We’ve posted a lot of information on this blog about teaching right-brained, visual/spatial children to read, but some concepts bear retelling because they are so important. A right-brained learner needs so much to see all the material they are taught with a global view so they can find patterns in it. What follows are some ideas for teaching sound spelling patterns to right-brained learners. By the way, I taught all my students this way, as even the predominantly left-brained learners gained more from this approach than from concepts taught in isolation.

But first, I wanted to share a few links that might help as you teach your students to read. The first link is to a blog post that gives some ideas for helping children transition from stylized SnapWords™ sight word cards to unadorned high-frequency words in text. Next is a post that contains tips for teaching right-brained students to read and then a post on teaching the long vowel sounds in a story before having them attempt to read it. The last link I wanted to share is to a free booklet of activities to use in learning and reviewing SnapWords™. This booklet provides teachers and parents with plenty of ideas for not only recognizing high-frequency words, but also for comprehension and using them correctly in sentences and in writing.

We recently came out with a book called The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns that details all the sound spellings in English. The lessons are done for you in the book, but the following might clarify how to teach using this approach.

Teaching sound spellings:

Let’s say you are going to tackle long A vowel sounds.

1.    On your whiteboard or chart paper, list the various spellings like this:

        a-e        ay        ai        a       

(Also, use pages 16-17 in Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns)

Tell the students that when they see these letters, they will know to say A (long sound of a).

2.    Under a-e write a few of the following words in a column so your students can see the pattern that is made of a-e in all the words:

    Face, lace, mace, pace, race,

    bade, fade, jade, made, wade,

    age, cage, page, rage, sage, wage,

    bake, cake, fake, lake, make, rake, take, wake,

    bale, dale, gale, hale, male, pale, sale, tale,

    came, tame, dame, fame, game, lame, name, same, tame,

    bane, cane, lane, mane, pane, sane, vane, wane,

    cape, gape, nape, tape,

    base, case, vase,

    ate, date, fate, gate, hate, late, mate, rate,

    cave, gave, pave, rave, save, wave,

    daze, faze, gaze, haze, maze, raze

3.    Have the children use their whiteboards. Tell them you are going to call out words that use the a-e pattern. Don’t mix them up. Start with the “ace” words and call them out one at a time--face, lace, etc.--using the collection of words above.

4.    Next have them start a new spelling. Tell them this one will be “ade.” Call out the ade words from the list above.

5.    Continue until you have done all the words listed above even if you break this into two sessions. The reason for including all those words is that they will learn most easily that this is a spelling pattern that occurs throughout our language and it will be easier for them to notice words that include a-e after having practiced.

6.    Do page 16 in the Sounds book by having them highlight in yellow only the letters a-e, nothing else. Read the sentences together and notice how the pictures illustrate the sentences. When you feel they are ready, have them use their whiteboards and you read one sentence at a time very slowly so they can write the target words (the ones in bold print). When they can do this pretty easily, tell them excitedly that you are going to bump up the difficulty level and you are going to mix up the words. Please do not use letter names or tell them the spellings of the words. Sound out the words and encourage them to sound out loud as they write them. I always made my students sound out loud no matter how old they were. It makes a huge difference for them.

WORDS for AY:

    Bay, day, gay, hay, jay, lay, may, nay, pay, ray, say, way, bray, clay, cray, gray, play,     pray, slay, spray, stay, stray, sway, tray.

(Point out that when the students hear long a at the END of words, it will be spelled AY.)

WORDS for AI: Also use page 17 in Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns.

    Aid, laid, maid, paid, raid

    Ail, bail, fail, hail, jail, mail, nail, pail, rail, sail, tail, wail

    Lain, main, pain, rain, vain, wain

    Bait, gait, wait

(Point out that when the students hear long a in the MIDDLE of words, it will be spelled AI.)

The exception to this is MAY-BE, however, the AY comes at the end of a syllable in that word.

This same rule applies to words with OI and OY. OI in the middle of words, OY at the end of words except LOY-AL and ROY-AL.

Be sure to do all this to give your right-brained learners a solid base before having them read the Easy-for-Me™ Books. When you are ready to introduce a story, scan the storyline with them to find their sight words (which you can post on the wall near where they are reading) and to locate words that use the long A spellings. If during reading they come to a sight word and hesitate, rather than letting them guess wrong, simply point to the stylized word as a prompt. In subsequent readings of the stories you could turn the SnapWords™ over so the backs of the cards are visible.

Check Out Our New SnapWords™ Spelling Dictionary

A customer, a special needs teacher from Texas, wrote us a few months ago suggesting that we create a SnapWords™ Dictionary so that children in special education could have a resource to take into testing with them. In her district children are allowed to bring in a list of words to use as a resource, and she and her colleagues had been laboriously compiling and copying words for their students.

We wanted to make the dictionary colorful and fun to appeal to children who might have had an experience of struggling with reading. And so here it is!

The SnapWords™ Spelling Dictionary is packed full of high frequency words—372 of them—and includes a body motion for each one, plus a sentence that includes the target word beside each stylized sight word so students will think about the meaning of the word and learn how to use it correctly in writing. The content is taken from our SnapWords™ cards.

While this book is not recommended for initial teaching of sight words since it's best for children to transition from seeing the stylized word to the plain word right away, there are several other ways this resource can be used.

• Place the SnapWords™ Spelling Dictionary in a writing center so children can quickly look up words they need as they write.

• Include a copy or two in your classroom lending library for students to check out as they review their sight words with a parent at home. This is a great way to boost your students’ sight word vocabulary and an effective way to increase their reading fluency while not adding to the busy teacher’s already full schedule!

• This book is a great tool for teachers to use as they teach sight words to their class using SnapWords™ cards because words are alphabetized for easy location of the word, while the language and body motions are included so the teacher can easily teach the words complete with body motion and sentence. Take it home with you at night for ease of lesson planning.

• The Dictionary is a good tool for older non-readers. Once they have a friend tell them what the words say, they can study on their own, as the visuals will remind them of what each word says.

• For English Language Learners, the book is invaluable as it will help them rapidly gain a broad base in commonly-used words.

• Finally, because the book is colorful and attractive in the multitude of visuals included, read it to very young children just like you would read them a story book. If you do not make a point to turn the story time into a formal lesson, those little tots will over time gain much in the way of word recognition, just from looking at the pictures. That is the best kind of learning for the very young…just looking at pictures and talking about what you see together.

See sample pages from the book, find out more about it and happy reading!

How to Make Spelling Words Unforgettable for Right-Brained Learners

Spelling was not one of my best subjects in elementary school. I would drill my word list and because I studied in the traditional way, I missed a lot of words on the weekly quizzes. All the words I missed I had to write in my notebook, which was lovingly called “My Personal Word List.” The words in My Personal Word List were considered special words that I should review so I could retake the quiz and hope the second time around proved to yield better results (None of this was my idea, as I would have been far happier to never see those words again!).

The main difficulty I see with this whole scenario is that it was assumed that words I couldn’t remember how to spell after drilling, writing, and spelling aloud, I would somehow be able to remember after repeating the process that didn’t work for me the first time. From my vantage point, some fifty years later, I clearly see that if a method didn’t work the first time, it is just silly to try again using the same approach.

So, the other day I was writing a sentence using the word “lavender.” Only I spelled it lavendar as is my wont. Because I was using graphics software, spell check did not save me. When the goof was brought to my attention, I knew I had to help myself once and for all. In the process, I remembered I also have trouble remembering how to spell caterpillar (I usually end the word with an “er.”). So this is what I made:

Why do these visuals work?

1.    I chose a small word that I DO remember how to spell. In these examples, the words I know without any trouble are “super” and “dollar.” I remember “dollar” because I tend to say the word like this in my head: doll–ARE.

2.    Next, I grouped the known word with other words that have the same spelling pattern, and I made a silly sentence using them all.

3.    Finally, I sketched a picture that ties all the words together and illustrates the sentence.

4.    The next time I jog my memory to remember how to spell lavender, I will think first of the picture of the lady with the lavender hair, then I will recall that she is a super gardener. And voila! There is my hint for how to correctly spell lavender.

5.    For caterpillar, I will do the same thing. The picture flashes into my mind, and then I will think of his collar purchased for a dollar.

What makes this so effective with right brained learners?

Right-brained children who have already struggled and failed will be so empowered if we can direct them to use their amazing visual memory to help themselves remember concepts. Right brainers don’t memorize in the way we are used to. They DO capture pictures intact in a snap and remember anything that is connected to the picture. When I first began using this approach with children 1st grade through middle school, once they figured out that they could rely on other pathways to their brains other than the traditional memorization of sequences of letters, they could learn a list of words in 15 minutes. Children in grades 3 and up could study their sheet of words by themselves and many times would look up at me and say, “Quiz me now!”  The most fabulous byproduct of their success is that their reading abilities soared in the process. This procedure smoothed the way for them to find the wonderful spelling patterns in words, and over time they were able to read unfamiliar, new words by comparing their components to other words they already knew.

If you're interested in seeing more visuals that group spelling patterns like the ones above, check out The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns for a super resource in which all the sound spellings are grouped into sentences with cartoon illustrations. Make learning to read and spell a snap for those special right brainers!

Why Teach Spelling Patterns?

A few years back when I was teaching Title 1 students (children who were failing in the regular classroom, but did not qualify for special education), many of them were truly confused by the fact that spelling patterns didn’t always sound the same from word to word. Take AI for instance. We teach kids that AI sounds like long A (the name of the letter), since often it does ("pail," for example). So imagine what happens when they encounter the word “certain.” AI suddenly doesn’t sound like long a, but rather like short i. In the word “said” ai sounds like short e. Following are some other inconsistencies in spelling that many of my students found to be confusing:

We teach ie is long I as in “pie”      

• He finds ie in “friend” and it sounds like short e

We teach oe is long O as in “toe”   

• She finds oe in “does” and it sounds like short u

• He finds oe in “shoe” and it sounds like OO

We teach o­-e is long O as in “tone” She finds o-e in “come” and it sounds like short u

• He finds o-e in “lose” and it sounds like OO

And my personal favorite? The spelling pattern OUGH.

Most teachers probably start out by saying that OU in “cloud” sounds like the OW in “cow.” So beginning readers who rely on sounding out words might recognize the OU part as it is found in “cloud” and think they have a handle on the word; but the GH presents a unique problem. The spelling pattern OUGH actually has six unique sounds:

/off/ - cough

/oo/ - through

/uf/ - rough, tough, enough

/oh/ - though, although

/ow/ - bough, slough, drought

/ah/ - ought, thought, bought, fought, brought

Clarify by Using Sentences and Images

My fourth grade group was happy to learn about the Ought Brothers using the illustrated sentence: “I thought they ought to have brought the candy they bought and not have fought for more!”

A few weeks later, we had the words rough, tough, enough. One of my students, Adam, looked at his paper and said, “I thought you said ough said OT like in the Ought Brothers!” Thinking rapidly, I said, “Well, when OUGH has a final T, it sounds like /OT/ and is one of the Ought Brothers. These words sound like /UF/.

I also included the word "laugh" in which the GH sounds like /F/ and the word "cough" with the same final F sound. To tie all three spellings together in one sentence with one illustration, you could write “The tough guy will laugh and cough.”

In my experience, many students who struggle with reading rely heavily on their brain’s tendency to look for patterns or reasons why in what they are learning. So if we group like elements together and teach them at one time, it goes a long way towards demystifying spelling patterns for them.

Teach in Context to Increase Comprehension

The beautiful by-product of this approach to teaching sound spelling patterns is that you can include new vocabulary words and because the new words are shown in context as part of a sentence, the child is able to derive meaning from them and see how to use them correctly in a sentence.

For example, I am not sure how many kids know what the word “wrangle” means. Using it in a sentence with an illustration will help them know the meaning and understand how to use the word. This is part of the lesson on the various spelling patterns for R in the new Illustrated Book of Sounds and Their Spelling Patterns:

“To wrangle means to argue with wrath!”

Or take this sentence:

“The wraith will wrestle with the wrapping on the wreath.”

Use Illustrations to Help with Comprehension and Memory

I've often heard that we remember far more of what we see than what we hear. In the illustration at the right, all the elements of the sentence about the wraith are included, making a visual whole.

What I found as a teacher was that by the time I was ready to check the students’ knowledge of the spelling of these words, they didn’t even need me to call out the words before they wrote them down. The images and sentences had stuck so strongly in their memories that not only did they remember how to spell the words, but remembered what the words even were!

Visual Learners Need to Rely on Patterns in Learning

My theory is that all these kids were visual learners (or right brain dominant learners) who really needed to rely on patterns for learning. I can’t prove this, but seeing the difference in the kids’ abilities in reading after helping them organize the seeming chaos into understandable order, was proof enough for me.

What is so encouraging to me is to realize that for all the seeming contradictions in our language, we can teach kids to read with an approach that explains all those inconsistencies without just telling them, “This word says ALTHOUGH.” And later, “This word says ENOUGH.” Later, “This word says THROUGH.” By this time if it were me and I were 8, none of it would make sense to me, and I would check out. Instead, we can use patterns to make sense of the inconsistencies in English and help our students succeed!

Read more about The Illustrated Book of Sounds and Their Spelling Patterns, and view sample pages.

The Relationship Between Spelling and Reading

I’ve come to believe that if a child is struggling with memorizing spelling words, she might also have difficulty with reading – and vice versa. At least this seemed to be the case with my Title 1 students (K-7th grade children who were doing poorly in reading, but who did not qualify for special education). A quick, informal review of their writing often revealed a lack of understanding of the relationship between letters in the word and how the word sounded. I noted that many of my students omitted letters, reversed them, or inserted extra consonants, such as “l”, “r”, “n,” and final “e” in words. It was apparent to me that these children didn’t have a basic understanding of the relationship between sound and symbol, of the construction of words, or of spelling patterns that carry over from word to word. All of this is foundational to reading.

Why teach sound spelling patterns?

Because our sessions were limited to 20-30 minutes 2-3 times a week, I decided to systematically teach the sounds in our language (40-45 or so, depending on which list you choose) one sound at a time, and all the ways you can spell each sound. It looked like I was teaching spelling because we  had lists of words we studied each week, but what we studied resulted in dramatically raising the students’ reading scores by spring, because as the students learned the basics of word construction, and the ways to spell the sounds they heard, they were better equipped to decipher larger, unknown words. The first figure shows the process of sound spelling pattern acquisition and how a child uses it to advance in reading.

Here is another example of how the words may become more lengthy or complicated, but even a young child who understands sounds and their spellings in small words can apply that knowledge to large, unknown words:

So where does sight word acquisition fit?

For right brained learners, visual learners, etc., I strongly believe learning sight words is critical because these children frequently need to understand words and their purpose before they can begin the process of analyzing the structure of words as in our discussion above. SnapLetters™ make learning the basic sounds simple by using images and stories. SnapWords™ make the acquisition of the most frequently used words simple, while the teaching of sound spelling patterns closes the circle on helping your right-brained learners achieve success in reading.

Coming This Month: The Illustrated Book of Sounds and Their Spelling Patterns

This book teaches all the sound spellings in multiple levels of difficulty, making it easy for a teacher or parent to provide differentiated instruction depending on the age or skill of the learner. The lessons are done for you, apart from photocopying the student sheet, and the study will take only a few minutes a day. Because the lessons are cartoon based, children will enjoy the process of learning to read well! This example shows level 1 out of 4 for the sound ER.

A related product to The Illustrated Book of Sounds and Their Spelling Patterns is the set of new Sound Spelling Cards. Each card addresses one sound and all the ways you can spell that sound.  Once the child is familiar with the sentence for each sound, it will be easy for them to remember the various ways to spell each sound.