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Working with Words is an exciting new module available to teachers in the Bavaria District.   It was developed in response to early childhood teachers concern about the lack of phonics instruction in the current RD/LA program. 

The overall goal for this module is to expand the teacher’s knowledge base and repertoire of instructional activities as to the many word solving strategies that children must acquire to become accurate and fluent readers.

Flexible, efficient word solving is an essential aspect of both the reading and writing processes.  Achieving the goal of literacy inevitably means teaching children the strategies for recognizing and writing words.

 We call this process "word solving" because it involves the reader or writer in an active investigation of the underlying principles that govern how letters, sounds, and words work together to communicate meaning in our written language. 

Teachers are provided training in teaching children a variety of word-solving strategies to assist in their endeavor to become effective “word solvers.” 

In developing this training, we reviewed the current research and used a wide variety of resources such as Word Matters by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell and Working With Words one of the blocks from Cunningham and Hall’s Four-Block Framework. 

Recognizing that the journey to literacy is unique for each child, we have worked to provide teachers with training in the use of a wide range of decoding strategies and experiences. 

One such strategy includes the daily use of a Word Wall.   The Word Wall contains high-frequency words and provides students with regular practice and the expectations that they will learn to read words fluently and write/spell  them accurately.

By engaging students in activities such as Guess the Covered Word – they are learning how to use cross checking while reading and a visual checking system while writing to apply what they are learning as they engage in meaningful reading and writing.

When participating in Making Words activities, children learn how to use patterns in words they know to decode and spell hundreds of other words.  Many multi-syllable words can be decoded and spelled if students look for meaningful “chunks” they know.

Rounding up Rhymes and Reading and Writing Rhymes teach students how to decode and spell one- and two-syllable words based on patterns from words they already know.  Students who can read the words "van." "car," and "jeep" should be able to decode and spell other rhyming words, such as "plan," "char," and "steep."

In learning to decode and spell words, a variety of these different activities are used on different days. 

Through these activities children learn to read and spell high-frequency words and learn the patterns which allow them to decode and spell lots of words.  

 Reading is not figuring out words, learning and memorizing rules and “sounding good.” 

Reading is getting meaning from text.  

Figuring out words is the means to that end.