Parent's module 1 lesson

Learning to Read… And it’s many hues of development!

Understanding Word Family Instruction to

Help Your Child Learn to Read

Parent’s Module 1 Lesson Outline

• What skills do students need to have prior to learning word families?

• What are Onsets and Rimes?

• Rhyme vs Rime?

• What is Word Family Instruction

What skills do students need to have prior to learning word families?

Walton & Walton

• Extensive research with 92 Canadian Kindergartners

• Studied the effects of rime instruction on student’s reading skills over the course of three phases of experimental studies

“letter–sound skills are consistently found to be strong predictors of success in beginning reading, and most

but not all research has found significant links between rhyming and success in reading” (p 101)

What skills do students need to have prior to learning word families?

• This means being able to look at a letter, automatically identify the letter’s name, and the sound it makes

• Students also need to be able to:

• Blend or squoosh sounds together to make new sounds or words

• Segment, or pull sounds in words apart

(Hines, 2009; Walton & Walton, 2002)

What is Word Family Instruction?

Now that you know some of the basic behind reading, let’s look at word families.

• In order to understand word family instruction, one must first know the difference between onsets and rimes.

• Onset is the first consonant(s) of a word (d)

• Rime is the first vowel and all the consonants and/or vowels that follow the onset (og)

dog


Time to practice what you have learned so far!

• Please get a piece of paper.

• Fold it in thirds vertically.

• Label the far left column WORD.

• Label the middle column ONSET.

• Label the far right column RIME.


Here are a list of some words. On your paper, write the word and it’s onset and rime parts.

• Cow

• Pen

• Chip

• Boat

• Shatter

• Flower

What is Word Family Instruction? Check your answers!

The onsets are in black and the rimes in red.

• Cow

• Pen

• Chip

• Boat

• Shatter

• Flower Beginning blends, like ‘’ch’, ‘sh’ and ‘fl’ can be a little tricky

when identifying onsets. They need to stick together!

What is the difference between RHYME and RIME?

• RIME, as you now know is the is the first vowel and all the consonants and/or vowels that follow the onset

• RHYME is what happens when two or more words have the same ending rime spelling pattern or sound

This is the ‘at’ rime. All of these words rhyme!


• It is possible for words to RHYME, but not have the same RIME spelling pattern.

Shot Caught

A cold I’ve caught,

Doc gave me a shot!

• Caught and shot RHYME, because they have the same ending sounds. They do not have the same RIME!


Time to practice RHYME and RIME!

• Turn your practice paper over.

• Label the far left column WORDS.

• Label the middle column RIME.

• Label the far right column RHYME.


This time, you will be given sets of words.

• If the words have the same RIME, put a .

• If the words RHYME, put a .


Here are the sets of words for you to practice!

• skate, plate

• while, smile

• bat, matte

• flute, shoot

• then, den

• goat, wrote

What is the difference between RHYME and RIME? Check your answers!

Words Rime Rhyme

skate, plate

while, smile

bat, matte

flute, shoot

then, den

goat, wrote


Now let’s look at word family instruction.

Word family instruction, or “onset-rime instruction” as referred to by Hines (2009) is

“the analysis and substitution of word parts from known words to unknown ones at the onset-rime

level” (p.21)

Using word families, if a child can read dog, he/she can learn to read log and frog and smog too!


Now let’s look at word family instruction.

• Lessons are broken down into word families or rimes. • Lessons typically begin with a short vowel and all the

different rimes with that vowel. • An, at, am, ap, ack • En, et, ell • Etc.

• After all the short vowel rimes have been taught, lessons typically move to the long vowels.

• Ake, ape, ame • Ike, ile, ive • Etc.

(Bear & Templeton, 1998; Invernizzi, Abouzeid and Gill,1994)


Benefits of Word Family Instruction

• Breaking words in to chunks, rather than each individual sound

• Blending is easier with onsets and rimes than it is blending each isolated sound

• Less emphasis placed on differentiating short and long vowel sounds

• Successful strategy for beginning and/or struggling readers

(Hines, 2009; Walton & Walton, 2002; Whitaker, Harvey, Hassell, Linder, &Tutterow,2006)

Education

Parent's module 1 lesson