Carolee Dean's Blog

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The Sharpened Vision of the International Dyslexia Association promotes Structured Literacy in every classroom everywhere and around the world, but how does that apply to subjects like science for the upper grades? 

It's challenging to envision a high school chemistry teacher dedicating time to work on decoding or phonics, so how do those educators incorporate Structured Literacy into their curriculum without sacrificing precious instructional time?

One avenue for promoting Structured Literacy and the Science of Reading in every classroom is through the development of morphological awareness. 

Earlier this month, at the end of my Structured Literacy Symposium on Vocabulary and Background Knowledge for California's Tri-County Branch of IDA, one of the participants shared a personal story from her years of teaching experience.

When she was a middle school general education science teacher, she had little understanding of Structured Literacy. Even so, she was actively incorporating a Structured Literacy approach. When an unfamiliar word appeared in the science lesson, rather than asking students to memorize the textbook definition, she broke down the word into morphological units and initiated a discussion about connecting base elements, prefixes, suffixes, and Greek combining forms to terms already familiar to the class. 

By connecting unknown words to known words, she drew on what students already understood about the word. This practice aligns with the strategy of utilizing background knowledge to create student-friendly definitions, as outlined in Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan. 

In my August BLOG post, I shared their three Tiers of Vocabulary - not to be confused with the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support in the diagram below. Please read that blog post for more information about Tiers of Vocabulary.

Using morphological awareness to teach vocabulary in upper-grade science classes is a logical choice that supports both the curriculum and Structured Literacy.  Many scientific terms originate from Greek and Latin. This emphasis also aligns well with a Structured Literacy approach, as illustrated in the Infographic below.

 (courtesy of the IDA at https://dyslexiaida.org/infographics/) 

Examining the "Who" section of the infographic, general education classroom teachers can effectively utilize morphology instruction with both average-performing students and those who may require additional support. Specialists, such as reading teachers and speech-language pathologists, can also do a deeper dive into that same vocabulary when they meet with students in small groups or 1:1 for Tier 3 support.

Examining the "What" section of the Infomap, morphological awareness requires critical thinking and fosters growth in both vocabulary and background knowledge.

"How" a teacher approaches the teaching of morphology may incorporate several elements of both direct/systematic and mastery-oriented strategies.

As an example, when teaching a word like subaquatic, which may not be automatically generalizable to other subjects, focus on the morphemes that do appear across subject areas and are related to words the student already understands. These types of conversations are engaging, require students to draw on background experience, and incorporate morphological problem-solving. After introducing the word, introduce the parts.

SUB = UNDER: submarine, subtract, substitute, submit, suburban.

AQUA = WATER: aquarium, Aqua Man

TIC = A suffix that turns a word into an adjective that describes a quality or characteristic: fantastic, aromatic

Then, encourage students to think of other words containing those elements. If they watch crime shows, they may be interested to know that an unsub is an "unknown subject" or an unidentified perpetrator. Although the word "subaquatic" may not transfer easily across topic areas, the word "subject" certainly does.

A visit to etmonline.com reveals that ject means to throw. Sub+ject therefore means to throw under, bind under, or that which lies beneath. That meaning makes sense when thinking about the king's subjects, or how a younger brother might subject his older brother to a barrage of silly jokes. It takes a bit more imagination to consider math as a subject that lies beneath, but in that context, it might make sense to think of the student throwing themself under, or submitting to a course of study.

Once you have a list of "sub" words, make a matrix like the one below, created with Mini Matrix Maker at 

www.neil.ramsden.co.uk/spelling/matrix.

After exploring the Word Sums, students can create sentences or answer questions based on the shades of meaning of the various words.
Last week, I explored the subject of Structured Literacy in the Science Classroom with a look at Haiku and Syllable Structure. Check it out for more ideas on how to use Structured Literacy in the science classroom.

Sign up for my newsletter to receive activities for my ongoing COR (Components of Reading) series HERE. 

The International Dyslexia Association promotes the concept of "Structured Literacy in Every Classroom," but that can be challenging to address when teaching upper-level science courses to students in general education.  

A fun way to incorporate science vocabulary, Structured Literacy, and the Science of Reading is to practice syllabication and phonological awareness using a haiku. 

Haiku is a form of poetry originating in Japan that is based on the number of syllables per line. A haiku consists of three lines of poetry with a 5-5 syllable structure. Poems can be on any topic, but themes often revolve around the beauty of nature and the seasons.

snow gently falling (5)

a candle in the window (7)

riding home at night (5)

I was in a middle school library teaching a workshop to students on Haiku when we brainstormed the topic of winter. We made lists of words in five columns related to the number of syllables in each word. Then, students used those words to create haiku poems.  A general education science teacher who happened to be walking through the library stopped to watch as the students worked excitedly to create their poems. 

"I could do this in my science class using science vocabulary," the science teacher told me. 

Haiku is often used with young students to promote writing because it is simple, words are sparse, and it doesn't require rhyme. Additionally, grammar and punctuation are not considerations. The children's author, Laurie Halse Anderson, speaks about her struggles with dyslexia in a Reading Rockets interview and shares how she had her first positive experience with writing when a second-grade teacher introduced her to haiku because she could choose the words she knew how to spell. See my 2020 blog post about Children's Authors with Dyslexia.   

In my book, Story Frames for Teaching Literacy: Enhancing Student Learning Through the Power of Storytelling, Chapter 10 is about "Poetry: Exploring the Power of Language and  Story Through Verse." In that chapter, I discuss using haiku to create mini book summaries. The one below is based on Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille, written by Jen Bryant and illustrated by Boris Kulikov

In a cold, damp school

Louis Braille, blind and alone,

Created a secret code

I am currently working on a poem about the invention of glass for an upcoming book for my HOT ROD series (Higher Order Thinking through the Reading of Decodables). The beginning of the poem starts with a haiku:

Sand, soda, and lime

Copper oxide turns it green

Watch the melting time

Here is an adaptation of my haiku writing process, which can be used for any grade level with any subject:

A. Research a Topic: I started with the Roman Era of Glass. 

B. Take Notes: I focused on the process of making glass and how silica (sand), soda, and lime were the key ingredients, with various oxides used to change the color of the final product. I also listed the different types of vessels made from glass (jars, lamps, cups, plates, flasks) and the most popular images used to decorate the glass (pigs, fish, sandals, and so forth).

C. Make a list of keywords and terms: From my notes, I compiled a list of words I thought would fit best into a poem. 

D. Create a Syllable Chart: Next, I put words and phrases into categories based on the number of syllables. 

    1 - pig, fish, mug, plate, vase

    2 - garlands, inflate, Roman

    3 - Medusa, manganese, drinking cups

    4 - copper oxide, floral patterns

    5 - bottles in bird shapes, bake it in a kiln

 E. Make a list of phrases: I added more 5-syllable phrases to the list above and then used words from the rest of the list to create 7-syllable phrases: use a bit of manganese, there's Medusa on a flask.

F: Organize the lines: Next, I arranged and rearranged the lines to come up with a 5-7-5 structure. 

F. Play with the pattern: Along the way, I played with the number of syllables if I came across a line that didn't quite fit. This process of adding or taking out words is a wonderful activity for practicing phonological awareness. Students must repeatedly think of phrases, count the syllables, analyze the number, and make adjustments. I had to follow that process when trying to come up with a 7 syllable line about manganese:

For purple, you need manganese (8) Manganese will give you purple (8) For purple, add manganese (7).  I finally settled on the last two lines below, both with 7 syllables, which I added to the haiku shown earlier to make a tanka, a form of poetry with the syllable structure 5-7-5-7-7.

Sand, soda, and lime (5)

Copper oxide turns it green (7)

Watch the melting time (5)

Use a bit of manganese (7)

for purple perfume bottles (7)

Because this poem is part of a decodable book that includes only sound a syllable patterns previously taught, there were many key terms I had to avoid because they involved vowel teams - blow, blue lead, beads - or c pronounced as /s/ or /sh/ in circus, century, bracelet, ancient. I also avoided words with silent letters like design. Consequently, another step for me was to find synonyms for words that did not fit the Scope and Sequence - pattern for design and inflate for blow.

Students working at Level 4 of the HOT ROD series have learned closed syllables (fish, pig, mug), open syllables (Roman, spiral), Silent e (plate, vase), and R-controlled syllables (garland, copper). Find the Scope and Sequence of the series HERE and watch this blog for more news about my new poetry book.

Sign up for my newsletter to receive more free activities for my ongoing COR series HERE. Stay tuned for news about the release date for Cars, Codes, Balloons, and Guterburg: Poems about Inventions. 

VOCABULARY & WORD KNOWLEDGE - CONTINUED
BECOME A WORD COLLECTOR

Start the school year by inspiring your students to become Word Collectors. The focus of this month's newsletter is on building a love for words in our classrooms, therapy settings, and homes. Perfect for all ages, I suggest sharing The Word Collector, written and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds (2018)  See the YouTube Video of the Obama’s reading this book aloud HERE.

Jerome loved collecting all sorts of words: words he saw, heard, and read. He collected multisyllable words "that sounded like songs" and words he simply enjoyed saying. But one day, he had an accident, and his carefully categorized scrapbooks of words became a jumbled mess. That's when he started putting words together in new and unique ways, creating poems and songs. In the end, Jerome got his greatest joy from sharing those words with others.

In the book Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, the authors, Beck, McKeown, and Kucan discuss many vocabulary routines based on the Science of Reading. You may recall that Beck and McKeown were among the first to promote the idea of focusing on Tier Two words for vocabulary instruction. Here's a brief recap:

Tier One - (milk, cat, mom) Everyday words that students typically learn from oral language encounters. These words typically do not need to be taught in school because children often learn them at home.

Tier Two - (conclude, evidence, interpret) These words span multiple domains and topic areas. They are found across a wide range of subjects. Focusing instruction on these words impacts both reading and writing because the terms occur frequently across various domains. 

Tier Three - (photosynthesis, denominator, legislature) These words are specific to specialized topics. Because they occur in lower frequencies than Tier One and Two words, they should be taught as needed, as they arise in context.

The authors provide specific details and strategies for teaching Tier Two words, always beginning with a story or informational text to establish context. They also discuss the importance of developing a culture in the classroom that celebrates words of all kinds. They suggest incorporating a component they call Word Wizard that extends beyond the classroom. In a research study, they found increased vocabulary learning when students participated in the program. 

The researchers gave students leaflets describing the different levels of the Word Wizard program: Word Watcher,  Word  Worker, Word Winner, Word Wizard etc.A Word Wizard Chart was set up to tally points for students' telling about experiences hearing, seeing, or using target vocabulary words outside of class.Students were able to use the points to earn extra credit and participate in special events.Points were tallied on an ongoing basis, and students received a certificate based on the level they had achieved. When I was in private practice as a dyslexia therapist, I sent two to three words home with students per week that we had come across in our reading, with a note encouraging parents to display the words on the refrigerator and get everyone in the family involved in using the words as many times as possible throughout the week. Because we focused on stories about real people and events, my students became quite excited whenever they were able to share background knowledge in the classroom about a topic we had covered.

At some point, most students struggle with words. A Walk in the Words  written and illustrated by Hudson Talbott (2021) is a Schneider Family Honor Winner. This award is presented to books that effectively portray the experience of living with a disability.

When the author/illustrator was a boy, he loved drawing, but reading was hard for him. He could handle one word at a time, but too many of them caused trouble. He felt alone and lost, kind of like being lost in the woods. But then he learned that many smart and famous people were slow readers, too. Now Hudson  Talbott is a successful writer as well as a talented illustrator.

Words have power, and when we get excited about learning new words, our students share in that enthusiasm.

To find last month's free activities from VOCABULARY (Part 1), visit my July Blog Post. 

Sign up for my newsletter to receive more free activities for my ongoing COR series HERE. 

VOCABULARY

Continuing our series on COR Instruction, where we highlight the activities explored in the HOT ROD activity books (Higher Order Thinking through the Reading of Decodables), this month’s topic is Vocabulary. For more information about decodable books, visit the page on our website titled "Decodable Books."

Sign up for my newsletter to receive more free activities for my ongoing COR series HERE.  

One of the main features of HOT ROD books is their focus on providing decoding practice within a meaningful context, utilizing key vocabulary that can be used to address a variety of COR skills. 

Vocabulary is a foundational building block of both listening and reading comprehension, but it can be challenging to include robust vocabulary in a Structured Literacy lesson when focusing on the limited syllable constructs often found in decodable books and stories. On the other hand, even the most basic word forms can provide opportunities for exploring advanced vocabulary, especially when multi-syllable words are included. Consider these words based on closed syllables with short vowel sounds from Gods and Gifts: Three Greek Myths Retold - asp, vast, crag, smelt, crept, pox, kestrel, linnet, prospect, gallant, Vulcan, scandal, rascal, tempest, vespid.

When vocabulary is based on rich content, comes from material related to the curriculum, is used for additional activities that address skills like cognitive flexibility, morphological awareness, sentence structure, and more... repeated exposure to words happens naturally.

We know it is beneficial to pre-teach new words before students are asked to read them in context. However, it is also vitally important to teach students strategies for determining the meaning of new words independently. Students with reading challenges require even more exposure to a word than their peers, so even if they have already been introduced to a definition, it is still beneficial to explore it in context. Context is especially significant for understanding words with multiple meanings. Consider these multiple-meaning words from Gods and Gifts: bat, drill, hog, rat, pelt, land, last, spit, bluff, band, top, spin, class, jam, craft.

Multiple Meaning Word Search 

To promote both vocabulary and reading fluency, instruct students to:
1) Reread a story and create a list of any words that may have multiple meanings.  
2) Write down all the possible meanings of the word.
3) Reread the context to determine which meaning fits that word as it is used within the story.

Rereading helps students develop confidence and fluency, but there needs to be a meaningful reason for rereading, or it feels like busy work. Tying rereading into vocabulary instruction gives students a purpose for tackling a text more than once. 

Word Clues
Searching for the meaning of a word within the context of the story is a bit like being a word detective. It's helpful to teach students the specific ways a text can reveal the meaning of a word. The Hank the Tank Activity Book (based on the decodable chapter book - Hank the Tank: Animal in the Spotlight) contains three levels of activities to help students develop the skills needed to use context clues to determine the meaning of a word. The activity for Level 1 is available in a PDF below

Level 1 – Seek and Find: Sometimes the meaning of a new word is given within the context of a nearby sentence. Authors of children's books frequently provide definitions directly within the text. In the activity below, students underline the provided definition. Get the FREE PDF for this activity.

When reading books with your students, be aware of examples of "planted" definitions and direct your students to reread a sentence or paragraph to see if they can find it. Practice this skill often so they will know how to use it during independent reading.

The following activities are taken from the background section of the story and are not decodable, so you may need to read the sentences aloud to students. One of the strengths of HOT ROD books is a strategy called Pair and Share Reading. The adult reads the sections that are not decodable to provide background and context, while the student reads decodable sections containing words with syllable structures that have been previously taught. Using this strategy, upper-level Tier 3 vocabulary can easily be introduced to students with low levels of decoding skills. Here is an example incorporating the word hyperphagia.

Late summer is when bears go into hyperphagia in Tahoe. They binge eat everything they can find to build up fat reserves. Sometimes they double their body weight.

Word and Definition: Hyperphagia is when bears binge eat everything they can find to build up fat reserves. 

Level 2 – Making Inferences: Sometimes hints about a word’s meaning are given, but the meaning is not stated outright. For this activity, students are asked to write down what they think the word means based on the clues. Look for opportunities in the stories you read with your students to demonstrate how to make inferences about word meanings.

Here's an example from the Hank the Tank Activity Book, using the word' canids. In this example, hints about the definition are provided. From the information given, depending on the extent of their background knowledge, a student might be able to deduce that canids are animals in the dog family.

Bears have developed a fear of canids. A barking, snarling dog looks just as dangerous to a mother bear as a wolf or coyote.

Word and Definition: A canid is an animal like a wolf or coyote. These are animals in the dog family.

Level 3 – Opposite Meanings: Sometimes the context tells us the opposite of what a word means. Look for negative words like no, don’t, instead, unfortunately, or any other words that have prefixes like un. as a clue that the information may be hinting at an opposite meaning. Then write down what you think the word really means.

Here's an example from the Hank the Tank Activity Book using the word instincts.

When a bear loses its instincts, it has unnatural impulses to do things like eat garbage.

Word and Definition: If losing instincts results in unnatural impulses, we can deduce that instincts are natural impulses.

Independent Learning
Students typically learn around 2,000 to 3,500 new words per year, about 6 to 10 new words per day. This includes both explicit vocabulary instruction and implicit or incidental learning from reading and other experiences. 

By teaching strategies for determining the meaning of new words independently, we empower students to improve their ability to learn words incidentally and become lifelong learners, continually adding new words to their lexicon. This is vital, as we cannot possibly teach all the words students need to meet the demands of an ever-changing world.

See last month's post or COR Instruction and Morphology.

Sign up for my newsletter to receive more free activities for my ongoing COR series HERE.  

References:

Wright, T.S., & Neuman, S.B. (2015). The power of content-rich vocabulary instruction. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 41 (3), 25-28.

Shanahan, T. (2015). Are you lactating? On the importance of academic language. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 41(3), 14-16.

MORPHOLOGY

Continuing our series on COR Instruction, where we highlight the activities explored in the HOT ROD activity books (Higher Order Thinking through the Reading of Decodables), this month’s topic is Morphology.

One of the main features of HOT ROD books is a focus on providing decoding practice within a meaningful context, utilizing key vocabulary and other concepts that can also be used to address COR skills like morphological awareness.

While phonemes represent the smallest units of sound, morphemes represent the smallest units of meaning. English is a morphophonemic language, which means that the phonemes and the morphological structure work together to affect how words are pronounced.

In her chapter on “Morphology for Reading, Spelling, and Vocabulary,” in Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers (Third Edition), Louisa Moats talks about the power of morphological awareness for building vocabulary. The ability to recognize morphemes enhances a student's ability to make reasonable inferences about a word's meaning in context. That recognition and understanding help to “anchor a word in memory.” In addition, we remember words best when we understand their relationship to other words. 

It's never too early to start teaching morphology. Children as young as kindergarten benefit from learning basic suffixes such as -s, -ed, and -ing. Many older students working on a Scope and Sequence that starts with closed syllables (short vowel sounds) can handle word sums like the one below from the Gods and Gifts Activity Book: 50+ Activities and Games for Decoding, Reading Comprehension, Writing, and Speech. The word matrix examples in this blog were all created using the Mini-Matrix Maker at www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/matrix.

About the Word Matrix 

The Word Matrix is a concept explored by Peter Bowers in Teaching How the Written Word Works: Using Morphological Problem-Solving to Develop Students’ Language Skills & Engagement with the Written Word. This is how word sums work:

1. A Word Matrix helps us explore word structure by organizing elements like prefixes, base elements, and suffixes into columns. 

2. Prefixes are in the left column. Base elements are in the middle column. Suffixes are in the right columns.

3. A Word Sum is created by using one element from one column at a time to construct a word. You do not have to use an element from every column, but do not skip over columns.

4. Students create words using the Word Sums and then use those words to complete a variety of activities. 

In the example above from the Gods and Gifts Activity Book, students work with basic syllable types. Etymology is also an important part of the Morphological Problem-Solving process. For that reason, the activity book also explores the etymology of Prometheus, Epimetheus, & Pandora, main characters in the Greek Creation Myth. More advanced students (those working beyond closed syllable types) study the origin of these names and the meanings of those Greek combining forms. Students who are not ready to tackle reading those words still benefit from the discussion of those names. One of the strategies that makes the HOT ROD books unique is the emphasis on Pair and Share reading. A rich background context is read by a reading partner, allowing struggling readers to build world knowledge even as they learn basic decoding skills.

The example for SPECT above is from Level 3 and The Raven Remix Activity Book, which also explores the etymology of Pluto, the name of Edgar Allan Poe's infamous feline from his short story "The Black Cat."

The Hank the Tank Activity Book includes morphology games and activities for re, tract, and -ing, as well as information about the etymology of the word bear, but it does not include any Word Sums. For that reason, I have made a digital activity available for free on Boom TM Cards HERE, exploring word sums for TRACT. 


Sign up for my newsletter to receive more free activities for my ongoing COR series HERE.  

References:

Bowers, P. (2009). Teaching how the written word works: Using morphological problem-solving to develop students’ language skills & engagement with the written word. Ontario, Canada: Peter Bowers

Eggleston, R. L., Marks, R. A., Sun, X., Yu, L., Zhang, K., Nickerson, N., Hu, X., Caruso, V., & Kovelman, I. (2024). Lexical morphology as a source of risk and resilience for learning to read with dyslexia: An fNIRS investigation. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. https://doi.org/23814764000300140072

Farrell, L.M., & Cushen-Whte, N.  (2018). Structured literacy instruction. In J.R. Birsh & S. Carreker (Eds.) Multisensory teaching of basic language skills (4th ed., pp. 35-72). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Moats, L.C. (2020). Speech to print: Language Essentials for Teachers. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Ramsden, N. Mini-Matrix Maker -https://www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/matrix/

COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY

Continuing our series on COR Instruction, where we highlight the activities explored in the HOT ROD activity books, this month’s topic is Cognitive Flexibility.

What is Cognitive Flexibility?

Cognitive flexibility is an important executive function skill that centers on the ability to switch between different types of information. It can involve switching between different tasks or thinking about more than one concept at a time. Working memory is an important element of cognitive flexibility that helps a person manage more than one task, concept, or piece of information simultaneously. It impacts reading, writing, spelling, and more.

How Cognitive Flexibility Impacts Reading

Specific to reading, cognitive flexibility is essential for both decoding and comprehension. Students need cognitive flexibility to hold different possible pronunciations for a letter or combination of letters in mind while decoding unfamiliar words. At the same time, they must consider the word’s meaning. Working memory enables a reader to compare the possible pronunciations of a word with words in their lexicon (internal dictionary). While figuring out how to pronounce the word and determining what it means, a reader must also keep the rest of the sentence in mind. The content and structure of the sentence will also affect the word's meaning. If a word has multiple meanings, cognitive flexibility is required to hold the possible options in short-term memory while making judgments about the best fit within the context of the sentence and paragraph.

While many tasks help develop cognitive flexibility, few directly relate to reading and decoding. The activities developed for the HOT ROD (Higher Order Thinking through the Reading Of Decodables) activity books address executive function skills that directly relate to a structured literacy scope and sequence, as well as to the content found in our decodable stories. 

Students can work on cognitive flexibility by sorting words that belong to two different categories simultaneously. If you and your students are tired of the same old word card drills, consider spicing up your routine by incorporating Cognitive Flexibility games. The easiest way to understand how these games work is to explore one of them with your students.

Free Level 3 Game. 

The game above was part of a research project completed by me and Kelly Cartwright, Ph.D., last year that focused on open and closed syllables (long and short vowel sounds) in the first syllable of two-syllable words. Now that the study is over, the 8 different word sorts used in the study are available at Boom TM Learning. The first game is free HERE or at the link above, but you must open a free Boom account. The complete Bundle of 8 digital games is available for $5.99 HERE. It contains several target words from the Level 3 decodable book, The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles.  Printable PDF copies of all 8 games may be found in The Raven Remix Activity Book: 50+ Activities and Games for Decoding, Reading Comprehension, Writing, and Speech. Both titles, as well as books for Levels 1 and 2, are available on Amazon or in the online STORE on our website.

The target words in the free online Boom game are from the Category Sort #1 from the activity book and include the categories of Foods and Objects.

This digital Boom Deck has three component parts:

1. First, students sort words into two categories (ex., Foods vs. Objects). 

2. Next, they sort the SAME cards into two different categories: Open vs. Closed Syllables (found in the first syllable of a word).

3.     Finally, students sort the same words on a 2x2 matrix in the Multiple

Classification Activity while considering all 4 categories at once.

The online Bundle of 8 digital Boom TM Learning games is available HERE for $5.99. If you participated in the research study, you should still be able to access these games for free. If that is not the case, please contact me at info@wordtravelpress.com. 

If you would like to receive future information about the study results when they are available, sign up for my newsletter HERE.

References:

Cartwright, K.B. (2023). Executive skills and reading comprehension: A guide for educators (Second Edition). New York, NY: Guilford Press. 

Tunmer, W.E., & Chapman, J.W. (2012). Does set for variability mediate the influence of vocabulary knowledge on the development of word recognition skills? Scientific Studies of Reading, 16(2), 122–140.

Vadasy, P.F., Sanders, E.A., Cartwright, K.B. (2022). Cognitive flexibility in beginning decoding and encoding. The Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, in press.

Zipke, M. (2016). The importance of flexibility of pronunciation in learning to decode: A training study in set for variability. First Language. 36 (1), 71–86.

Today's Fun First-Flight Facts come from . The talented Jason Henry wrote and illustrated this entertaining and information-packed picture book. It arrived last week, the day before my husband and I went on an impromptu quest to find a missing solar balloon. See last week's blog post, Balloon and a Book for Mother's Day, for details of that adventure. 

I'm working on a book of poems about inventions for my HOT ROD series (Higher Order Thinking through the Reading of Decodables), which led me to research hot air balloons. See the titles in the sidebar of this blog or visit my website at https://www.wordtravelpress.com to learn more about decodable books and how to work with emerging readers. 

Up and Away is the type of narrative non-fiction picture book I used to share with upper elementary and middle school students when I worked as an SLP in the public schools. The text is written at an advanced level. It also includes rich vocabulary and concepts like what the discovery of science was like in the mid-1700s when the Montgolfier brothers first experimented with the idea that hot air might be able to lift a flying machine into the air.

I don't want to spoil the story, so I will share a few interesting facts from the narrative and leave you to investigate this delightful book on your own.

#1 - A hot-air balloon, the very first flying machine, was launched in 1783. That's 120 years before the Wright brothers' historic flight at Kitty Hawk. Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier demonstrated the first recorded flight of the inflatable globe they called an aerostat in the town square near their home in Annonay, France, on June 4, 1783. They asked officials to record the date so no one else could claim credit. 

#2 - King Louis XVI heard about the invention and invited Etienne Montgolfier to show off their invention at the palace in Versailles. Louis and Marie Antoinette invited thousands of people to attend the demonstration that would occur on September 19, 1783. 

#3 - The Montgolfier brothers owned a paper-making factory and decided to cover their experimental balloon in wallpaper. Ettiene Montgolfier asked his friend, Jean-Baptiste Reveillon, a famous wallpaper designer, to embellish the new aerostat for the demonstration at the palace. He covered the taffeta fabric with beautiful royal blue and gold wallpaper. The king's signature, two interlocking Ls, was part of the design. The balloon was named the Aerostat Reveillon. (NOTE: The balloon below was made in October. The September version did not have the faces in gold, but did have the interlocking letter L pattern.)

#4 - The Montgolfier balloon was destroyed in the rain, and the historic flight at Versailles almost had to be cancelled.  Wallpaper may seem like an unlikely choice to use to cover a balloon heated over an open fire, but it was actually rain that proved to be more problematic. While Etienne and Reveillon were doing a test run of their new balloon just days before they were supposed to take it to Versailles, a rainstorm destroyed the paper covering the taffeta fabric. Their balloon was ruined. But all's well that ends well. They got rid of the paper, started from scratch, and this time they covered the taffeta in varnish. They worked day and completed the new design in four days. 

#5 - The very first hot-air balloon passengers were a sheep, a rooster, and a duck. That may seem like an odd combination, but there was a good reason for those choices. Flying was dangerous, and no one knew how the human body would react to being at such a high altitude. The Montgolfiers' father had made the brothers swear that they would not go up in the balloon. A sheep was chosen because it was a mammal of about the same weight as a small man. The duck was expected to be fine, since ducks can fly at significant heights, and the rooster was questionable, since it was a bird that usually stayed near the ground. They all survived, and according to some stories, they got to spend the rest of their days at the king's menagerie in Versailles.

Stay tuned for more fun balloon facts coming later this month. I'm obviously spending a lot of time researching a subject for the purpose of writing one decodable poem. You may wonder why? Content matters. For a deeper discussion of why content learning is so important, check out Natalie Wexler's book, The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System and How to Fix It.

So, the next time you do a balloon-making project, talk about balloons, or even just bring balloons into your classroom or home for an event, remember the history and science behind the hot-air balloon and take a teachable moment to talk to your kids about this fun and exciting precursor to human flight. Also, make sure your library has the book Up and Away .
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This Mother's Day weekend we went on an adventure in the oil fields of Texas that could have been an episode of Landman. It all started with a hunt for a rogue solar balloon.
A friend texted Tom to say he had a strange request. A friend of this friend launched a solar weather balloon from the Albuquerque Balloon Park with a group of middle school students on Friday, and the balloon went rogue. It ended up 400+ miles southeast and from the GPS coordinates appeared to have landed outside Greenwood, Texas. We were in Midland, TX, about an hour away, so he asked if we knew someone who could look for it. 
Naturally, we volunteered.

Surprisingly, the mapping program took us right to the balloon, even though we had to drive through about 15 miles on unmarked oil field/ranch roads past numerous oil pump jacks and tank batteries. 


Fortunately, we didn't encounter any rattlesnakes. It is that time of year.

Once we found the balloon and the parachute, we had to untangle them from the mesquite bush they had landed in. Then we had another problem. The box with the expensive tracking device and camera was nowhere to be found. We had to look around for a bit. You'll never guess where it was!


Yep! It was tangled in an electric wire on a utility pole. 

Climbing poles and dealing with live electric wires was beyond our skill set, so we called for backup. While we waited, we picked pieces of balloon out of the mesquite bushes. We didn't want cows eating them. 

A man from the power company arrived a bit later, and he and Tom were able to get the box down. Yay!! In a couple of weeks, we will drive the contraption back to Albuquerque.

The funny thing is that I spent this last week researching hot air balloons for my new book. The working title is CORN CAKES TO CARS: POEMS ABOUT INVENTIONS. Did you know that the first balloon passengers weren't human? Three animals made the inaugural trip: a sheep, a duck, and a rooster. 
This past Thursday, I was on the website for the Albuquerque Balloon Museum at https://balloonmuseum.com/montgolfier-day/ researching the first hot air balloon flight. Friday, I got this book I ordered from Amazon - Up and Away: How Two Brothers Invented the Hot-Air Balloon. 

I haven't read it yet. I got a little distracted searching for the solar balloon this weekend, but stay tuned, and I will keep you posted about my thoughts on the picture book, the progress of my new poetry book, and anything I learn about the solar balloon we rescued this weekend. I'm still not sure what the experiment was about that all those middle school students were running, but I will find out and let you know.
By the way, the logo for my website is a hot air balloon. Check out my books at https://www.wordtravelpress.com/Sign up for my monthly newsletter HERE. 

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

Continuing our series on COR Instruction - The Components of Reading and Writing, this month's topic is Phonological Awareness. To see last month's post on DECODING, go HERE.

The ability to recognize and manipulate rhymes, syllables, and phonemes is a foundational skill of reading. Phonological awareness skills are so crucial to reading that they can be used in preschool and kindergarten to predict later reading ability (Paulson, 2018). Phonemes are the speech sounds (consonants and vowels) that distinguish one word from another (ie., pit vs. pat). They may be represented by one or more letters (ie., phone vs. fun). There are many products designed to work on phonological and phonemic awareness, but they rarely connect to a meaningful context.

Phonological Awareness Activities based on the HOT ROD series of decodable books were designed to use the same words found in the stories. The activity below is from the Gods and Gifts Activity Book based on Gods and Gifts: Three Greek Myths Retold. "No Gift for Man" is the first story of the Greek creation myth in that book.

Find information about the Gods and Gifts Activity Book HERE.

FREE ACTIVITY - Rhyme Time

This activity uses rhyme and alliteration to work on phonological awareness skills. The Gods and Gifts Activity Book includes six different Rhyme Time Activities.  The complete downloadable PDF for this activity may be found HERE. 

Rhyme Time explores one way that book content can be incorporated into phonological awareness activities. The educator creates a list of target words from the story in the left column. In the right column, list words that either rhyme with the target word or start with the same sound. Students then circle words from the story that rhyme and underline alliterations (words that start with the same sound). They then create a sentence that uses alliteration, which helps them understand and use literary devices. Additionally, switching between these three tasks requires students to use cognitive flexibility at both the letter-sound and meaning levels. We will have a deeper conversation about Cognitive Flexibility next month, so stay tuned.

You can use any decodable book or even a traditional storybook in a similar way by making lists of target words from the book and then finding words that rhyme.

ADDITIONAL FREEBIES

Two additional free phonological awareness activities, including applications for speech-language pathologists, will be available in my April 18th, 2025 newsletter for subscribers. You may sign up for my newsletter HERE. 

Many different skills or Components of Reading and Writing (COR) are needed for students to become proficient readers and writers. In celebration of the recent release of my new resource, The Raven Remix Activity Book, I will explore a different component each month and share a free activity from one of my activity books to demonstrate how you can support student reading and writing. The bicycle diagram above shows how a wide range of skills can be addressed by starting with a book and using that context to improve content knowledge while simultaneously addressing literacy subskills.

This month my focus is decoding. If you have been following my blog or reading my newsletters, you know about my series of decodable books - HOT ROD (Higher Order Thinking through the Reading of Decodables) for grades 4-8. The Scope and Sequence most closely aligns with the Sounds-In-Syllables program which is based on the Science of Reading. The Scope and Sequence may be found on the Resource Menu on the Website. The chapter book Hank the Tank: Animal in the Spotlight may be accessed for free if you have a membership to Kindle Unlimited.

What you may not know is that each decodable chapter book also has a companion activity book to explore all of the components of reading typically addressed in a Structured Literacy Lesson such as flashcards for word reading practice, sentence reading, dictation, phonological awareness activities, vocabulary, and morphology with games and activities to support each area. In addition, therapists, tutors, classroom teachers, and parent educators can explore additional activities for sentence structure, paragraph writing, essay writing, creative writing, and more.

DECODING 

Most regular English words are based on six main syllable types. When students learn these syllable types and become proficient at breaking words down into manageable units, they are better equipped to tackle longer words. Level 3 of the HOT ROD series covers four syllable types: open, closed, consonant-le syllables, and the vowel teams, ee, and oo. What makes a book decodable is when stories include only the syllable types a student has previously been taught.  The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles focuses on two-syllable words. The examples below of Open and Closed syllables emphasize those patterns in the first syllable of the word. Final consonant-Le is a pattern found at the end of words. 

Open Syllables - A vowel makes its open or long sound when nothing comes after the vowel in that syllable. (examples: silent, spiral, request, relax, broken, ladle, table, maple)

Closed Syllables - A vowel makes its closed or short sound when it is followed by a consonant. (examples: sudden, simple, socket, skillet, splendid, reddish, riddle, little, middle). In the first 6 words, the second syllable is also a closed syllable.

Consonant -le - This final stable syllable is found at the end of words (examples: ladle, table, maple, riddle, pickle, puzzle, riddle, kettle)

Vowel Teams - When two or more letters work together to make one vowel sound, it is a vowel team. There are several. Only oo and ee are used in Level 3. (examples: sleeping, creeping, greeted, book, wooden).

The Raven Remix Activity Book provides numerous ways to practice these words to prepare students to read them in the story found in The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles. 

FREE ACTIVITY

The Long Vowel Word and Sentence Deck is a free Digital Resource at Boom (TM) Learning. You will need a free Boom account to use this activity. 

This deck includes a keyword and sound card for each long vowel along with words and sentences that may used for both reading and spelling practice. For dictation, read the content of each card to the student and instruct them to write the sentence.  

ADDITIONAL FREEBIES

Two additional free decoding activities, including Four-In-A-Row Gameboard for Final Consonant-le and Articulation Flashcards for Speech-Language Pathologists, will be available in my March 28th newsletter for subscribers. You may sign up for my newsletter HERE. 

COMING UP

To become proficient decoders, students need to practice distinguishing between the different graphemes (letters) and the phonemes (sounds) those letters represent. Next month we will discuss Phonological Awareness. English is a morphophonemic language. That means that in addition to understanding phonemes, students need to understand how morphology impacts both meaning and word pronunciation. Watch for that topic coming soon!

The Raven Remix Activity Book is a companion resource for The Raven Remix: A Mashup of Poe Titles from the HOT ROD Series of Decodable Books Level 3. Access to downloadable PDFs and online games explore over 50+ activities supporting decoding practice, reading comprehension, writing, and speech-language development. It is available on Amazon. 

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