Workshop Overview

Think about your first reaction to this statement: The English writing and reading system makes sense. If you’re skeptical, you certainly wouldn’t be alone. Many approaches to teaching English literacy rely almost entirely on teaching phonology, on having students “sound out” words and memorise spellings of words that have no real connections. This often results in confusion and frustration for learners and teachers alike, and that is because the English orthography system is designed to prioritize the representation of meaning over sound.  Structured Word Inquiry presents English as it truly functions; a system built around not only phonology, but also on morphology (the parts that build words) and etymology (a word’s history and origins). Understanding this intersection can transform a learner’s ability to read, comprehend, spell and recall new vocabulary, encompassing the whole of literacy instruction. 

On Day 1, we’ll discuss learnings and take-aways from the workshop Pre-Readings about what Structured Word Inquiry is and how it can give us a more comprehensive understanding of how the English orthographic system functions. We’ll begin a dive into morphology, working on breaking words apart into their individual morphemes, and we will learn about and practice the three suffixing conventions of English. We’ll also practice building words with a tool called a matrix that will help us to apply the suffixing conventions and see that words belong in families which can help us better understand the spelling and meaning connections among them, building spelling, reading and vocabulary all at the same time.

On Day 2, we will learn about graphemes and phonemes and practice identifying them in words. We will also focus on etymology, learning how to understand the impact that a word’s history and origins has on its spelling. We’ll learn to do research using dictionaries and online resources to find out about a word’s origin, and to help us determine its base, prefixes and suffixes. We will learn the difference between the term “base” and “root,” and we will see how studying homophones in particular can help us understand the logic of the English spelling system. As we work through these tasks, we will discuss ways we can incorporate this kind of work and learning into our classrooms, melding it with current classroom practice and literacy curricular goals, as well as how we can bring in cross-curricular word study and vocabulary building.

On Day 3, we will practice applying our learning by working through a set of 4 Questions that can guide our investigations into words; What is the word’s sense and meaning? How is it constructed? What is its history and what are its relatives? And, how are the graphemes functioning in this word? We’ll also discuss ways to begin incorporating Structured Word Inquiry into our own work with students, to see how adopting this approach can spark enthusiasm for learning and discovery and help support and strengthen literacy skills in learners of all strengths and abilities.

Facilitator:

Andrea Dalland

Andrea has 20 years of teaching experience at English-language international schools in China, Singapore, Thailand and Russia. For the past four years she has been teaching fully online, working with learners in small-group, asynchronous and 1:1 settings using the Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) approach. She holds two Master’s Degrees, one in Literacy, Curriculum and Instruction, and the other in Information and Library Science. She has also had the opportunity to present to several professional organisations and to work with a number of adult learners who want to learn more about SWI and how to incorporate it into their teaching. She currently lives in Lancashire, England with her husband and two children.