Introduction

Children's Categorization of Sounds

Best Practices for Long Vowel Word Sorts

External Links

References

Research supports the use of Word Sorts (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2000; Joseph, 2002) to help transitional readers group words into categories. The categorization of words, enable children to identify differences and similarities among words and to understand that there are patterns for spelling, despite the seeming erratic nature of the English orthographic system (Templeton & Morris, 1999). From this perspective, children come to understand that the rules of the orthographic spelling system do not always work. Instead of becoming disheartened by the nearly 50 sounds that 26 English letters make, they can be taught to consider "sound and patterns simultaneously to discover the inconsistencies" (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2000, p. 63). The sorting of words with long or tense vowels gives children the opportunity to distinguish words with long vowel sounds from one another (/a/ as distinct from /e/ and so on) and from words with short vowels.

Charles Read (1975), who looked at the patterns of 6 and 7 year olds' spelling, found that children incorporate tacit categorization into their invented spelling patterns. During his research, Read found that there were too many distinct vowels sounds to be represented by the available letters in the English language (p. 32). He also determined that there are many vowels in English that do not occur in letter names (p. 32). In an effort to compensate for their lack of understanding of the English language system, invented spellers extend their phonetic knowledge to new cases in a phonetically consistent manner (p. 34).

From the spelling samples of young children, Read (1975) determined the following long vowel spelling patterns:

87% of /e/ spellings are based on a, ay, ae, ai, aue, au.

55.7% of /i/ spellings are based on e (e, ey, ee, eyi, eae).

69.5% of /o/ spellings were based on the standard spelling.

61% of /yu/ spellings were based on standard spelling.

58.6% of /a/ spellings are based on u.

According to Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston (2000), children learn long vowel patterns during the within word pattern stage. Word study at this level requires a higher degree of abstract thinking because children must segments words into phonemes and choose from various patterns that include long vowels (p. 186).

Common long-a patterns: a-e (cave), ai (rain), ay (play)

Common long-e patterns: ee (green), ea (team), e (me)

Common long-i patterns: i-e (tribe), igh (sight), y (fly)

Common long-o patterns: o-e (home), oa (float), ow (grow)

Common long-u patterns: u-e (flute), oo (moon), ew (blew)

Pre-Implementation Phase

1. Refer to Possible Sequence for the Study of Single-Syllable Vowel Patterns

2. Be sure to use children's spellings (which should include students' writings and spelling inventories) to determine where to start in the sequence. Reviewing such assessment data will enable you to which vowels your students are using but with uncertainty

3. Before you begin, keep in mind that you will need to spend enough time on the first long vowel sound. You may need to spend as much as a month for the first long vowel because it takes time to introduce long vowel patterns, to differentiate long vowel patterns from CVC short vowel patterns, and to set up word study notebooks to help students study the patterns.

4. Once you decide which patterns you will introduce and contrast, you will need to identify words for each category. Beware of district adopted spelling programs because they often introduce too many patterns at one time (p. 194).

5. Plan sorts that encourage students to contrast vowels by sound and later by sight, which affords them with the opportunity to "look for different orthographic spelling patterns used to spell long vowel sounds as well as other vowels in English" (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, p. 194).

6. Be prepared to talk about the exceptions. These "oddballs" will help students realize that the vowel-s- patterns they are learning are not etched in stone and that there are exceptions to all patterns. The odd balls should be few in number (2 or 3) so that students do not get confused and miss the regularity that they should find.

Implementation Phase

1. Introduce the sort in groups as guided practice. Once teachers have gone over all the words and their meanings, teachers can either have students do an open sort or a teacher-directed sort.

2. Students sort on their own (Independent Practice). There are four steps to independent sorting:

3. Students should work independently throughout the week.

4. Encourage students to compose written reflections of their word sort experiences. The written reflections can be used by teachers to assess the progress of students.

For more information on vowel word sorts go to http://www.firstschoolyears.com/literacy/word/phonics/vowels/vowels.htm

For more information on how to use research to help struggling readers go to http://www.edb.utexas.edu/readstrong/wordsorts.html

For resources to purchase on word sorts go to http://www.trcabc.com/allsorts.html

For more information on the concept of invented spelling go to http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-924/spelling.htm

For more information on books that reinforce vowel patterns go to http://wwwstatic.kern.org/gems/calpin/REINFORCEVOWELPATTERNS.pdf

Bear, D.R, Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., Johnston, F. (2000). Words their

Joseph, L. (2002). Facilitating word recognition and spelling using word boxes

Read, C.R. (1975). Children's categorization of speech sounds in English.

Commentary by Crystal Wise

I thought that your page was great! I loved all of the examples of the vowel patterns. I found a great website that I thought would be a great addition to your external links. It is a list of books that reinforce vowel patterns. =)

http://wwwstatic.kern.org/gems/calpin/REINFORCEVOWELPATTERNS.pdf

Commentary by Elizbeth Walker

I enjoyed reading your paper, you did a great job. I just found a few things, in the introduction, the sentence starting with "from this perspective... " I would change do not to does not. In the section under read data.spo you have within the word pattern stage, it should be the within word pattern stage. In the next line the word segments should be segment. Number 6 under pre-implemetation vowels should be vowel, and in the implementation phase letter d the should be then. Hope this helps.

Commentary by Jeanice Lewis

Your page is very informative; you shared the most important points about long(tence)vowel sounds. Elizbeth and Crystal gave you some good pointers. I would just like to add that some of your links are not complete. I am not sure if you have completed the page. You can link word sorts to Carolyn Morin's word sort page by capitalizing the "w" and the "s", and also link the within word pattern to Eliabeth's page by changing you link to "Within-Word Patterns". Also, you may want to add your name to your pages.