Metaphonics

WordWork was designed for students from kindergarten through second grade. It is a new approach based on the metaphonics principle: learning to decode and spell by understanding letter-sound relations rather than by rote practice.Some Key Concepts in metaphonics are:

Making Words/Short Vowels: introduces students to the construction of consonant-vowel-consonant (cvc) sequences in words.

Short Vowels: are called glue letters.

Making Words/Long Vowels: covers the Anglo-Saxon vowel marking system for the two major pronunciations of the five vowels. Introduces the major suffixes: -ed, -s, -ing, -er, -est.

Compound Words: teaches the concept that long words are combinations of short words. It is simple, but lays the foundations for the more complex root-affix patterns.

How is metaphonics used? This is an example of metaphonics talk in one of our classrooms:

Teacher: "The last three weeks we have been learning about endings. Who can give me endings?"
Student responses: "E, est, ing, ed, Er, e"
Teacher: "Silent e says?"
Students: "Nothing!"
Teacher: "I want you to spell on your white boards, 'joke' Say it to yourself so you can hear all the sounds. How did you spell it?"
Students: "j-o-c-k"
Teacher: "say it?"
Students: "jock"
Teacher: "How do you change it to say joke?"
Student: "Put an e"
Teacher: "Why did you put an e?"
Student: "The e makes the e says its name"
Teacher: "How?
Student: "It reaches around to say its name"
Teacher: "How many letters can we reach around?"
Student: "One"
Teacher: "Now spell 'joking'." (Goes around most tables verifying students are on track)
Teacher: Spell it?
Student: j-o-k-i-n-g
Teacher: Why does the o say its name?
Student:: it's an ending. The I reaches over the k to make the O say its name
Teacher: How many letters can it reach over?
Student: One
Teacher: Only one?
Student: Yes
Teacher: Make rob
Student: r-o-b
Teacher: make robbed?
Student: r-o-b-b-e-d
Teacher: Can you sound it out?
Student: Robbed
Teacher: So we add a letter so the -ed cannot reach around.