CHP Part 2 For Weebly

Building Onset/Rime Awareness
Word Families
o When introducing new words, a great strategy to use is word families.
Word families are groups of words that end with the same letter chunk, or
rime. For example, the ain word family includes brain, chain, gain,
pain, rain, and so on. Some of the at word family is pictured to the
right. To introduce a word family, the teacher can first introduce the
chunk. For example, the teacher could start with
the at word family, write at on the board. Once
students can pronounce the word chunk, the teacher
can add letters to the front of the chunk to make
new words, as pictured on the left. When adding
the letters, the teacher can say the sound of the first
letter, and then the sound of the chunk. This will
help students begin to develop their phonemic and
onset/rime awareness and distinguish between
sounds. Once the teacher models the two sounds
separately, they can then gradually blend the sounds
together so students can hear how the two sounds
come together to make the word. The teacher should model a couple
words in the process described above first, and then gradually begin to let
the students create words. The students can suggest sounds that can be
added to the chunk to make new words, or if they dont know what sounds
to add, the teacher can write a letter in front of the chunk and the students
can practice blending the sounds until they figure out the new word.
o Lists of word families can be found here. Activities to help identify and
practice building word families are pictured below. Pictures can be a great
aid to prompt students to think of words in a word family as pictured
below. To get students moving, the teacher could also put words in
different word families around the room. Then students could take nets, or
just use their hands, and collect all the words in the word family they are
assigned. This will students focus on one specific pattern.

o Personal Successes: I have
used the word wheel pictured above very often when introducing new
word families. Students do a great job of blending the onset and the rime
together once they become familiar with the rime. The consistency of this
practice is very nice too because students only have to worry about
figuring out the sound of the letter at the beginning of the word, as the
ending letters always produce the same sound. Helping students focus
their attention on consistencies within our spelling system is extremely
beneficial as it teaches word knowledge that they can apply generally to a
wide range of reading and writing activities (Williams, 2009, p. 574). I
found this to be true personally as students would notice word chunks
from the word families we learned in words they came across in the future
and point them out, remembering the sound the chunk makes. Identifying
word chunks is a word-decoding tool we want students to develop so that
they can become stronger readers and writers.
Word Chunking
o Learning words through word families is great because it helps students
see common chunks in words. When students know common patterns
in words, it allows them to recognize familiar sounds. Kurtis and
Kruidenier (2005) emphasize the importance of teaching phonemic
awareness and word analysis (or breaking letter combinations into sounds)
together (p. 5). Word chunking does exactly that. If a student can break
an unfamiliar word into familiar sounds, they can blend the sounds
together to figure out the word. For example, if a student came across the
word stain and didnt know the word, but they recognized the word
chunk -ain, they could chunk the word into st and ain. If they
identified these chunks as sounds theyve heard before in word family
practice, they could then chunk the unfamiliar word into familiar sounds.
Once they chunk the word into familiar sounds, they can blend the two
sounds together until they make the word.
o Word families and word chunking goes hand in hand. Word families
introduce students to common word chunks and letter sounds. Word
chunking gives students practice identifying these familiar chunks in the
context of new words so they can break the words into sounds they know.
o Its also important to not stay away from chunking long words just
because they are long. For example, the word combat can be chunked
using the -at word family and maintain can be chunked using the ain word family. Kurvers, van Hout, Vallen & Reis (as cited in Bigelow
& Schwarz, 2010) explain that when given words with a greater amount of
phonemes, or sounds, if learners had semantic, conceptual, or pragmatic
information about the word, they could process the word in the same way
literate learners could. If just given phonological information, however,
they would not have the same success (p. 7). This is critical because it
emphasizes the importance of the whole-part-whole teaching method. If
there is a big word in a book, teachers shouldnt stray away from it.
Instead, they should take the opportunity to explain the context in which
the word appears, talk about what it means, and then break it down into
familiar chunks for students if possible. Its important that children first
associate some meaning with the word, otherwise Marrapodi (2013)
explains that beginning learners [will] easily get sidetracked when they
do not understand a word and focus on figuring the word out, rather than
letting it go and moving forward (p.15). Once students know the
meaning of the word, they are ready to identify any familiar word chunks
and sounds they hear in the word to learn how its pronounced. Lastly,
putting the longer word back in the context of the story or themed unit it
came from is important so students can see how the word is used. Its
important to scaffold new words in this way, following the whole-partwhole teaching method, as it allows students to learn the meaning of the
word, then focus on the word itself, listening to the sounds they hear, and
finally put it back in a meaningful context to help commit the word to
memory.
Rhyming
o Rhyming is a great way to help students
learn words. Rhyming can also be
helpful when introducing students to a
new text. Prior to reading the text
pictured on the right by Shel Silverstein
(1974), the teacher could preview words
in the word family ug or in. Students
can then identify and highlight words
that rhyme after reading the text.
Noticing that a word rhymes requires
students to identify similar sound chunks
in each word. Identifying these sound
chunks can help students figure out
unfamiliar words and gradually become
more confident readers who are capable of sounding words out on their
own.
o Marrapodi (2013) points out, however, that using a purely phonics

approach makes it difficult to create meaningful stories because it limits
words choices (p. 11). Its important to note that teachers dont want to
sacrifice stories with real meaning for stories that just have words that
rhyme. For example, a rhyming text that reads the fat cat wears a hat
oh how silly is that fat cat would be something teachers want to stay
away from. Cats dont wear hats, thus there isnt much relevancy students
can take away from this text, making the reading meaningless. Rather,
teachers should intentionally use texts that rhyme and have meaning, such
as Shel Silversteins poem above. After reading this poem and identifying
the words that rhyme, students could respond to it in drawings or pictures.
This poem builds off the idea hands are not for hitting very nicely.
Students could say hands are for hugging, not tugging, an important
lesson to teach students that is also conducive to teaching a phonics lesson
with the word family ug.
o Vinogradov (2009) suggests that teachers could also use students
textbooks and just look for patterns within a paragraph as often authors
use words in the same word family unintentionally. Finding these patterns
in text students have already read helps keep phonic instruction
contextualized, relevant, and interesting (p.1).
o Personal successes: Students that I have worked with benefit greatly from
learning word families. One of the best ways to teach word families is
through books, as often stories will have word family words throughout
the pages. If I tell students to look for words in a certain word family
throughout the story, they are always quick to find them. I then use these
words for an explicit lesson in phonics after the reading where we break
the words into sound chunks, identifying the word family chunk and the
starting sound of each word. These word family lists are great to add to
the word wall or put on a word family poster of their own too.
Matching Word Families

o Once students have learned a couple word families, they can practice
identifying the word family patterns by categorizing words from different
word families. Categorizing words into word families is a great strategy
as it prompts students to identify the rime in each word, which allows
them to focus on converting larger letter combinations [such as at or
un] into sounds (Curtis, Kruidenier, 2005, p. 5). In order to set up the
activity, the teacher will cut pieces of paper into cards and then write
words from about three different word families on them, writing one word
per card. Each student will then receive a card. When the teacher says go,
everyone tries to find their word family, or other students that have a word
with their same rime. Once all the students have separated into their word
families, the teacher will go around to each group and the group members
will say their words loud enough for the class to hear. Going through the
words as a class will help everyone review each word family and identify
the common word chunk, or rime, in each word.
Does it Rhyme? (Vinogradov, 2009, p. 4)

o Words rhyme because they end with the same sound. Its important to
emphasize that when students are looking for rhyming words, they should
be looking at the words ending, or rime, not its beginning. Some
activities to help students identify words that rhyme are below.
The teacher will write three words on the board. These should be
words students already know that have either been pulled from a
story, a themed unit, or the word wall. The teacher can then point
to each word and pronounce the word slowly, emphasizing the
ending. The students then need to identify which word doesnt
belong by coming up and circling the word that doesnt rhyme. As
students get used to the activity, they can come up, circle the word
that doesnt rhyme, and underline the ending of the two words that
do rhyme. Examples: (trash / shirt / cash) (got / not / stop). This
exercise simultaneously works on building students phonemic
awareness and word analysis skills, both of which will help
students decode words and has been acknowledged by the National
Reading Panel as important to teach together (Curtis, Kruidenier,
2005, p. 5). Curtis and Kruidenier (2005) go on to explain that
phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when letters,
not just sounds, are used for instruction (p. 5). This game
provides students exposure to both letters and sounds so they can
work on solidifying their sound-symbol associations. Curtis and
Kruidenier (2005) further state that, effective word analysis
strategies focus on teaching learners how to convert individual
graphemes into phonemes and then blend them together to form a
word. Or, they focus on converting large letter combinations such
as common spelling patters [like word families] into sounds (p.5).
Personal successes: I often use rhyming exercises in the context of
songs. I play songs for my English language learners and then
give them the lyrics printed out to follow along with to help build
their word awareness. Before giving students the song lyrics
though, I delete a few words from the lyrics and then have the
students listen to the song and try to fill in the words that are
missing. Often in songs, artists use words in the same word
family, so I will intentionally look for words that are in the same
word family and delete both of them. Then if a student is stumped
on filling in one of the two words that rhyme, I can let them know
that the word theyre missing rhymes with the other word. This
often helps students because when I replay the song for the student
to hear, they know what ending sound they are listening for and
thus can focus their attention on the beginning sound of the word,
allowing them to blend the two sounds together and figure out the
whole word. Using rhyming in this respect is very useful for my
students as they are listening for the word chunk to help them
identify unfamiliar words.

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Building Onset/Rime Awareness

o Marrapodi (2013) points out, however, that using a purely phonics

Matching Word Families

Does it Rhyme? (Vinogradov, 2009, p. 4)

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