Reading Programs: Word Families Are An Important Part Of How To Teach Reading

What makes a good reader?
How do you teach reading?
What skills and strategies are important to aid reading fluency?

These questions have haunted the parents of young children for decades but while learning to read is a long, complex process there are many easy and fun techniques parents can use to help their child learn to read. One of these important strategies is word families.

Research shows that strong readers are able to decode new words by comparing them to known words rather than by sounding them out letter by letter. The best way to separate between good and poor readers is repeatedly found to be their knowledge of spelling patterns and their proficiency with spelling-sound translations. That is why reading lessons that include phonograms, also called word families and chunks, are a highly effective way to help young children acquire and implement these kinds of reading skills and strategies.

Phonograms are recognizable chunks of letters that appear with regularity in words. For example, frog, dog, and log all share the phonogram -og. When children learn the sound and spelling of chunks such as -og they can decode by comparison--that is they can apply what they know to new words they encounter. This means that rather than struggle to decode the word "beep" one letter at a time, and then blending to come up with a recognizable word, a child can more quickly and efficiently decode the word by putting two familiar sounds together--the sound for b and the sound for -eep. Once the reader begins to learn other phonograms then you can multiple this success many times over and the result is a more efficient and happy reader.

One easy strategy for introducing word families is to have your child color a picture related to one of the words in that word family and then, either in the white space surrounding the picture or on an attached piece of paper, write down words that you brainstorm together that also belong in the family. Continue to build more homemade word family charts until you have a book of word families your child can refer to regularly.

Word families are an important part of how to teach reading because learning word families, or word chunks, can help children decode new words by comparing them to known words. Knowledge of spelling patterns and spelling-sound translation are among the key skills of good readers and word families are an important part of mastering those skills.

Deanna Mascle shares more information about Word Families and other reading lesson plans and resources at teachphonemicawareness.info

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Reading Programs: Word Families Are An Important Part Of How To Teach Reading
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