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Knowledge and Skills Statement

Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--beginning reading and writing. The student develops word structure knowledge through phonological awareness, print concepts, phonics, and morphology to communicate, decode, and spell.

Working in pairs, have students brainstorm and generate a list of six to eight homophones. Then, task students with writing a story using the examples of different homophones that they developed. Have each pair read their story aloud to the class and write the homophones on the board as they are read aloud.

Behaviors to observe:

  • Students are participating in the discussion and the writing.
  • Students accurately use the homophones from their lists in their stories.
     

Further Explanation

The focus of this assessment is to distinguish between the different spellings of words that sound the same. Students must use the context of the sentence along with background knowledge and exposure to homophones to determine the correct spelling. Frequent writing with homophones will lead to automaticity.

Students may benefit from keeping a list of homophones in their reading or writing notebooks. Creating an illustration to accompany homophone use will support visual learners.

Both decoding and encoding skills are needed to build a foundation in reading. Decoding is sounding words out according to letter-sound relationship conventions. Encoding is the process of using letter-sound knowledge to write or spell words. Students must understand the various spelling patterns and rules of the English language to correctly construct words in their written products. It is important that students demonstrate this knowledge by applying these rules consistently instead of using invented spelling because they may unknowingly write a real word they did not intend, causing reader confusion.
Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have completely different meanings (e.g., blue and blew). Students should distinguish between the different spellings of words that sound the same. For example, if the teacher is giving a spelling test and uses the tested word in a sentence (“My favorite color is blue”) students should use the context of the sentence to know to spell the word as blue, not blew.

Research

1. Heggie, L., & Wade-Woolley, L. (2107).  Reading Longer Words: Insights Into Multisyllabic Word Reading. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. SIG 1 2( 2). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lindsay_Heggie/publication/318848767_Reading_Longer_Words_Insights_Into_Multisyllabic_Word_Reading/links/5985064da6fdcc75624fc329/Reading-Longer-Words-Insights-Into-Multisyllabic-Word-Reading.pdf

Summary: Researchers discuss why multisyllabic words are challenging, and what makes them particularly important. This study considers the value of and approaches to building readers' multisyllabic word skills through explicit instruction in syllables and morphemes.

2. Miller, S. J., Noell, G. H., McIver, E. C., & Lark, C. R. (2017). Cross-Modality Generalization in Reading and Spelling Instruction. School Psychology Review, 46(4), 408+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A531844252/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=6272e5aa

Summary: Research was conducted in two studies: the first evaluated oral and written spelling for instructional efficiency, and the second compared the spelling instruction that was most efficient in Study 1 with word reading instruction alone as well as combined word reading and spelling instruction. Efficiency was measured by rates of acquisition.