Video library

Word Family: thought, thoughts, thoughtful, thoughtless

Concepts: Students will notice that some graphemes can write pronunciations, but some graphemes, like the <ugh> in thought have other jobs. The grapheme <ugh> is a three letter grapheme which is often found in word of Old English origin. Discovering that silence is a thing graphemes can write is critical for helping students to make sense of spelling.

Word Families: persuade, persuasive, persuasion

Concepts: Noticing what the grapheme <s> can write. Noticing that vowel suffixes cause spelling changes. This video also explores how vowel graphemes can write consonant phonemes.

Activity Sheet: This video includes an activity sheet on building word using the “suade” and “suase” base elements.

Concept: This video explores how default prefixes can change their spelling based on the spelling of the element following it.

Word Family: friend, friends, friendly, friendliest.

Concepts: Notice how etymology can help students make sense of graphemes that are not writing a pronunciation. Explore how a single <y> grapheme can toggle to <i> when adding on suffixes unless the suffix begins with <i>.

Word Family: protect, protects, protection, detective.

Concepts: Notice how <t> can write different pronunciations across a word family. Discover how to build a word family. Explore how etymology reveals the core meaning of the base and how this meaning is shared across a word family.

Word Family: heal, healer, health, healthy, healthiest

Concepts: Notice how the phonology of the grapheme <ea> can shift across a word family. Discover how spelling heal with the grapheme <ea> helps to distinguish the difference in meaning between the homophones heal and heel. Explore the suffixing convention of <y> toggles to <i>.

Word Family: contractions, tractor, extract, subtract, attract.

Concepts: Explore the etymology of the word contraction to help students notice that all the words in this family have something to do with the notion of pulling. Activating this understanding helps students make sense of what contractions are in English spelling. It may also be helpful to highlight that the apostrophe signals that graphemes have been extracted.

Word Family: collected, collection, collective, collectively, select, elected.

Concepts: Noticing that <t> can write /ʃ/ when followed by an <i>. Discovering that vowels can be reduced all the way to zero. Observing that the pronunciation of the base in a word can shift across a family. Noticing how suffixes can change the potential grammatical form of words.

Word Family: wind, winding, winds

Concepts: Noticing how the difference in pronunciation between wind and wind signals a difference in meaning.

Exploring etymological relatives wander, went and go.

Word Family: migrate and migration

Concepts: Vowel suffixes can replace a single final non-syllabic <e>. Noticing that <t> can write /ʃ/ when followed by an <i>.

Word Family: creation, creative, creature

Concepts: Vowel suffixes can replace a single final non-syllabic <e>. Noticing that <t> can write /ʃ/ when followed by an <i> and <t> can write /ʧ/ when followed by a <u>. Discovering that vowels can be reduced all the way to zero. Observing that the pronunciation of the base in a word can shift across a family.

Word Family: exit, transit, transitions, initial, initials, initiative.

Concepts: Notice how vowel suffixes replace the single, final, unpronounced <e>. Notice how the grapheme <t> can write different pronunciations.

Word Family: form, transformation, information, uniform, nonconformist

Concepts: Vowel suffixes replace a single final non-syllabic <e>. Noticing that <t> can write /ʃ/ when followed by an <i>. Discovering how etymology reveals the deeper meaning of the base and helps to uncover related words.

Word Family: erode and rodent.

Concepts: Notice that vowel suffixes replace single, final, unpronounced <e>. Identify words with reduced vowels which can cause spelling challenges. Discover what the grapheme <o> can write.

Concepts: Make sense of word which contain graphemes that are not writing a pronunciation by exploring related words. Notice words that share a meaning often share a spelling.

Word Family: ingest, digest, digestive, congested, suggest.

Concepts: Notice how the grapheme <t> can spell different phonemes across the word family. Discover words with assimilated prefixes which can cause spelling challenges.

Word Family: press, pressed, pressure, depressed, oppressive, expression, impressive.

Base: <press> from Latin pressare "to press"

Concepts: What can <s> write? Noticing assimilated prefixes.

Word Family: clap, claps, clapping, clapped.

Concepts: Notice how vowel suffixes cause spelling changes.

Concepts: Help students identify whether or not a word is a noun using the proof for nouns. Notice how nouns can be used in sentences.

Word Family: vision, revise, invisible, visit, and visual.

Concepts: Notice that vowel suffixes replace single, final, unpronounced <e>. Discover how <s> can write different pronunciations across the family.

Word Family: conserve, conservation, observe and observant.

Concepts: Vowel suffixes replace single final unpronounced <e>. Notice what the grapheme <t> can write?

Word Family: decision, incisors, concise, precise.

Concepts: Vowel suffixes replace single, final, unpronounced <e>. Notice that the grapheme <c> and <s> can write different pronunciations.

1. Word Family: rain, raining, rained, rains, rainy, rainiest.

2. Concepts: The combining nature of alphabetic letters, graphemes, morphemes and words.

Concepts: Explores the difference between alphabetic letters and graphemes. Identifies the difference between single letter graphemes, two letter graphemes and three letter graphemes.

Word Family: realize, real, really, reality, realistic.

Concepts: Discover how to build a word matrix. Notice how studying related words helps students make sense of words that have reduced vowels or graphemes that are not writing a pronunciation. Explore how to visually represent vowel reduction.