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SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists Review and Giveaway

In 2020 I reviewed a product kit (instructional guide and cards) from SPELL-Links™ Learning By Design, Inc. entitled Wordtivities: Word Study Instruction for Spelling, Vocabulary, and Reading. Today, I am reviewing a companion to that product kit: SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists. This 180-page guide contains sets of pattern-focused word lists for whole class, small group, and 1:1 word study instruction purposes. Each grade-level word list supports the simultaneous development of pattern-specific phonological (sound), orthographic (letter), and semantic morphological (meaning) skills. The aim of this guide is to systematically address spelling, reading, speaking, and listening all together by developing a neural network for literacy and language.

SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists are useful for students 5+ years of age who have or are in the process of developing the following knowledge and skills:

  1. Letter-name knowledge
  2. Alphabetic letter writing ability
  3. Mastery of early phonological awareness (PA) skills by being able to segment words into syllables, understand and create rhyming words, and isolate sounds in words
  4. Basic concept knowledge of directionality (left/right; top/down)

The book is organized by patterns and grade levels (K-6 grade) and by the instructional focus. For each pattern, word lists are organized to support a specific instructional focus: phonological code, orthographic code, morphological code, storage and retrieval of orthographic representations, and writing application.

The Word Lists feature 128 patterns across grades K through 6. The number of patterns taught at each grade level ranges from 9 (K) to 25 (grades 4 and 5).

Here’s an example of a 4th-grade instructional overview:

Overview of Weekly Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Pattern: Prefixes pre- (before); mid- (middle); post- (after) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Pattern: Prefixes over- (above, more than); super- (superior, exceeding); under- (below, less than);
sub- (under, subordinate) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Pattern: ‘l, r’ Clusters ‘lb, ld, lf, lk, lm, lp, lt, lth, lve, lse’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Pattern: ‘l, r’ Clusters ‘rd, rf, rm, rn, rp, rt, rsh, rch, rth, rve, rge’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Pattern: ‘l, r’ Clusters ‘rse, rce’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Pattern: Homophones Set 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Pattern: Suffixes -ion, -ation, -ition (N) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Pattern: Suffix -ment (N) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Pattern: Suffix -en (V, ADJ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Pattern: ‘m, n, ng’ Clusters ‘nd, nt, mp, mph, nth, nch, ngth, nge’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Pattern: ‘m, n, ng’ Clusters ‘nk, nc’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Pattern: ‘m, n, ng’ clusters ‘nce, nse’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Pattern: Homophones Set 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Pattern: Syllabic-r Vowel Sound as in bird, father . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Pattern: Suffix -ward (ADJ, ADV) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Pattern: Unstressed Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Pattern: Syllabic-l Vowel Sound as in bottle, pencil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Pattern: Suffix -al (ADJ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Pattern: Suffixes -able, ible (ADJ) …………………………………………….. 109
Pattern: Suffix -ous (ADJ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Pattern: Suffixes -ive, -ative, -itive (N, ADJ)………………………………………. 111
Pattern: Suffix -ure (N) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Pattern: Contractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Pattern: Prefix tele- (far); micro- (tiny) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Pattern: Prefixes mono-, uni-, bi-, tri-, quad-, oct- (number affixes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Pattern Review

The weekly instruction will look as follows:

  1. Monday-Tuesday: Review of Phonological and Orthographic Codes (these word pattern lists are organized into 3 groups to support differentiated instruction)
  2. Wednesday–Thursday: Morphology
  3. Friday: Mental Orthographic Representations and Application to Sentence Writing

The book comes with access to digital Materials Library, which contains access to the following materials:

  • List of pattern-loaded stories
  • SPELL-Links™ Pattern Inventory & Analysis Tool (PIAT)

The appeal of the product for me is that it offers numerous group-based opportunities for the solidification of evidence-based instructional practices.  The book comes with very detailed implementation instructions. A variety of daily activities allow students to further advance their abilities in the areas of prefixes and suffixes, numerous homophones and clusters, unstressed vowels and even contractions. The kit also offers several appendices that review the spelling rules for word roots prefixes and suffixes, as well as detailed recommendations for pattern-loaded reading materials. To me, the appeal of this curriculum is rather multifaceted. It continues to be very difficult to find an evidence-based group instruction curriculum, and Wordtivities Word Lists once again fit the bill for it. Because it focuses on skills integration of spelling, reading, speaking, and listening it allows the students to engage in contextually based opportunities to become better listeners, speakers, readers, spellers and writers.

You can find this kit for purchase on the SPELL-Links™ Learning By Design, Inc. Store HERE.

And now for the fun part. Want to win your own copy of SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists? Enter to win here: I want to win SPELL-Links Wordtivities Word Lists! | Learning By Design They’ll send one lucky person a copy of SPELL-Links™ Wordtivities Word Lists. Entries are accepted until 3/1/24 at 5 pm CST. The winner will be notified by email.

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Review of Wordtivities by SPELL-Links

Image result for wordtivities"Today I am reviewing a newly released (2019) kit (instructional guide and cards) from the Learning By Design, Inc. entitled Wordtivities: Word Study Instruction for Spelling, Vocabulary, and Reading.

The 101-page instructional guide was created to address the students’ phonological awareness, spelling, reading, vocabulary, and syntax skills by having them engage with sounds, letters, and meanings of words. The lessons in the book can be used by a variety of instructional personnel (teachers, SLPs, reading specialists, etc.) and even parents as a stand-alone word study program or in conjunction with SPELL-Links to Reading & Writing Word Study Curriculum.

The activity book is divided into two sections. The first section offers K-12 student activities for large groups and classrooms. The second section has picture card activities and is intended for 1:1 and small group instruction. Both sections focus on reinforcing 14 SPELL-Links strategies for reading and spelling to stimulate the associations between sounds, letters, and meanings of words. Continue reading Review of Wordtivities by SPELL-Links

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Why “good grades” do not automatically rule out “adverse educational impact”

Image result for good grades?As a speech-language pathologist (SLP) working with school-age children, I frequently assess students whose language and literacy abilities adversely impact their academic functioning.   For the parents of school-aged children with suspected language and literacy deficits as well as for the SLPs tasked with screening and evaluating them, the concept of ‘academic impact’ comes up on daily basis. In fact, not a day goes by when I do not see a variation of the following question: “Is there evidence of academic impact?”, being discussed in a variety of Facebook groups dedicated to speech pathology issues. Continue reading Why “good grades” do not automatically rule out “adverse educational impact”

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Editable Report Template and Tutorial for the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy

Today I am introducing my newest report template for the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy.

This 16-page fully editable report template discusses the testing results and includes the following components: Continue reading Editable Report Template and Tutorial for the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy

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What Makes an Independent Speech-Language-Literacy Evaluation a GOOD Evaluation?

Image result for Independent Educational EvaluationThree years ago I wrote a blog post entitled: “Special Education Disputes and Comprehensive Language Testing: What Parents, Attorneys, and Advocates Need to Know“. In it, I used  4 very different scenarios to illustrate the importance of comprehensive language evaluations for children with subtle language and learning needs.  Today I would like to expound more on that post in order to explain, what actually constitutes a good independent comprehensive assessment. Continue reading What Makes an Independent Speech-Language-Literacy Evaluation a GOOD Evaluation?

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Free Literacy Resources for Parents and Professionals

SLPs are constantly on the lookout for good quality affordable materials in the area of literacy. However, what many clinicians may not realize is that there are massive amounts of FREE evidence-based literacy-related resources available online for their use.  These materials can be easily adapted or implemented as is, by parents, teachers, speech-language pathologists, as well as other literacy-focused professionals (e.g., tutors, etc.).

Below, I have compiled a rather modest list of my preferred resources (including a few articles) for children aged Pre-K-12 grade pertaining to the following literacy-related areas: Continue reading Free Literacy Resources for Parents and Professionals

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Clinical Assessment of Elementary-Aged Students Writing Abilities : Suggestions for SLPs

Image result for child writingRecently I wrote a blog post regarding how SLPs can qualitatively assess writing abilities of adolescent learners. Today due to popular demand, I am offering suggestions regarding how SLPs can assess writing abilities of early-elementary-aged students with suspected learning and literacy deficits. For the purpose of this post, I will focus on assessing writing of second-grade students since by second-grade students are expected to begin producing simple written compositions several sentences in length (CCSS).

So how can we analyze the writing samples of young learners? For starters, it is important to know what the typical writing expectations look like for 2nd-grade students. Here’s is a sampling of typical expectations for second graders as per several sources (e.g., CCSS, Reading Rockets, Time4Writing, etc.)

  • With respect to penmanship, students are expected to write legibly.
  • With respect to grammar, students are expected to identify and correctly use basic parts of speech such as nouns and verbs.
  • With respect to sentence structure students are expected to distinguish between complete and incomplete sentences as well as use correct subject/verb/noun/pronoun agreements and correct verb tenses in simple and compound sentences.
  • With respect to punctuation, students are expected to use periods correctly at the end of sentences. They are expected to use commas in sentences with dates and items in a series.
  • With respect to capitalization, students are expected to capitalize proper nouns, words at the beginning of sentences, letter salutations, months and days of the week, as well as titles and initials of people.
  • With respect to spelling, students are expected to spell CVC (e.g., tap), CVCe (e.g., tape), as well as CCVC words (e.g., trap), high frequency regular and irregular spelled words (e.g., were, said, why, etc),  basic inflectional endings (e.g., –ed, -ing, -s, etc), as well as to recognize select orthographic patterns and rules (e.g., when to spell /k/ or /c/ in CVC and CVCe word, how to drop one vowel (e.g., /y/) and replace it with another /i/, etc.)

Now let’s apply the above expectations to a writing sample of a 2nd-grade student whose parents are concerned with her writing abilities in addition to other language and learning concerns. This student was provided with a  typical second grade writing prompt: “Imagine you are going to the North Pole. How are you going to get there? What would you bring with you? You have 15 minutes to write your story. Please make your story at least 4 sentences long.

The following is the transcribed story produced by her. “I am going in the north pole. I am going to bring food my mom toy’s stoft (stuffed) animals. I am so icsited (excited). So we are going in a box. We are going to go done (down) the stars (stairs) with the box and wate (wait) intile (until) the male (mail) is hear (here).”

Analysis: The student’s written composition content (thought formulation and elaboration) was judged to be impaired for her grade level.  According to the CCSS, 2d grade students are expected to ‘”write narratives in which recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.” However, the above narrative sample by no means satisfies this requirement.  The student’s writing was excessively misspelled, as well as lacked organization and clarity of message.  While portions of her narrative appropriately addressed the question with respect to whom and what she was going to bring on her travels, her narrative quickly lost coherence by her 4th sentence, when she wrote: “So we are going in a box” with further elaborations regarding what she meant by that sentence.  Second-grade students are expected to engage in basic editing and revision of their work. This student only took four minutes to compose the above-written sample and as such had more than adequate amount of time to review the question as well as her response for spelling and punctuation errors as well as for clarity of message, which she did not do. Furthermore, despite being provided with a written prompt which contained the correct capitalization of a place: “North Pole”, the student was not observed to capitalize it in her writing, which indicates ongoing executive function difficulties with the respect to proofreading and attention to details.  

Impressions: Clinical assessment of the student’s writing revealed difficulties in the areas of spelling, capitalization, message clarity as well as lack of basic proofreading and editing, which require therapeutic intervention.   

Now let us select a few writing goals for this student.

Long-Term Goals:  Student will improve her writing abilities for academic purposes.

  • Short-Term Goals
  1. Student will label parts of speech (e.g., adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, etc.)  in compound sentences.
  2. Student will use declarative and interrogative sentence types for story composition purposes
  3. Student will correctly use past, present, and future verb tenses during writing tasks.
  4. Student will use basic punctuation at the sentence level (e.g., commas, periods, and apostrophes in singular possessives, etc.).
  5. Student will use basic capitalization at the sentence level (e.g., capitalize proper nouns, words at the beginning of sentences, months and days of the week, etc.).
  6. Student will proofread her work via reading aloud for clarity
  7. Student will edit her work for correct grammar, punctuation, and capitalization

Notice the above does not contain any spelling goals. That is because given the complexity of her spelling profile I prefer to tackle her spelling needs in a separate post, which discusses spelling development, assessment, as well as intervention recommendations for students with spelling deficits.

There you have it. A quick and easy qualitative writing assessment for elementary-aged students which can help determine the extent of the student’s writing difficulties as well as establish a few writing remediation targets for intervention purposes.

Using a different type of writing assessment with your students? Please share the details below so we can all benefit from each others knowledge of assessment strategies.