Making Significant Progress with SWI in One School Year

Woohoo!

(The attached image shows the most recent administration of the Woodcock-Johnson IV Written Language subtests, shared with parent permission.)

This year, I worked with an amazing 7th grader who needed help with spelling. His mother reported that he was doing a (commonly used) phonics-based intervention program "in fourth grade and was still on one-syllable short vowel sounds." He didn't get any services last year, so we had some catching up to do.

She sent me a list of his spelling words at the beginning of the year. The list included words like <omniscient>, <implore>, and <morose>. Once I learned that he was interested in Greek mythology, I knew exactly how I wanted to start. Our first lesson was on the word <omniscient>.

How did we start? By following the four guiding questions of Structured Word Inquiry ( SWI). First, we discussed the word's meaning in question one, then moved on to question 2, and explored its morphological relatives.

Among the spellings we discovered were "science," "omniscience," "conscious," and "conscience." Finding these relatives brought us to question three - "How is it built?" We were ready to form a hypothesis for the base and affixes of <omniscient>.

Hypothesis: < omni + sci + ent --> omniscient >

We used a word sum to pose our hypothesis because they are essential to validate or invalidate the accuracy of any complex spelling. We could have hypothesized < omn + i + sc + i + ent--> omniscient >, but we still needed to touch on connecting vowels, so we went with the first option. When analyzing a spelling, it is a good rule of thumb only to go as far as you feel comfortable.

Having established the structure of the word <omniscient>, we were then primed to move into question four - "What are the graphemes (letters) doing?" We took a look at the grapheme-phoneme correspondence.

/ɑmˈnɪʃənt/

We wondered why we feel /ʃ/ ("sh") in "omniscient" when there isn't any < sh > digraph. This perplexing finding led to an excellent opportunity to talk about the flexibility of graphemes. Graphemes can represent different phonemes! Sometimes, what a grapheme represents depends on the grapheme(s) after it.

Which phoneme does the <t> spell in <act> vs. <action>? Which phoneme does the <s> spell in <use> vs. <usual>? Which phoneme does the <c> spell in <magic> vs. <magician>? Discovery: < i > can mark < t >, < s > and < c > /ʃ/ < u > can mark < s > /ʒ/ (as in "measure" or "usual")

Understanding these pieces of the phonology of the English writing system is part of building a foundational understanding of the English spelling system! This foundational understanding is essential to successfully reading and spelling many complex spellings. Children with dyslexia can access this understanding when you teach them how words work using a top-down process, starting with the most concrete level (the meaning and structure of a spelling) before going into the abstract and most challenging piece of orthography (the phonology of a word).

This client has allowed me to witness a total transformation in confidence and ability and to realize how crucial effective intervention is for him. He is now exploring spellings and forming hypotheses on his own! He shows so much engagement in our lessons, which is wonderful, especially considering the educational trauma that he has experienced for years. His mother sometimes shares their independent discoveries with me, and we celebrate each together. When you understand how the writing system works, the sky is the limit! My clinical practice has repeatedly proven that intervention with Structured Word Inquiry empowers all learners to reach their full potential, and that is evidence I can count on.

Not only can his progress be seen daily in sessions, we also can see it here in his test results. What a leap!