Not Getting it Right the First Time is What Opens the Door for Learning!

Something quite amazing and wonderful happened the other day. But before I tell you about it, I need to tell you what led up to it.

In the past few weeks, students have been working on several orthography projects.  Prior to that, they had been working in groups to create podcasts.  As each group finished their podcast (based on a word investigation), they needed something new to investigate while the rest of the groups were still working.  Instead of assigning the same activity to all who were ready for something, I mixed things up.   In that way, when the students are ready to present, we will have a variety of orthographic concepts to be talking about.  Here are the projects I assigned:

1)  I let some students choose a word and independently investigate it. This has become a favorite activity among my students.  They enjoy the freedom of choosing their own word and then seeing what they can discover.  I like this activity because they get practice using etymological resources (reading and pulling information pertinent to their investigation).  They are able to choose whether to use Mini Matrix Maker or create their own matrix.  Each finished poster has the same types of information as all the others, yet has been touched by the individual student’s creativity.  Here are some examples of finished work:

2)  Some students were asked to think about an individual grapheme and the phonemes that can be represented by it.  They collected words to illustrate that one grapheme  can represent several different phonemes. Here are some examples of finished work:

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3)  Other students were paired up and asked to investigate assimilated prefixes.

I assign a particular prefix to a group.  I tell them the assimilated forms I want them to look at.  For example, in the picture below, this group looked at <ob->.  In addition to words with <ob-> prefix, they collected words that had the assimilated forms <op->, <oc->, and <of->.  Before I sent them on their way to find the words, I had them bring a dictionary to my desk so I could show them how to prove that the two initial letters were a prefix and not just the first two letters of a base.

My favorite dictionary for use in the classroom is the Collins Gage Paperback Dictionary.  Let’s look at the entry for <occupy>, and I think you’ll see why I like it so much.  First of all this dictionary gives the IPA.  Not all dictionaries do.  Then there are definitions with example sentences.  Near the bottom of the entry are related words.  And the last thing in the entry is important etymological information.  So <occupy> is from Latin occupare “seize”; <ob-> “up” and capere “grasp.”  I specifically show the students the prefix listed as <ob->, but that in the word, we see <oc-> because of assimilation having happened.

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Once they list words they’ve found in this dictionary, I ask them to use another source as well.  My point in doing that is that I don’t want them to rely on any one source as having all the answers.  There are interesting things to note when looking at multiple sources, as I’m sure you know.  Teaching that aspect of research is important and easy to do here.  If the student goes to word searcher next, then they will have to find their evidence of the first two letters actually being a prefix in an etymological reference.  We usually use Etymonline.  If the student uses the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), the etymological information will be there, although they may end up finding words that are no longer used (which is not necessarily a bad thing as long as they mention its last known use)

Here’s another example of a word with the assimilated prefix <of->.

What a beautiful opportunity to talk about stress in a word!  The two IPA representations show this word two ways.  The first is used when the word is defined as in definitions 4 and 5. (It says 5-6, but this must be a typo as there is no 6.)  The second is used when the word is defined as in definitions 1, 2, and 3.  Where I’ve highlighted, you see that this is from Latin offensa, past participle of offendere; <ob-> “against” and fendere “strike.”  Again, we see that in the etymological information the prefix is  listed as <ob->, but in the present day word, the assimilated prefix <of-> is used.  When the second element in the word begins with an <f>, the <of-> prefix has been used to better match the pronunciation of the first grapheme of the next element.

Two students who had been looking at the assimilated prefix <ad> said that they were ready to present their findings to the class. They had created a poster which they hung on the board.  As usual, their classmates pulled chairs close to the front and listened carefully, thinking of questions to ask and word meanings to wonder about.

As they began to share their findings it became more and more obvious that there was a problem.  They collected words that began with <an>, <al>, <at>, and <as>,  but in the words they collected, those letters were not necessarily prefixes. For example, they had the word <anteater> on their list. A classmate pointed out that it was a compound word, and that if we removed the <an> from <ant>, that would mean that <t> would have to be the base in that word. That didn’t seem likely.

Another word that classmates questioned was <atmosphere>. We studied that word at the beginning of the year and the students remembered that the word sum is <atm + o + sphere –> atmosphere>. Then I spotted <astrologist> and shared that the word sum would be <astr + o + log + ist –> astrologist>. We have come across other words with a structure similar to this (biologist, geologist, hydrologist, seismologist).

There were other words that obviously didn’t have the <ad-> prefix or any of its assimilated prefixes too.  The two had identified the <as> in <ashore> and the <ar> in <army>.

I did not take a picture of their poster, but the next day I took a picture of the notebook they used.  You can see that quite a few words on this list look questionable.  There are only a few that have an assimilated form of <ad-> as a prefix.  For example there is <announce> from  <ad>”to” and nuntiare “report”, and <attention> from <ad> “to, toward” and tendere “stretch.”  But most of the rest of these have a different story to tell.

The word <android> is from Greek andro- “man” and eides “form, shape.”  The word <angel> is from Greek angelos “messenger, one that announces.”  The word <anniversary> is from Latin annus “year” and versus “to turn.”  Enjoy yourself as you check out some of these others on your own!  So back to the presentation and what to do next.

It was obvious that the students must have copied words that began with the same letters as the assimilated forms of <ad-> without checking to make sure that those spellings were indeed a prefix.  Even this far into the year, I see that a few of the students still do word work on “automatic pilot.” This activity might have seemed like the word sorts they did in years prior that matched things on the surface of the word without much thought needed.  Perhaps they were confused when I explained how to find the evidence and didn’t let me know.  Regardless of how it came to be, we were looking at a huge misunderstanding of what a prefix is and what it isn’t!

But my next thought was protecting the inquisitiveness of these two students. They might begin to feel embarrassed if we kept pointing out words that didn’t belong on this list. There sure were a lot.  As a class, we have talked often about mistakes being the opportunity to learn something new, but this was a scenario through which I wanted to tread lightly.  I wanted to turn this investigation around without my students feeling any shame for having misunderstood the task.

But here’s where the amazing and wonderful thing came in.  When I suggested that these two scrap this poster and redo their look at the <ad> prefix, they matter of factly said, “Okay.”  They weren’t angry.  They didn’t feel defeated.  Their body posture didn’t show shame or humiliation.  (And believe me, I was watching those two closely.)  And because the attitude we’ve spent the year nurturing is one based on proving or disproving our hypotheses based on evidence, these two didn’t feel like quitting either!  It was such a deeply satisfying moment.  I was pleased, obviously, but also in awe of the environment the students and I have created that allows for failure without judgement.  I thought for the rest of the day about this.  What contributed to their rather amenable response to being asked to repeat their investigation?  When I think back to the beginning of the year,  I would have expected eyeballs to roll or mumbling to occur.  What was different now?  Well, I believe a huge part of the change is the mindset of the entire class.  The students (in the audience) who were questioning these words were speaking in a very neutral sincere tone. The presenters didn’t feel judged, and therefore were able to hear what was being questioned and why.

I said to the class, “Maybe it would be a good idea for all of us to review how we know when an initial <ad> is a prefix, versus when it is just part of the word. Can anyone think of a word that might have an <ad> prefix?  Let’s walk through the process again.  If these two misunderstood how to prove you were looking at a prefix, someone else might be misunderstanding as well.”

A student raised his hand and asked if we could look at<adolescent>.  “That’s a great word to look at!  I’m not sure what we’ll find about that initial <ad>!”

I pulled up Etymonline on the Smartboard so we could all see the entry.

We read through the entry and didn’t feel like the information we were looking for was here.  I reminded the students that following the link (dark red) is always a good idea.  So we clicked on <adolescent> (n.).

We read through the entry together, discussing the fact that they would be called adolescents because they were young people who were growing up.  Then we came to the information we were looking for.  This word is from Latin <ad-> “to” and alescere “be nourished” hence, “increase, grow up.”

Next I asked the class if anyone could think of another word with the base we see in <adolescent>.  I wasn’t  too surprised when no one raised their hand.  But it would be important to find one.  That would provide the final piece of evidence that in Modern English, we see this base in other words with either a different prefix or none at all.  We went to Word Searcher and typed<alesc> in the search bar.  We found coalesce, and convalesce.  I reminded the students that we had looked at the bound base <vale> “strong” in February and that <convalesce> was one of the related words we found.  When someone is convalescing, they are resting and growing stronger.  Interesting.  There is definitely a sense of “growing healthy” in this word, yet the <ale> spelling can’t be in both the <vale> base and the <alesce> base.  I mean it could, but in that moment, I didn’t know.  I would be putting that word on my “give this some further thought” list.   As I said that, several heads nodded in recognition.  Then we looked at <coalesce>.  The word <coalesce> means to unite by growing together.  It is an assimilated form of <com-> “together” and alescere “be nourished, grow.”  Cool!  Now we could verify that in the word <adolescent>, the <ad> is a prefix.

At this point the students were ready to have work time.  It surprises and delights me that individual work time is one of their favorite things!  There are even times (more often than one would guess) when students and I are together in the cafeteria or on the playground, and I am enthusiastically asked, “Do we get to work on our word projects today?”

I waited until everyone was busy at whatever task they were involved in.  Then I went over to follow up with the group that was redoing their <ad-> investigation.  One of the students was still a bit foggy about this investigation.  “Go get one of the red dictionaries,”  I told him.  When he returned, I said, “Open it to the section of words that begin with <ad>.”  I wanted to make sure these students were on the right track.  We came across the word <adopt>.  I had one of them read the entry out loud.  As we discussed this word, one of the students knew that babies could be adopted, but hadn’t really thought about ideas being adopted.  Then we came to the evidence we were looking for.  I have it highlighted for you.  I said, “Look at that!  The prefix has a sense of “to” and the base has a denotation of “choose!”  Does that make sense with what we understand this word to mean?”  They both agreed that it did.

Now I wanted to show them what they would find with one of the assimilated forms of <ad->.  I asked them to turn to the <ar> section.  As we read words on the page, we were looking specifically for the last line of each entry.  Then we spotted the words <Latin ad- “to” + restare “stop”>.  Our eyes went back to the header word which was <arrest>.  One of the students read the definition.  It was surprising to the students that arrest could mean stop as in the sentence, “Filling a tooth arrests decay.”  When we read the highlighted portion after having read the rest of the entry, it made sense.  To stop something is to make it stay.

At this point, I asked if they understood better what to be looking for.  They said they did and promised to call me over if they had any questions.  It was time to let them at it!

I made my way around the room checking in on other groups/individuals.  There were at least two groups that had completed a look at assimilated prefixes and were ready for another new investigation.  I called them over to my desk and gave them a mini lesson on Latin verbs.  We have talked about Latin verbs as a class, and now it was time for the students to investigate on their own.  I gave each group of two (and in some cases a student on their own) a card with the four principal parts of a specific Latin verb.  I will explain this process further in another blog post.

As I was talking to one group about Latin verbs, I saw the group that was redoing their work on assimilated prefixes raise their hands.  I went over as soon as I could.  “How’s it going? Are you finding words you have questions about?”

And then the boy (who is not generally excited about classroom stuff) enthusiastically said, “Yes!  Did you know that <journ> means “day?”

My first response was, “Yes, I did know that.  We see it in journal, right?”

“Wait.  What?  In journal?  How does that mean day?”

“Well, generally, how often does a person write in their journal?”

“Oh!  Every day!  Cool!”

“And what about a journey?”

“A journey?  That’s like going on a trip.”

“Right.  And your journey is measured in days.”

“That is so cool!”

And that’s when the bell rang and it was time to clean up and leave for the day.  Here’s the really funny thing.  These two that were enthusiastic about <journ> were the two who were working on the <ad-> prefix.  I walked away wondering how in the world they came across <journ> in their search for assimilated forms of <ad->.  But just now it seems so obvious.  You probably already put two and two together, didn’t you?  Or should I say <ad-> and <journ>.  Too funny.  I’ll have to make sure I adjourn the class tomorrow instead of dismissing them.  I’d love to see their eyes light up with recognition!

SWI provides a reliable framework for our investigations and guides our thinking.  Questioning becomes an expected activity and instead of being intimidated by someone questioning your work, you become interested, truly interested in what it is they question and whether or not you’ve misunderstood something.  Individually, the goal is always to understand things better.  In order to stay focused on that goal, you need to hear the questions and give them consideration.  Too often we hear a question, take it as a criticism, and then defend our position, right or wrong.  We’re not really considering the question.  Instead we are plotting our defense.  Structured Word Inquiry has brought a culture of listening and questioning to my classroom.  The words “right” and “wrong”  have been replaced with “proven” and “could be, but I’m not sure about that.”  That culture has made my room a safe place for learning.  A place for true scholarship.  It is an exciting place to be every single day!

Instead of Being Submerged in a Sea of “Sound It Out”, We Suggest Spelling Success with Structured Word Inquiry!

My students have been working on several things lately.  Some have been looking at specific graphemes/digraphs and the phonemes that they can represent.  Others have been looking at prefixes and the assimilated forms they often have.  Still others have begun to explore Latin verbs and the unitary/twin bases that come from them.   So with all of these different  investigations going on at once, how do I make sure that all the students are learning all these things?  It happens on a day like today.  It happens when I plan a simple review that turns into a simply rich inquiry.  I can’t imagine that any other review set up in the same way would yield anything less.  You see this wasn’t a fluke.  It didn’t just happen once today.  It happened three times … in each of my three classes.  Fortunately I set up my camera during one of the classes and am able to invite you in.  If I tried to tell you all about it without letting you see for yourself, you might think I was exaggerating.

Setting the scene …

Here are a few of the posters my students have presented lately.  When I say they presented the poster, I mean they told the class what their investigation was all about.  They read any words they found that were related to the investigation, and then they shared the definitions of some of the words that were new to them as they investigated.  After that, the students listening asked questions and discussions ensued.

With other investigations still in process, I thought it was a good time to pause and reflect on what we have been learning.  Every once in a while I see the students sliding back into the comfortable yet unproductive habit of robotic research.  I define that as collecting what has been asked for without thinking about what the words mean or whether or not they fit the focus of the investigation.  Their whole spelling lives they have been asked to mindlessly focus on letters and letter strings.  They have not been asked to see those letter strings as anything in particular.  I am asking them to think critically about whether those letter strings constitute a morpheme in a word.  This is a new skill for most.

Before the students walked in, I wrote the prefix <sub-> on the board along with the most common sense it brings to a base, “up, under.”  Then once the students were seated, I asked them to think of words with a <sub-> prefix.  It could actually be <sub>, but it could also be one of this prefix’s assimilated forms (<suf>, <sug>, <sup>, <suc>, <sur>).  Here is what the board looked like:

At this point I asked the students to look at the board and let me know what they thought.  Did all of these words indeed have an <sub-> prefix or one of its assimilated forms?  Is there anything you question or wonder about?

I turned on my camera and the students were engaged in discussion for 50 minutes.  Fifty minutes! Take a listen and see where their questions and observations took the discussion.  (Don’t worry.  I edited so that the first video is 12 minutes and the second is 7 minutes.  I must say it was hard to find parts of the discussion to cut.  It was all as great and interesting as what you are about to see!)

As you can see, the questions just kept coming and the students exhibited a comfort level in using the resources (on this day it was Etymonline and the Collins Gage Canadian Paperback dictionary).  They were connecting dots all over the place!  They were understanding familiar words in a new way and understanding unfamiliar words enough to connect them to other words by their structure.  Structured Word Inquiry is never about memorizing a word’s spelling.  It is about understanding it.  But becoming a better speller is a pretty reliable side effect of the work my students do each day.  We talk about words every day whether we are focused on SWI or not.

When my third group of fifth grade students brainstormed their own list of words with the <sub-> prefix or one of its assimilated forms, this is what the board looked like.  I did not take video, but you can imagine by what you see that it was every bit as rich a discussion as with my middle class.  You’ll notice that some of the same words were thought of by students in each class, but then there were words that didn’t appear in the last group’s discussion.  Is that important?  I don’t think so.  We focused on the meaning and structure of the words.  And when we needed it, we went to a resource to find out which language the word originated in and perhaps what other languages had an effect on its spelling.

You will notice that we crossed off the words <sucking> and <super>.  It was in a quick discussion that a student explained why the <suc> in <sucking> couldn’t be a prefix like we see in <success>.  In the word <sucking>, the students recognized that the base was <suck> and that the <ck> was representing one phoneme, /k/.  The students decided that if <super> had an <sup> prefix, that would leave <er> which is a pretty common suffix.  But then there wouldn’t be a base!  As I did with the other class, I had someone look up the word <super> to verify that the <sup> was indeed  part of the base and NOT a prefix.  As it turns out, this word is from Latin super “above, over, beyond.”  This word is a free base and it’s spelling hasn’t changed at all!  We talked about superheros and supervisors and how that denotation of “above, over, beyond” made sense.

That brought us to the word <supper>.  Everyone was familiar with supper being a meal eaten in the evening.  One hypothesis was that the prefix was <sup> and the base was <per>.  Another was that the prefix was <sup>, the base was <p>, and that the suffix was <er>.  I had someone go get a dictionary.  That person reported that the base was <sup> with a denotation of “dine.”  That meant that the <er> was a suffix and the second <p> was the doubled <p> from when the vowel suffix was added.  They were not familiar with the base <sup>, so I reminded them of the base <hap> that we see in <happy>.  A very similar thing happens in that word.  So even though the <sup> in <supper> is followed by a <p>, that doesn’t mean it is a prefix.  In this word, the <sup> is the base!  It’s a third word we could have crossed off.

Since we had just found a word in which the <sup> was a base and the <p> that followed it was the doubled <p>, someone wondered if the same thing was happening with <supply>.  They asked if <sup> was the base and there was an <ly> suffix.  But then someone else pointed out that <ly> is a consonant suffix and wouldn’t cause doubling.  (It is so amazing and wonderful to watch one student’s understanding broaden another student’s understanding!)  So then the student who had raised the question went to get a dictionary to find out whether or not the base was <ply>. The student found out that in this word, the prefix <sub> has a sense of “up” and that <ply> is from Latin plere “to fill.”  Someone immediately thought of buying school supplies.  Someone else thought of the way the school supplies desks and chairs for the students.  Both are example of items that fill a need.

From <supply> we went directly to <supplement>.  I wondered aloud what a supplement was?  Someone was familiar with a supplement being extra sheets of ads that comes with their newspaper.  I mentioned that I sometimes take a supplement.  I sometimes take a vitamin C tablet.  Several students nodded and shared that they sometimes do too, like when they have a cold.  So we came to the understanding that a supplement is something added to something else.  When a student looked in the dictionary, the student found out that <supplement> is from Latin supplere “to fill up.”  Then the entry said, “See supply.”  Aha!  This is the same Latin base we saw in <supply>!

Another interesting word was <submarine>.  The students were pretty confident that <sub> was the prefix here because they knew that a submarine was a vessel that went under the water.  So I asked if they thought <marine> would be the base or whether it could be further analyzed.  It was quiet for a bit while everyone gave it some thought.  Then someone said, “Could the <ine> be a suffix like in <saltine>?”   I added, “And <routine>.”  Hmmm.  A student once again offered to look up <marine> to see what evidence there was to help us with identifying the base.  The student found out that it was from Latin mare “the sea”, which really made sense to everyone seeing as a submarine goes under the sea!  Could we think of any other words with <mare> as its base?  I thought of <maritime> which I explained as having to do with the sea.  I could say that a dolphin is a maritime mammal, meaning it lives in the sea.  Then, when I was just about to move on, someone suggested a student’s name.  Marissa.  I had no idea if that would share the base or not.  It shares spelling, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they share meaning.  So I told Marissa to get a Chromebook and find out what her name meant.  Sure enough!  It comes from the Latin maris “of the sea!”  How about that?

Reflections …

In each of my three classes we started the same way, but then followed the path led by their questions.  Over and over we talked about the prefix <sub> and the sense it brought to each of the words it was part of.  We made great discoveries about some unfamiliar bases, both bound and free.  We even talked about twin bases when the opportunity arose.  They eagerly jumped up to get a dictionary when we were ready to understand a word’s structure better.  We connected the literal meanings of the base and prefix to what we understood the words to mean in our daily lives.  We stretched that understanding to other words with the same base when we could.  Most importantly, the students looked critically at the words and determined for themselves whether or not there was an <sub-> or other assimilated form of an <sub-> prefix.  When the letters at the beginning of the word were found not to be a prefix, the students could explain why that was.

This kind of critical thinking, this kind of scientific inquiry comes without judgement.  Students offer suggestions without the fear of being wrong and the embarrassment that goes along with that.  Everyone has the same pursuit, which is to make sense of a word’s spelling.  And everyone participates in that common pursuit.  Some think to themselves.  Some think out loud.  Some ask questions.  Some jump at the chance to look something up in one of our dictionaries or at Etymonline.  The engagement is high and the delight in discovering something about a word or a connection being made is often audible.  (And usually accompanied by a sweet smile!)  This is what I have always imagined learning to be like!  As Malina said at the end of the second video, “Every single time that someone comes up with an idea, we should put a little light bulb above their head.”  Man would there ever be a glow coming from our room!