Word Family 4 Stories and Activities

楊耀琦 Archie Yang
學歷
台中教育大學
美國University of New Haven 教育研究所

經歷
1.彰化縣明正國小退休英語教師
2.彰化縣課程與教學專任輔導員
3.教育部中央課程與教學英語組輔導員
4.參與兩岸「同課異教」英語教學研討會，並擔任2009徐州、2010哈爾濱和山東曲阜、2011上海和廣州、2012蘇州南通市、2013蘇州常熟市、2015鄭州、2016廣州、2018內蒙包頭、蘇州、南京等場次教學演示、專家點評和講座

著作
「引導式英文寫作」、「From Phonics to RT 1、2、3」、「Super Phonics 1、2」、「Sight Words to Reading 1、2」、「Sight Words to Reading 1、2」、「Sight Words字卡(220張字卡+教案說明)」、「唱歌謠。唸韻文。讀劇本系列(共五冊+5AVCD)」、「讀者劇場Easy Show」、「繪本讀劇」…等三十多本

楊峰 Ian Yang
學經歷
上海華東師範大學語言學博士
杭州易口教育集團外師主管
杭州Reading Lab 童說閱讀工作室課程指導教師
杭州探客戶外用品有限公司 跨境事業部 北美市場總經理

Introduction

Word Families? What/Why/When/How?

What are word families? They are groups of words that have a common feature or pattern. They have the same letter combinations, a similar sound, and they're a wonderful tool for those new to spelling. For example, at, cat, hat, and fat are a family of words with the "at" sound and letter combination in common. But, that understanding can be built upon, when you consider how many other words belong to the "at" family. From "bat", “cat”, students can advance to tougher words, such as “combat” and “copycat”. How does it work in reading? Take “at” word family for example:
A cat
A fat cat
A fat on the mat
A fat cat sat on the mat with a bat

Word families help students learn to read, while building their vocabulary. Being able to recognize patterns and common phonetic sounds is the foundation for strong spelling skills. Of course, not every word in the English language can be sounded out, but this is an ideal place to start.

According to the National Council of Teachers of English, there are 37 common word families that come out 500 words. The 37 most common word families in English are: ack, ain, ake, ale, all, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw, ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ide, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck ,ug, ump, unk.

Many of the nursery rhymes contain common word families. You can use these rhymes to teach these letter combinations (and how they are spelled and spoken), having the students sound them out after memorizing the rhyme. For example, the words away, day and play which belong to “ay” word family in the kid song “Rain, Rain, Go away”.
Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day
Little Johnny wants to play
Rain, rain, go away

As we can see, all of these rhyming words make the song much easier to read and sing. It’s one of the best ways to help kids start to read. Students can use the website to look for more words that belong to word families. (https://www.rhymezone.com)

The stories and activities in this series of books teach the 24 most common word families in a fun, engaging way. As teaching the young children, we hope this will help students to start the very beginning reading, especially to get the sense of sounds and the words. When children begin to read, they must sound out every letter.

Through the activities from the book, we can see how word family patterns help children's spelling. They are able to recognize spelling patterns and apply these to other words of the same family. When learning families of words, children are able to read familiar patterns of letters quickly and fluently. Every child learns differently. Doing word family activities is a great way to involve kids' whole bodies to reach kids of many different learning styles, and help struggling learners as well.