Structured Word Inquiry (Bowers and Kirby, 2010) is a way of working with language to show that spelling makes sense. In fact, our spelling system is so logical and well-ordered that it can be investigated and understood through scientific inquiry.
We all know that “sound it out” only works part of the time. This means that it is not a reliable method for determining the spelling of a word. Instead, when using SWI, we start by asking, “What does the word mean?”
Homophone pairs are some of the words that make us think English is a confusing and frustrating language to spell. If we start by thinking about what a word means, we may find that we already have the information we need to understand a spelling.
This past week in first grade we took on a couple of function words for our investigation. When we first started our SWI journey, these words were the most challenging to bring to a study because they often didn’t have other relatives that shared a...
After the exciting Word Bag lesson that sparked so much interest, the teachers came to me with some big questions. One of the children created a word family at home that contained several cards reading <mom> and a few cards with long strings of random letters....
Lyn Anderson (Beyond the Word) first introduced us to the joy of the Word Bag game several years ago now. It’s a simple teaching strategy, but it inspires a kind of magical curiosity in kids. It’s genius. The teacher creates a set of words that share...
The new school year has begun at The Nueva School where I am the SWI Coach, and already stories about words have been flying my way. The third grade teachers introduced a project on the first day to help their students build a deeper sense...
People often ask about using Structured Word Inquiry with young children. How does it work? Can they really understand morphology and the terminology that goes along with it? What if they can’t read yet? What if they don’t know their letters and sounds yet? The answer is right...
This is the first post in my series called “First Steps,” which is intended for anyone just beginning their journey with Structured Word Inquiry. Since SWI is not a program, people can feel very nervous about where to start. You are told there is no...
I recently did a lesson with a class of 3rd and 4th graders, whom I visit once a week. This was only their second lesson with Structured Word Inquiry. I knew I wanted to keep the words we used fairly simple so that they could...
"If it’s important, it will come up again." Pete Bowers has used this statement thousands of times, I'm sure, when teachers ask questions like, "But how will we know that we're covering everything we're supposed to cover? One of the exciting, challenging, and sometimes scary aspects of ...
For the past few months I've been enjoying the privilege of working with two classrooms of first graders each week. Most of these children were introduced to SWI in Pre-K or Kindergarten, so they already can see language through the lens of meaning. They have...