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Word Chaining for Building Phonemic Awareness with Anjanette McNeely

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Episode 254

In this episode, we sit down with kindergarten teacher Anjanette McNeely to take a close look at one powerful instructional routine: word chaining.

Anjanette walks us through exactly what word chaining looks like in her classroom, from the materials she uses to the language she says, and explains why this routine is such an effective way to build both phonemic awareness and phonics at the same time.

We also explore how word chaining supports orthographic mapping, why connecting sounds to print matters, and how small instructional shifts, like continuous blending and interleaving, can have a big impact on student learning.

Whether you're new to word chaining or looking to refine your practice, this episode offers practical ideas you can try right away.

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Lori

Many

Why Sound Work Must Connect

Lori

of us learned that phonemic awareness instruction should stay oral only, no letters involved. But teachers often wonder: is that really helping students become better readers and spellers? If you've ever felt unsure about how to connect soundwork to actual words, you're not alone.

Melissa

Today we're talking about word chaining, a simple routine that links sounds and letters to support decoding and spelling. Kindergarten teacher Anginette McNeely joins us to explain what it looks like in a real classroom and how it supports orthographic mapping and stronger word reading. Hi, teacher friends.

Lori

I'm Lori. And I'm Melissa. We are two educators who want the best for all kids, and we know you do too.

Melissa

We worked together in Baltimore when the district adopted a new literacy curriculum.

Lori

We realized there was so much more to learn about how to teach reading and writing. Lori and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.

Melissa

Hi, Anginette. Welcome to the podcast.

Anjanette McNeely

Hi, Melissa and Lori. It's a pleasure to be here.

Melissa

We are so excited to talk to you. I mean, one, a kindergarten teacher. Always so fun to pick your brain because what a tough job and an exciting job. But also, we're gonna focus so much on one routine today, which is word chains, which are super powerful. There's so much to talk about with these word chains. So I'm excited to hear everything you do, and then we'll talk about the research and all of that. But let's just get this out of the way first. If someone's listening and they've never done a word chain, heard of a word chain, they don't even know what we're talking about, how would you describe this activity to those teachers?

What Word Chaining Really Is

Anjanette McNeely

So I would describe a word chain as a carefully chosen sequence of words that incorporates both encoding and decoding. Word chains provide opportunities for students to really learn the common spellings and notice similarities and differences in words. And that really is going to support a student's orthographic mapping. Good word chains only change one phoneme or sound at a time. And they also are only going to work with one pronunciation of a grapheme at a time. So think of like look and food with the double O. You would just focus on one of those graphemes at a time so that it wasn't too confusing for a student. So that's kind of a quick summary of what a word chain would be.

Melissa

And there was a lot packed in there. So don't worry if you're new to this, we're going to talk about all of those things. But first, let's just, can you just give us like an example of maybe one you would do with your kindergartners? You know, what does that actually look like with a word? And what do you, what do you say? What do they do? What happens during this? Yeah, I'd love to walk you through it.

Anjanette McNeely

Um,

Letter Trays And Why One Color

Anjanette McNeely

I have my little metal tray that my students use here. So we have these little metal range covers that you can just like buy on Amazon and and tractor supply stores. And we have um the magnetic letters that we use. And on our trays, we also have a piece of paper. You can see that like there's a letter on that paper so that as they move the letters back and forth, that there's a place for them to know that it goes back to. And um, the alphabetical order really helps them too, is they need to pull them down and put them back. And the bonus is they're also learning alphabetical order. So when we start the year, like the tray is only got just a couple of letters, so there's not that cognitive load. And then as we learn the letters, then we add the letters to our tray. I mean, a tray isn't the only way, but that's the way that we're using it. So I'll talk you through how we're using it in class.

Melissa

And Jeanette, real quick, I just want to, all of those letters were the same color. And I know that was done intentionally as well, because often those letters come in like this beautiful rainbow assortment, but can you talk about why they're all the same color?

Anjanette McNeely

So um I want my students to focus on the shapes that are in the letters. You know, is there curves, is there horizontal lines? Because that is the only um piece of information that's really going to matter when they go to read a word. In in our stories, we're not going to have vowels that are in a different color. So I want them to really hone into the the shape of the letter. The and so that's why they're not different colors. There are letter sets that are different colors, but that's why I chose to keep them the same. Because I want them to understand um what the what the what the letters, the letter formation piece is.

Melissa

Yeah. And I'm thinking about why one, why is this one yellow? Why is this one pink?

Anjanette McNeely

Yes. And it also, like when the vowels are a different color, it gives them a little bit of a help because they know there's those, you know, five blue letters, and they don't really have to like really look at the letter E. They just kind of that general vicinity, there's gonna be the E, and I can just pull it down without really thinking about, you know, what um, what let lines make up the E.

Lori

Yeah, such a good point. And Antoinette, would you um be so kind as to take pictures of this? So for all of our auditory listeners, which are many, um, if you could take pictures and we'll add them to the show notes so that everyone can see exactly what you're talking about at this point in time with your tray. Yes, I can do that.

A Full Word Chain Walkthrough

Anjanette McNeely

So if um we're gonna start with a word chain, the first thing I do is give them a word. So um say that our word is gonna be mat. So we pound and sound our words. So we would pound the word by I'm having our um palm, one palm flat, the other in a pound, and we would say matte, and then we use our fingers to count the sounds. Mmm, at and so now we know there's three. So we're gonna be pulling three sounds down. At the beginning of the year, there's a lot more scaffolding where I am saying, mmm, mmm, you know, what letter do we know that spells the mmm sound? Everybody find the M, pull it down. Then the next sound, ah, ah. What letter do we know that spells the ah sound? Pull that one down next to it. And we're talking about, you know, we're building words from left to right. And then the t t sound, bring down that, it's the t bring it down, and then we have it in the very bottom of our tray. We have built the word mat. Um, so then um we want to switch between the encoding and the decoding. So um my cue next could be we're gonna change mat to sat. So now they have to think, okay, there were three sounds, m at, and she said s at. You know, where in that word did the sound change? And then I've got to put that sound away and then think about okay, now there was a s what letter spells the s. So then they bring the s the s down. So that has changed it to an encoding process. So then my next prompt, um, I usually go back and forth between encoding and decoding. So my next prompt is gonna be, okay, now we're gonna put the S away and we just say goodbye, S. And then I'll say, now we're gonna get a new letter and we're gonna bring down an F and they'll say hello F. So then now they have to, you know, distinguish which letters and F, pull it down in the same spot that they just took the letter from. And at that point, we'll put our finger under the first letter in the word and I'll count them down one, two, three, and then they'll read the word together. So now we're decoding. So then I'll swap back to encoding and I'll say, okay, now change that word is fat, now change it to fit. And so now they have to think again, okay, where did that sound change? Did it change in the beginning, middle, or end? And then they think, okay, wait, that one's in the middle. So I'm gonna put that letter away and think about um fit, you know, i, it's an i. I've got to find the i and bring it down. And then we just change it back between encoding and decoding. And you know, now change um the uh the F to an S, and then we have sit, and then we're going to say add um change sit to lit. So we're just going back and forth between encoding and decoding. And it doesn't have to be, you know, everything doesn't have to be that exact pattern. You can encode a couple, decode a couple. Um, but there is a benefit to switching back and forth, you know, and then you can even, you know, to end it up, say, okay, now we're gonna add an S at the beginning of the word, then put your finger under that first letter, and then one, two, three, and then we decode it. So we've gone back and forth between encoding and decoding. The reason um I like to go back and forth is um when you think about the power of interleaving. So we could just practice a bunch of decoding and then a bunch of encoding, but if we're going back and forth, that um, you know, science of learning, the interleaving practice has um, even though it seems counterintuitive to us sometimes, you know, we think we need this big chunk of practice, but it has actually shown that it um interleaved practice is more durable and more flexible. So I like that for my students. Um, we do this with so much feedback at the beginning of the year. My tray is under the document camera. They are watching every letter. If they're not certain which letters and sounds, like I will help them be successful. Um, we pound and sound every word together at the beginning of the year just to really increase that success. And we're really segmenting and blending all of those words while we're doing it. But as they build their knowledge throughout the year, then I pull my teacher voice back and reduce some of that scaffolding. And then I do have 24 students. Um, had 26 last year, so that's a lot of little people to be watching for accuracy and to give feedback. I do, I'm fortunate to have an aide in my classroom during this um phonics chunk time. So we have 12 students that were just quickly scanning to make sure that they have got the letters correct and then giving them the appropriate feedback, like um, okay, look at your middle sound again, or you know, that um, you know, maybe if they because if they do get mixed up then and you continue on the chain, it gets really difficult to get back up. So we just want to help them with that feedback too. But the routine does speed up. And, you know, at this time of the year, we are just building words so quickly. And at that point, I can even add a little bit of maybe vocabulary or context. Like we were building the word shin the other day as we're learning about the SH. And I could quickly say, okay, everyone, build the word shin and then hurry and point to your shin. And then, okay, now change that to a p, and then we're on to another word. So that is a quick summary of how we do it in my classroom.

Lori

Thank you so much for that. It's so helpful to hear you explain it and also to think about that scaffolding over the course of time. I loved how you elaborated on that. Now, you said that you only change one thing at a time, right? And I heard you say that. If it was uh fit to sit, it was that first um, and if it was um, you know, sit. I I'm I can't even think of an example. If it was, I don't know, give me a medial one. Fit to sat. Thank you. And when you're on the spot, it's very hard to come up with it. So when you're planning a word chain, how do you decide what kind of changes to build in? You know, do how do you think about this? Do you think about doing first sounds first or mixing in those medial sounds or the ending sounds, or you know, the final sounds? Um, I'd love to hear just your thoughts around how you intentionally plan for these word chainings.

Anjanette McNeely

So I'm

How To Plan Chains That Work

Anjanette McNeely

really lucky because the program I use has the word chains already embedded in it. Um, but there's some there's some ways to build word chains that could be helpful if you're gonna have to build them yourself. So, and in the program, it includes word chains that are um at the phoneme level. And they start with just that first sound in the word. And the so those are kind of the easiest for kids. So if you have a student who's struggling, just changing that first sound in and out. And you can also use them like at a at a targeted level where you're focusing on a single sound. So if you've just taught the short I, you might want to build one where all the words in that chain have the i sound in the middle of it, or I guess even at the beginning, because you could start with i, it, and then add an s and then sit. But you want to, you know, really have that one prominent skill focused. And then you can also build them with mixed focus so that you've um you might be focusing on the um short you sound, and but you also want to remind the students and kind of review the short I that you've worked on. So you might start with something like sun, so you've got the short you, go to fun, and then go to fin and bin, so that you're pulling back in the short I and then go back to bun so that you're just continually reviewing those.

Lori

Yeah, so you're creating those opportunities for interleaving within. I love that. So intentional. And it's actually, I feel like, you know, fairly easy to do and get that interleaving practice woven within fair. I mean, I want to say easy, but intentionally, right? With intentionality.

Anjanette McNeely

Yeah, just requires some prior planning.

Melissa

Yes. Yeah. Sorry, I was just thinking that, you know, at the beginning of kindergarten, I'm sure you're a lot more limited because they're just starting to learn all of those, right? So you probably do start with a lot of the same ones over and over again. Um, whereas by the end of kindergarten, I'm sure you have a lot more flexibility to go back and do that interleaving with so many things that they've learned. Yes.

Lori

Yeah, and I'd love to hear a little bit more, Antoinette. Like, what does this look like in terms of structure? I know you mentioned that you have uh an aid in your classroom, which is amazing. So you have an extra set of hands to help, but like how long do you do this for? How often? Is it daily? Um, you know, and and is it whole group? Is it small group? Is it both? Like, give us the nitty-gritty details here.

Anjanette McNeely

So um it is every um other day. So it's twice a week that we use it, a whole class. I think that this routine really benefits um all students as they're learning phonic skills. Most phonic skills, there's a few that don't really fit best with this. Um, for advance, like a soft C, soft G, you know, maybe a word sort would fit better, or some um suffixes, like think about a like a suffix Y at the end of the word. Um, maybe they would want to focus more on um, you know, words that are nouns and changing them to adjectives by adding that why. So it's not perfect for everything, but it does work for many, many of our phonic skills. Um, so we use it whole class. And then if students are struggling either with the routine, they just need more practice on like how to pull the letters down and put them back up. We did have to do a lot of explicit instruction at the beginning, beginning of the year about how to use these letters, you know, how to manage them as a tool and not a toy. And so if they're struggling even with the routine, or if they're struggling with a sound, then in small groups, then we do more word chaining. So if the if the small groups pulled back because they're struggling with the short A sound, then I can pull another word chain that has the short A sound in it. Or if they just need practice with multiple different graphemes, you know, I can pull a word chain that pulls in as many of those as I can and just continually review them. And they just more practice really does benefit those students and it's really efficient. Because my goal in our whole group is to do at least 10 words in six minutes. So we just it's really a routine that kind of has a rhythm to it. And if we get into that rhythm, they can build a lot of words quickly, which really um, you know, pushes that um the opportunity for them to orthographically map those words.

Lori

Oh, I love that. Just that boom, boom, boom, time on task. 10 words, six minutes. Like go. I love that. How did you think of that time? Is that something you where you read something?

Anjanette McNeely

Yes, that's recommended in our in our phonics lessons. That's how much time to get through our phonics lessons in a 30-minute block. So sometimes we do more, sometimes we do um less, depending. But um, the goal is to try to even get through 15. But, you know, every day we want to get through 10 of those words. If it's a skill that they've been struggling on a little bit more, then I'll I'll put more, we'll do more words. If it's something that they're really fluent with already, we'll might do a few less words and spend more time on something else in the lesson.

Melissa

All right,

Phonemic Awareness Plus Phonics Together

Melissa

Anneette. So, you know, I'm thinking about this right now, and this sounds like there's phonemic awareness happening here, right? There's you said segmenting, you said blending, that's phonemic awareness. But, you know, they're using these letters right from in kindergarten. They have those letters right in front of them, which that screams to me, this is phonics. And I mean, I already know that they you can do both at the same time. But I want you to talk a little bit about how this word chaining really does help with um phonics and phonemic awareness.

Anjanette McNeely

So, one quote that really has helped me understand um, you know, phonics and phonemic awareness and where they intersect is something that Dr. Holly Lane, who's the director of the University of Florida Literacy Institute, has said. She said, phonemic awareness is the mental capacity to attend to and manipulate speech sound. Any instruction that promotes the development of that mental capacity is phonemic awareness instruction. If it includes letters, it is also phonics instruction, but it is still phonemic awareness instruction. In fact, it's more effective phonemic awareness instruction. So, one thing about word chaining is that I consider it a best bet routine, meaning that as I make my instructional choices, this one is likely to have strong outcomes. It's a best bet because it's an efficient way to get them encoding and decoding and it's integrating the phonics and phonemic awareness. So that is one of the reasons why um word chaining is like an important part of my phonics routine.

Melissa

I love that label of a best bet, best bet routine. I love it. We're stealing it, Lori. That's what I was just gonna say. We're stealing it. I think I stole it from um Sean Morrissey.

Anjanette McNeely

So I'll have to give him credit.

Melissa

Well, we love Sean Morrissey, so we'll we'll give him credit too.

Anjanette McNeely

It's also a great way to um see students who are struggling quickly and easily because as I'm circulating the room, we were just working um on building the word thin, and I'm watching students spell it with an F. So right then I know, you know, which student is having a struggle with that, who am I gonna target with additional instruction? So there I don't know.

Lori

What word was that again?

Anjanette McNeely

Thin.

Lori

And then I heard you say fin in my head, it like in my earphones because it was very close.

Melissa

Yeah. Yeah. So we're talking T-H-I-N versus F I F-I-N. And that's something that's hearing that difference.

Anjanette McNeely

Yes, and students struggle with that a lot. And so you might not understand that in the speech, but you do when you see them building the words.

Lori

And then, Anginette, what I'm hearing you say is if you needed to clarify that, would you I and not clarify, but extend that, um, you could provide opportunities to connect to meaning, correct?

Anjanette McNeely

Yes, and then we could practice more um TH sounds, make sure that their mouth is in the correct position because the and the are ones that that small young students struggle with a lot.

Melissa

Yep.

Lori

And if you were listening, what Anne Jeanette did was she just pointed to her mouth and made the fff sound and then the fff sound, which don't come over very well on audio. So hopefully you can hear all these.

Melissa

Anginette, do you use any tools for that, like sound wall picture cards or mirrors or anything like that to help? Or do you literally just point to your mouth because that's also helpful? Yeah.

Anjanette McNeely

We do have a sound wall. Um, we do we use mirrors a little bit at the beginning of the year and and can pull them out um whenever students need it. But most of the time, if we just point to our mouth and talk about those, the our the articular articulate I'm not saying that one word.

Lori

Articulatory gestures.

Anjanette McNeely

Yes. Yeah. Point to your mouth and talk about those gestures. You know, we're putting both our our teeth on the tongue or we're putting our cheese on our lip.

Melissa

I was gonna say it's it's good if it's like you really need those tools, but if you're in the moment and you just need to do it, your mouth's right there.

Anjanette McNeely

So Yes. And I find that there's kindergarten students who who don't who realize that there are two different sounds because they've just been, you know, the th sound has been done with the the F sound their whole lives.

Lori

Like they themselves have been making that sound as a substitute for the correct sound. Yes. Okay.

Anjanette McNeely

Yes, which is um, according to my speech language pathologist, you know, the th sound doesn't necessarily get fully in place until maybe age seven, but we can continually be working on it because it will start to affect their reading and spelling at this point.

Melissa

That's so fascinating.

Lori

I know that is the thing that I think is really interesting. I know this is a little sidebar, but about when those um sounds really form correctly or or they anticipate them to form like at the time. How does like how does that affect reading development early on? Like I I imagine it's a barrier.

Anjanette McNeely

Yeah, it can be because they're you know reading the words incorrectly, which means they're linking them to meaning incorrectly and they don't understand the the difference between those. And then it comes out in their spelling too.

Melissa

Speaking of those three things that you just mentioned, you mentioned spelling. You mentioned the sounds, you mentioned the meaning. And you mentioned

Orthographic Mapping Made Practical

Melissa

orthographic mapping earlier. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that because this might be new to some people too. Like, how does how does this word teaming help with that orthographic mapping?

Anjanette McNeely

So the orthographic mapping is they're going to be linking the sounds and the phonemes, the graphemes, and the meaning together. So think about when they're moving these letters and then thinking about, you know, which sound does it make and putting them in an order and then reading the words. Like all of the key components to orthographic mapping are in there. I think Linnea Airy, when she talks about it, she says orthographic mapping occurs when students decode words, which that's right there in the word chaining. When they study the graphing phoneme relationships in the spellings of words, which is exactly what we're doing in word chaining. And even when they simply look at spelling and hear it pronounced. So even at the beginning of the year, if they can't blend the word, and I'm still pointing to it and blending the word and they're just hearing it. So all of those things are helping them just activate their knowledge of those graphemes and phonemes and connecting it to the pronunciations, which is the conditions that create the orthographic mapping.

Melissa

Yeah, which is why, you know, again, there's this like idea out there, I say it all the time, but that phonemic awareness means that you do it without letters. Um, but if you are doing it always without letters, then you know, you're missing that connection. You're missing that chance for the orthographic mapping, which is how students learn to read.

Lori

All right. So, Anginette, I'm thinking about, you know, other routines in addition to word chaining. And, you know, word chaining is certainly powerful, but there are other routines as well that I want to get into a little bit. So, how does word chaining fit alongside routines like dictation or sound boxes, right? Um, and do you see them as separate activities or are these complementary and multi-purpose together?

Anjanette McNeely

So, word chaining can be done with soundboxes. So, if you want to build sound boxes and do your chaining within that, um we do our dictation at a different point in time in our lesson because I like having the students move the magnets because it takes out that one little um piece of cognitive load on letter formation, which can be difficult, especially at the beginning of kindergarten. So we're just just trying to build words quickly. So we do our dictation later, but you can do word chaining just with a whiteboard and a marker and just you know, write the words, erase the sound or letter that changes, and you know, fill it in and fix it. We do that when we're learning words that have two letters, like the word ball. We can't use our letter trace because we only have one letter L. So you could you know do um the handwriting piece and with the word chain. You don't have to use the letters. It just does remove some of that cognitive load.

Lori

Yeah. How do you think students struggle or are successful in different ways with either the letter tiles or the maybe writing the using the word chaining in a different way with writing?

Anjanette McNeely

I think it's just your purpose of what you want to have happen in that piece of your lesson. And so since the focus is on trying to build as many words to segment and decode as quickly as possible, I like the to having the the magnets. But then because also our our lesson includes dictation later on. So we do write the letters. Yeah, we write words, we write sentences. So I think both can be important parts of the of your phonics lesson.

Lori

Yeah, that's really smart. So just going back to that purpose. Yep. Um, and how do you support like continuous blending within like word chaining? And also,

Continuous Blending That Prevents Guessing

Lori

like you said, perhaps we're using other uh routines and we're using maybe sound boxes to support word chaining. How do you support continuous blending as you're using um these various routines?

Anjanette McNeely

So connected phonation or continuous blending, like was researched by Gonzalez and Ari, and it was published in 2021. And it's a really interesting study because they assign some kids this connected phonation so that when you are making the sound, you are connecting them. So it's mmm, you're hooking those sounds together. Then they um put some other um students in a group where it was segmented phonation, so it's mmm, ah, mm, with a break between each, and then they have to recode it man. And so they taught the two groups and with continuous sounds, which are easier to push together, but then they assessed them with both continuous and stop sounds and found that the students who had the connected phonation actually could read both types better than the students that had the segmented. So it even went over into the stop sounds. So they found that this um when you use the segmented phonation that students are having to try to delete a schwa and they also would forget a sound in the word, and it was usually the initial sound. So I have just um really, I call it um gently insisting that my students push the sounds together. We um I don't expect them to do it independently at the beginning of the year. Some of them are are more independent now. Um, but so I will just model a model, model, model. Sometimes as teachers, I think we underestimate how much modeling and practice we need. And I just insist that we connect those sounds together. Um, and then they get pretty good at like, you know, the VC word or the C V C word, then we'll throw another sound in and then model, model, model again. We even have a stuffed dragon that sits up on a shelf watching over our classroom. Um, it's called the decoding dragon. It's based on some work of Lynn Stone. And so the dragon is always watching to see if you are not guessing number one and if you are pushing those sounds together all the way through to the end of the word. And one of the biggest um benefits that I've seen in my classroom is that the nonsense word fluency, whole word red scores go up because they can blend through those words more efficiently than if they kind of move into the habit of, you know, saying each sound and then trying to recode it. And also all kindergarten and probably first grade teachers know the pain of a student who, you know, sounds out mm app, and then they look up you at you and go, Pat. And you're like that, how did you get to Pat, you know, from mm-ap. And so when they're continuously blending, it helps them hold on to all the sounds so they're they're more likely to come up with that same sound. So when we're starting the year, it's still we still recode the word, so it's mm map, map. So we still say the word after, but you're can you're just pushing those sounds together.

Lori

Yeah, I it does reduce that cognitive load, right? Students don't have to hold all of those sounds uh separately, they're blended together. I'm thinking of a word like mat used in the beginning. If I was continuous blending, mm at mat. And then the students are gonna say mat, right? But what you had said is that often students, if without the continuous blending, they delete that first sound, right? So if they're mm uh t they're likely what you're saying they're going to say is at and just look at you and smile, right?

Anjanette McNeely

At well, they actually in my this is only my personal experience, they'll hold on to that last sound and then guess a word that starts with it. You know, so if t with the end sound, I mean, it could come out turtle, because that's that's all to remember, especially if a student is struggling with working memory. But if you're connecting it, and even when you're using the stop sounds, if you use the body coda blending um so that you're pushing through those first two sounds, um, like so tap, you would push through tap and then add the p so that they're pushing through all the sounds and connecting as much as you can and with and not leaving gaps whenever you can.

Melissa

Anginette, can you explain that just a little bit more for people that might not understand? Because I know I had a little trouble with that at first too. I was like, yeah, but how do you do that if the like I can't hold that?

Lori

I can't hold it, doesn't I can't hold it out any longer. And you don't want them to think it the sound says tu. Right? Like I'm trying to do it emphatically for a podcast. Um so you know, we don't want T to say tu.

Anjanette McNeely

So what do we do? So when you talk, when you say body coda, so body is everything up to and including the vowel, and the coda is the final consonant or consonants. So if you're thinking tap, instead of saying t, a, you're gonna push the the t and the a together quickly. So it's ta and then so that you're you're reducing the chance that that schwa is gonna get in there.

Melissa

Right. So because you can't hold out that first sound, that that's where I got stuck. You just go right to that second sound where you can, right? Okay.

Anjanette McNeely

And just model and model, model, model that for students.

Melissa

Man, continuous blending, such a small little shift with such big impact. Yeah, definitely another best that.

Lori

So

Rethinking Oral Only Phonemic Awareness

Lori

I'm assuming, um, Anginette, that this wasn't always what you did, um, that perhaps you've had a shift throughout the years. Um, so what did phonemic awareness look like in your classroom, maybe before this? And what made you change course?

Anjanette McNeely

So in the past, um, I had used games from the Florida Center for Reading Research. Um, so we would use the phonemic awareness oral-only games. And then about mid-year, as they had learned some letters, um, then we would kind of start incorporating them as a combined phone phonics and phonemic awareness instruction. Um, then I was introduced to this idea that, you know, phonemic and awareness instruction could be done in the dark. So I started making sure that I kept including the oral only as I was teaching the other um skills, even through to the end of the year. And then my district bought an oral-only program that we used for 10 to 15 minutes a day. At that time, I was teaching half-day kindergarten. So the students weren't even at school for three hours a day. So every minute of instruction was like golden time. And I was um working at some highly impacted poverty schools. So students needed to accelerate their learning. And as more discussion came out about if oral only was the best approach for our students. I was listening to some different researchers, different ideas. And I thought, you know what, what do I lose if I pull this out? Because I'm starting to doubt how much of this students really need. And they do need to get it attached to print. So I checked my data and I decided to pull it out and then progress monitor and see what happened. And as I pulled it out, nothing dipped in my data, you know, not even the um phonemic awareness skills that we're assessing for in kindergarten. So then I knew that that wasn't having the kind of impact I needed it to have for my students. And I could use something like word chaining, or at that point in time, um I was using a lot of phoneme graphing mapping as well, because I was using a different um phonics program that wasn't as robust as the one I have now. But I didn't see this drop in my scores. And what I also was really wanting to integrate in that short amount of time is um really um solid handwriting instruction, which research supports, more vocabulary instruction, which research also supports. I mean, you know, trying to squeeze in maybe some syntax. So for me, it it, even though it was a small piece of time, it was a fun routine. Um, the kids seem to enjoy it. We spent way too much time in those bigger phonological awareness chunks that, you know, at one point in time we thought kind of maybe that was the continuum. But with more research, now we're we're it's not that we don't ever work on rhymes in my classroom. We do pound and sound, so they are discovering syllables, especially during our writing. But I just don't focus on like 15 different skills um in a oral-only routine anymore.

Melissa

Yeah, and you have me thinking because Lori and I just talked about this, I think it was just yesterday, where we said, you know, so often teachers are hearing like, oh, you know, this really great thing, like word chaining or a fluency routine or these you can do them just 10, 15 minutes a day. And it's like, but every teacher we talk to, the first thing they say is like, I don't have time for everything. Where do I fit this all in? It's like time is so precious. You gave a really extreme example with a half day, but even teachers with a full day are looking for that time. So, you know, for those who are maybe in favor of an oral-only time, like often say, well, it's only 10, 15 minutes, it's not that long. But I what I hear you saying, correct me if I'm wrong, is like if you can trade out that 10, 15 minutes for something that is not only teaching the same skills, but in a more efficient and more effective way, then why would we not? Did that sum it up for you?

Anjanette McNeely

It did. And I and you just we think about the reading rope. And as my understanding and knowledge has grown, the reading rope is weaving together. And so sometimes it's super convenient to think I'm gonna have these standalone times to teach all these things, but we also have to be thinking about how it is weaving together.

Lori

Yeah, and also just to kind of like stamp the time thing, right? 10 to 15 minutes of oral-only phonemic awareness versus without what you saw, which was much progress, um, versus what you said earlier. You said a fit you mentioned the idea of efficiency, right? You were like, I have to be really efficient. 10 to 15 words in six minutes. I wrote that down. Six. If you'd if we could swap, it's a third of the time. That's incredible, right? When we really think about efficiency, if we're really looking for that big header, the best bet routine, six minutes.

Melissa

And you're doing phonics and phonemic awareness in that time. It's a twofer. I was trying to think of a good word for it. A twofer is good. Getting the you're bang for your buck there. You are getting

Using Word Chaining Beyond Kindergarten

Melissa

it. All right, Angina, I want to ask you a question that we did not talk about. So if you don't have the answer for this, you just tell us. But you know, you're a kindergarten teacher and my son's in first grade. I can imagine this is really, really, really helpful for those grades. I'm wondering if you know, does it help after? I mean, maybe in second grade, I am sure a little bit too, but does it help for second grade and above as well? Um, maybe even for students who might be missing some of these skills when they get to those older grade levels?

Anjanette McNeely

Yeah, I think it was it's whenever you're wanting to master the phonic skills. So any any of those phonic skills that are going to fit well into a word chaining um thing. Because, you know, like we talked about earlier, there's some that might work better with the word sort or but um yes, I would agree that K-through 2, the word chaining is a really powerful routine. And anyone who has not um mastered some phonic skills, I've done some tutoring for older struggling readers, and we do word chaining in that as well, just to build that um power, powerful practice to set them up for that orthographic mapping.

Melissa

Yeah. Would you do it with multisyllabic words, or does that get too too lengthy?

Anjanette McNeely

I wouldn't do it with multi-syllabic words. I think there's probably better routines because you're breaking, you know, you're breaking up each syllable and then blending the syllables together.

Lori

Yeah, I mean, I'll there's so many schwas, I can't even imagine getting into that. Change this, change that. Oh the chaos.

Melissa

All right. So as we come to a close here, if you had one quick tip for teachers who are like, I want to try this tomorrow, or I want to make a change to my word chain routine. What are what is like some of the things you learned as you started implementing this that you would make sure teachers know to make it successful?

Anjanette McNeely

Um, so I would start with some good explicit instruction on um how you want your routine to go with the students, especially if you're gonna give them magnet letters. You would want them to kind of understand what um how you would want them to handle and move all of those things. That's an important piece that if we skip over the word chaining routine can kind of get um confusing and frustrating. So I wouldn't want somebody to not try it just because of that. So be explicit with your students about how it works, where the letters go, how you want them to pull the letters down. And then just find or create one list of words and script out how you're gonna switch back and forth, thinking about your encoding and your decoding. And then just try it. You just I'm before I had magnet boards, I just had strips of paper that were boxes, and I'd have the students write each of the letters we needed for that word chain in, and then we literally just tear them because there wasn't time to cut them, and then put them out in front of us, and then build those words back and forth with encoding and decoding. And it wasn't the most efficient because we could never find the letters because they weren't in alphabetical order, but but we but it worked and we did it. And so I would just say give it a try and see what you like that works well. If you need to see it modeled, there is a great um video on the YouFly YouTube site where they model the um word chaining with the encoding and the decoding. And while you're working on that routine, just um challenge yourself to try the connected phonation if it's not something that you have already done. It is just a little change that can have a big impact on your students. So model that connected phonation and keep modeling it until they start to be able to do that independently on their own.

Melissa

That's great. And that video that you mentioned, we'll put in our show notes so that everyone knows it's there. Um and also, Anjanette, I hope you don't mind. We were also planning to link the video of you in your classroom doing word chain so that people could see it as well, because it is really a lovely modeling of this of this routine. Is that okay?

Anjanette McNeely

Yeah. Yes. And my students love the word chaining. It's it's really fun. Like the oral-only phonemic awareness. Sometimes people think that routine's really fun, but word chaining can be really fun too.

Lori

Well, we are so glad that you came on to talk to us all about this very specific routine. And we can't wait to hear from all of the teachers out there who are trying it and you know, just hearing about how word chaining is changing their uh instruction in their classroom. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise and knowledge, Anginette.

Anjanette McNeely

No, thank you so much for having me. My journey has always been one little more piece of information from someone else, somewhere else, you know, some other teacher, some other researchers. So I'm happy to share anything that I can to help anyone else on their journey.

Melissa

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Melissa

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Lori

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