Fun Phonics Multi-Syllable WordBuilder
Multi-Syllable WordBuilder helps students decode two- and three-syllable words, while it builds the vocabulary skills necessary for comprehension. Like the Fun Phonics Kits I and II, it introduces new phonics skills in an orderly progression, and provides ample practice. Unlike the Fun Phonics materials for earlier grades, it includes sentence completion and definitions for each word.
The original, five-book series of the Multi-syllable WordBuilder is currently available. A revised version is currently under development and expected to be available for the 2010-2011 school year. This second edition will be produced in two formats, one suitable for tutoring sessions, and one suitable for group lessons.
The Multi-syllable WordBuilder consists of six books suitable for use in individual tutoring sessions. Each page of these books contains a word list for presentation to the student, with the facing page containing detailed instructional information and activities for the teacher. It is designed to be held upright, with the student reading the word lists and the teacher reading the presentational information.
Each teacher-page consists of: the list of words being presented on that page; a model presentation dialogue; a set of vocabulary building questions for those words; a set of reading comprehension sentences for those words; and optional activities which can add variety and interest to the lessons. Teachers should pick and choose among the vocabulary, comprehension and optional activities on each page.
For teaching groups of students, or for moving rapidly through review material, separate Words Lists are available for the WordBuilder series. Each student reading page of the tutorial book is represented on a single line of the Word Lists. Several pages of words from the tutorial book are displayed on each page of the Word Lists. The words on each page all follow the same phonic structure.
These Word Lists are ideal for use with groups of up to six students. When reading the Word Lists, each child in the group should have a copy of the Word List. When working with groups, the separate Word Lists serve as the student book and the teaching information and activities contained in the tutorial version of WordBuilder serve as the Teacher's Manual.
After children have been presented with the activities described in the tutorial Manual, one or two readings of each Word List is usually enough to teach a group of five or six poor readers to respond to the code signals in the words in that list. Following reading of the Word Lists, the teacher can include a limited number of the vocabulary and comprehension questions contained in the tutorial Manual, concentrating on words which will stretch the vocabulary but be within the comprehension level of the particular students. The words generally get progressively harder as one progresses down the page, allowing teachers to select materials suitable for a wide range of students.
For Whom is Multi-syllable WordBuilder Appropriate?
Multi-syllable WordBuilder continues and expands the skills learned in Fun Phonics Kits I and II. It reviews two-syllable phonic structures, and develops the ability to read words with more than two syllables. WordBuilder is useful for teaching poor readers in third grade or beyond, who can read most one-syllable and two-syllable words. It reviews two-syllable words with specific phonic structures, and then teaches children to read the three-syllable words with that structure. Because of this built-in review, second or third graders who have not mastered reading two-syllable words with all structures can be included in groups using WordBuilder. Older poor readers, who often resent learning to sound out “baby” words, find WordBuilder a grown-up way to learn the skills they missed earlier. It stretches vocabulary and comprehension skills by teaching decoding skills with a continuously expanding vocabulary. When students have successfully completed the WordBuilder books, if their listening comprehension skills are at the sixth- or seventh-grade level, they should be able to read successfully at a sixth- or seventh-grade level.
Overview of the Skills Taught
The Fun Phonics series relies on the strategy of carefully planned, step-by-step decoding instruction. WordBuilder provides many experiences reading words that require children to apply each new decoding skill, along with supportive vocabulary-building and comprehension activities. These decoding and comprehension activities need to be accompanied by time spent reading stories orally. The stories children read should usually be those they are also reading in their classrooms, so stories are not furnished in the Fun Phonics series.
In Fun Phonics programs, reading a large number of words on each word list is one of the major strategies for helping each child learn to sequence and blend the sounds and respond to each rule or code signal. In Fun Phonics, children do not learn a rule by memorizing the rule and then reading one or two examples to illustrate it. At the beginning of each lesson, they are told the rule and shown a few words that illustrate it. Then they learn to respond automatically to the new signals by reading many words on carefully organized word lists that illustrate the new rule. Gradually they learn to respond automatically to the new rule or new code signal. Although they may not always be able to recite the rules, they are able to read new words with these signals on other lists and in stories.
Kit I teaches the sounds for the letters, and how to sequence and blend these sounds to read and write one-syllable words, with particular emphasis on short vowel words. Kit II briefly reviews these Kit I skills, adding less common digraphs, longer and more difficult blends, and one and two-syllable words with long and short vowels, vowel-R, silent-E, and vowel teams. Multi-syllable WordBuilder reviews and builds upon these skills to teach the decoding of multi-syllable words.
