Inquiry Based & Explicit Teaching
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Smart Words is a word study program based on research that teaches students
HOW TO SPELL (the orthography of the English language) through
- Teaching the patterns and rules that govern the orthographic code.
- Basing spelling on the strategies and information discovered in word study.
- Presenting words, within the student’s memory span, which are grouped phono-graphically so information is systemically developed, stored and utilised.
- Teaching phonemic awareness and sound analysis throughout the program along with the required visual skills.
- Providing time and activities to practice the strategies and information for generalisation and transference to long term memory.
- Catering for different learning modalities and providing a detailed program for establishing strong foundation skills.
Smart Words is modelled on inquiry-based learning with the teacher guiding small groups of students in analysing and studying words.
The teacher guides the students in their learning through
- Encouraging them to search for patterns (sounds) in words.
- Identifying the frequency of use and positional frequency of a phonogram in a word.
- Discussing the multiple meanings some words may have.
- Determining the rules that are used within a word.
- Justifying the importance of the base word and the variety of extensions that can be applied including prefixes and suffixes.
- Discovering the history of the word.
- Learning at a common level of development and knowledge, within a group.