How Structured Word Inquiry can help make sense of the English language and reduce cognitive load.

Have you seen comedians on social media showing how ridiculous the English language is when it comes to spelling?  They show a word like tomb and next a word like comb and expect that the words will sound the same.  It seems they should rhyme because they end the same.  Only the first letter is different.  But they do not rhyme. The comedian is demonstrating that English spelling just doesn’t make any sense. But Structured Word Inquiry shows how the English language does make sense and reduces cognitive load at the same time.

The reason this is so funny is that everyone can relate and it seems so true! English spelling can be frustrating and seem to have no rhyme or reason in many cases.

What most people don’t realize is that English spelling has more to do with the meaning of the word than the sounds of a word.  If we were to spell everything exactly as it sounded, we would have to spell the same word differently depending on whether you lived in Boston or Texas.  Now that would be confusing!

We teach children that each letter makes a sound (or more than one sound) and then teach them to sound out words.  The words that they generally encounter in 1^st and 2^nd grade conform to what we have taught them for the most part. Unintentionally we have taught them that letters should always behave the same way. But when they begin to try to read words with multiple syllables the confusion multiplies exponentially. Many children that seemed to be reading fine hit a wall when they enter 4^th grade and do not continue to advance in their reading skills.

Even when students are taught how to divide words into syllables some words are just hard to sound out. It is difficult to make sense of these words and if the student is not familiar with the word already it may be impossible.

With the short common words students are usually able to memorize the words and recognize them on sight but there is no way anyone could memorize all the words in the English language.  There must be a better way.  A way that makes sense out of the English language so that students can understand and not just remember.

I believe there is and it is called Structured Word Inquiry (SWI).  Structured word inquiry shows show words work – all words.  All words have a base word.  Sometimes that is all they have - just a base word.  And they can have prefixes and suffixes.  Some words have multiple prefixes and suffixes, but the “personality” of the word comes from the base. So you must understand the meaning of the base in order to understand the word.

There are 3 spelling rules that you must apply when adding suffixes. 

The rules are called

#1 the dropping rule,

#2 the doubling rule,

and #3 the change rule. 

We are not going to get into these rules in this blog.  The spelling of the base stays the same except for the suffixing spelling rules but the sounds in the word often change. 

Let’s look at an example.

The word “sign” is a base word.  It is a very interesting word because it has a silent g.  Everyone knows about silent e but why does the word sign have a silent g?  It seems so random.  But when you understand the word you know that it is not random and it is needed in this word.

Sign comes to English from the Latin word sign(um) which means “identifying mark, token, or symbol”.  It is a base word, and we can add a lot of different prefixes and suffixes to it to make a whole family of words that are related to sign. Here is a word matrix that will demonstrate what I mean.

See how many words you can make with this matrix.  All the words must contain the base word which is the bold word in the center.  You can add prefixes and suffixes across, but you cannot go up and down.  If you add a suffix that begins with a vowel to another suffix that ends with silent e you must drop the silent e(dropping rule). I am not going to write out all the words that can be made, but here are a few examples. 

de+sign-->design

de+sign+ate-->designate

de+sign+ate\+ion-->designation

sign+ate\+ure-->signature

Let’s talk about a few words in the sign family.

Did you notice that in “signal” and “signature” the g is making its sound?  The g makes it’s sound in several related words and that is why it must be included in all the words even if we do not hear it - to show that they mean the same thing.  They are all related and have the underlying meaning of “identifying mark, token, or symbol”. 

Did you also notice that the vowel in sign is long but not in signal? 

Think about the sound of the s in sign vs resign and design. 

Then think about the sound of t in designate vs designation vs signature.

English spelling is actually based more on meaning than on sounds! Both sound and meaning play a roll but meaning is more important when it comes to spelling. This is why we keep the silent g in sign and all the words in the family. All the words that have the same meaning have the same spelling of the base.

Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) draws attention to the base and focuses on the meaning of the word.  Students learn and collect prefixes and suffixes and learn how they behave consistently within words. 

Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) reduces cognitive load and has been shown to help students remember and grow their vocabulary words. Learn more about Structured Word Inquiry by listening to this podcast.

In my tutoring business I have begun to incorporate Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) into most of my lessons.  I am fascinated by it and becoming more of a word nerd every day - and hoping to turn my students into word nerds also!

Yes I still do phonics and make sure all my students know how to sound out words but I am also making sure they know how words work so that they are not afraid of longer words. Do you have a student that would benefit from this type of instruction?  Sign up for a free consultation today.