Word Quest eBook

You will delve deep into the history of 111 words, exploring their Etymology, how the spelling stuck and fun snippets of their historical information, pronunciation, IPA translations, and morphology. The sheets present strategies for teachers/families to be able to confidently teach these words; their irregular and regular parts, multisensory structured learning strategies to remember how to spell these words (not memorise), parts of speech, example sentences, definitions, and single-word reading practice to build reading fluency.

What is an irregular word?
An irregular word is the name for a word that has uncommon spelling patterns, which a student may not have learned yet. Until they are taught these more complex letter-sound relationships (Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence - PGC), an irregular word can be confusing when sounded out (decoded). This is why we often don’t sound out an irregular word. We examine all its parts and discuss what may not make sense. Once looked at holistically, it is not unreasonable to attempt to sound out irregular words as their ‘trickier’ parts become less ‘irregular’ the more we learn about them and PGCs.

The term ‘irregular word’ may also be known as ‘red flag word’, ‘learned word’ or ‘heart word’. This is different from a ‘sight word’ and a ‘high-frequency word’.
The idea that many English words are ‘irregular’ and must be memorised is misleading!
Within the English language, only 4% of words are truly irregular, and most so-called ‘irregular’ words follow identifiable patterns when examined closely.
For instance, spellings like ‘gue’ in <league> appear consistently across multiple words, such as morgue, vague, tongue, vogue, Prague, dialogue, epilogue, synagogue, colleague. It now becomes clear that this spelling is teachable.
Another example is the ‘ei’ and the ‘pt’ in <receipt>. Is it an irregular word if the spellings are also found consistently in ceiling, protein, deceit, conceive, receive, weird, seize, plus pterodactyl, ptolemy, or ptosis?
Using careful judgement and considering a phoneme grapheme correspondence that appears in at least a dozen common words, it is revealed to educators that most words have explainable spelling. The key takeaway is that teaching and learning phonics, pattern recognition, morphology, and Etymology help us gain effective strategies even for decoding challenging words.
Rather than treating these words as exceptions, we should focus on highlighting and decoding their parts to support better literacy outcomes.

TIPS when working through this book:

• Work through each part of the sheet explicitly
• We don’t ask the student to “guess” what they think the word is
• Say the letter names. Do not sound out the letters in these words. They contain uncommon spellings, making a sound that the student may not have learned yet
• As you work through the sheets, remember it is “I do”, "we do", then “you do”
• Model, model, model. First, model your sentence using the word. Give multiple examples before asking them to demonstrate their sentence, especially if they do not have an understanding of the word's definition. Build vocab first by explicitly telling them: “This word means... Here is my sentence with it... Can you tell me your own sentence?”
• Use Multisensory Structured Literacy (MSL) practice

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