English Language Arts and Word Treatment

    As a literacy scholar and practitioner who is “addicted” to studying the dictionary, I find value in reading and learning about the structure of words. It is fascinating how I went from a non-reader to someone that studies the dictionary daily. In my last post on English Language Arts (ELA), I defined word treatment within the contexts of selecting and accessing a dictionary as an educational resource. 

    When reflecting on how the “structure of the English writing system includes word treatment, phoneme-grapheme correspondences, spelling, pattens and conventions of letter sequence, and morphology” (Moats, 2020; pg. 94), I keep this at the forefront of my lesson planning as it can provide the “why?” for many struggling readers. In addition, when analyzing words in the dictionary with teens or adults, I rarely expose them to sight (or one syllable) words, but rather complex and multisyllabic words. For instance, let’s take the word eukaryote, study it’s inter structure, and apply the content covered in Speech to Print.  

123RF (2022)

Word 

Phonetic transcription 

1stsound 

2ndsound 

3rdsound 

4thsound 

5thsound 

6thsound 

 

 

eukaryote

 

yü-ˈker-ē-ˌōt 

 

/ū/

 

/k/

 

/air/

 

/ē/

 

/ō/

 

/t/

 

e (silent)

In analyzing the word, there are a few points to discuss: 

·      The first sound it makes is the long /ū/, 

o   This spelling patterned is not only considered a vowel team, which “are combination of letters that correspond to a single vowel sound” (Moats, 2020; pg. 107), but also the 7th most common way to spell the sound /ū/ are with the letters eu. 

·      The second sound is /k/ 

·      The third sound is /air/ 

o   The second most common way to spell the sound /air/ are with the letters ar. This unit is defined as vowel-r (i.e., R-controlled) because the vowel sound is shaped by /r/. Moats also asserts on page 45 that “the combinations of /ar/ and /or/, however, are somewhat more ambiguous. As we say them, we can feel a slight separation of the vowel and the /r/. The overlapping or welding of the vowel and /r/...[and]…there is a clearly audible division between the vowel and /r/."

·      The 4th sound is the long /ē/ sound. 

o   The third most common way to spell that sound is with the letter y and the “letter y can represent one of three vowel sounds when it is used alone” Moats, 2020; pg. 109). 

·      The 5th sound is the long /ō/ sound. 

o   This spelling frequency of /ō/ is complexed as there are roughly 20,000 words that use that long /ō/ sound (i.e., bureau). 

·      The 6th sound is t.

·      The final letter e is silent. 

o   “silent e…a convention of spelling used as a pronunciation guide not for only for long vowels… [but]...to prevent words from looking like plurals” (Moats, 2020; pg. 104).  

After analyzing the word, we can determine there are six distinctive phonemes (i.e., sounds) and nine graphemes (i.e., letters) and the primary stress syllable is in ·​kar·​  

In the word itself, we notice various combining forms: Eu and Karyo, which are both defined in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed. Eu on page 430 is described as well and kary- or karyo- on page 682 as the nucleus of cell, which originated from Latin and Greek. Providing accessing to this type of linguistic knowledge aids students with the fundamental knowledge of decoding and encoding words and building from morphological units. Then students could see and hear other words with similar sounds and spelling patterns in the beginning (i.e., eucalypt), middle (i.e., heterokaryon), and end (i.e., prokaryote). 

As literacy scholars and practitioners, we need to align our work with the Science of Reading to provide our students the best access to linguistic knowledge. This knowledge is in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th edition. 

Until next time, 

Independence through Literacy Coaching Starts now!

Shawn Anthony Robinson PhD

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