There Their They're

The day before someone wondered why we spell it THEIR instead of THIER. They shared how it is an exception to the I before E except after C spelling rule they had learnt in previous years. 

This wondering aroused quite a bit of curiosity so we used it today to continue exploring our question:

CAUSATION: Why are English words spelt the way they are?

We reflected by sharing what we had already discovered about this question and then I reminded them of the question that arose yesterday about the spelling of THEIR.

I wrote THERE    THEIR    and THEY'RE on the board and we did a turn-n-talk about what we knew about these three words.

We shared our understandings and this great question emerged:

If they are pronounced the same, why don't we just spell the the same way?

Some of us felt they need to be spelt differently because they have different meanings and so when we read we know the meaning.  - great!

We then looked at THERE and by already understanding it means a place or position or existing, we thought about other words that connect with it.

Eventually we discovered how THERE  WHERE and HERE all have HERE inside them.   This helped us to create a memory hook of how not to misspell where / were / we're.  If we remember HERE is in the word WHERE we won't mix them up.

We repeated this for THEIR and came back to our original question of why isn't it spelt THIER.  

Eventually we found the connection of THE in THEIR, THEM, THEY.

One student suggested a memory hook of THE person in THEIR could help us.  

Knowing that THEIR THEM THEY all have THE in them can help us to remember how to spell THEIR and it helps us understand why it isn't spelt THIER.

We used this understanding to see how if we understand DOES comes from the word DO then that memory hook can help us to not misspell it as DEOS.

When we looked at THEY'RE, our first theory was that the apostrophe replaces A letter.  We thought about this and then some students challenged us to think about WE WILL or WE SHALL; in these instances the apostrophe is actually replacing more than one letter.

We then had a scavenger hunt (below) examples of THERE THEIR THEY'RE in reading books and then students were encouraged to write wonderings they have about English spelling which we will examine later in the week. 

With many thanks to Pete Bowers for his amazing PD that taught me so much!  

Pete Bowers' Website

Enquiring into Prefixes

We began by discussing what we already knew about prefixes and then had a few minutes to create a list of as many prefixes we already knew.

After sharing our list with our partner, then tried to see if you knew the meanings of those prefixes.  Some of us could and others not.  This helped as a good, quick informal assessment of where we are at. 

Previously, I found prefixes that are used in both English and French.  I figure if they are also used in French then it would make it more interesting when they find possible connections with other languages.  Being a Latin language, I guessed they might make discoveries in the other latin languages (Italian, Portuguese, Spanish & Romanian).

The prefixes we had a choice of were: 

°  uni- 
°  auto -
°  bio -
°  sur -
°  anti - 
°  dis -  

The children chose a prefix they had an interest in enquiring into and thus our groups were formed. 


We used the Google slideshow (below) as a guide to structure our word enquiry.

Step 1:  Write as many words as you can that begin with that prefix as possible.

Step 2:   Look at the words.  Make a hypothesis of what you think the meaning of the

prefix is.

Step 3:  Use the WORD SEARCHER to find other words that begin with the prefix.

(Make sure it is a prefix)

Step 4 : Use etymology online to find the history, meaning and language connections

of the prefix.

Step 5:  Sort all your words into groups and explain the reason for the group.

Step 6:  Find out if other languages also use that prefix and record what you find with

examples.

Our prefix word enquiries:

We discussed this group's theory of SURF being a prefix or not.  If it was a prefix, we thought that F would have to be a base word which didn't make sense to us.  Another student shared that prefixes have meanings so that is another way we know if it is a prefix or not.   

Discussing theories like these that pop up help us all with our understandings. 

The following day, we reflected together on what we had discovered about prefixes:

After presenting our enquiries, we then made word sums by visiting other groups' word enquiry posters.   To do this, we noted what the meaning of the prefix was and then found a few words that group had created that we actually knew and then used different coloured textas to break the word up.

Sample: 

Prefixes Enquiry Google Slideshow

Enquiring into Base Words Procedure

We began by discussing what base words are. Then we shared our understandings of what affixes are: prefixes and suffixes and how and why we use them.

We then selected one of the base words we were interested in enquiring into and this formed groups. 


Here is a Google slideshow that took us through the steps of how to conduct our word enquiries:

Word Enquiry Steps


Our enquiries:

Sharing our enquiries with our classmates:

But why is it spelt with a silent K?  I told this group of our teacher at our school who was a passionate and knowledgeable word enquirer so they could ask her when they next see her in the corridor or on the playground.

They did and learnt that in old English, people used to pronounce the words with the K.   Eg, knife was pronounced as K-NIFE,  knight was pronounced as K-NIGHT etc   But as time went on, the pronunciation of those words changed,but not the spelling.

(They didn't find any connections with other languages so decided that the word mustn't be Latin-based or else we would probably find it in French, Spanish, Italian etc)

This group enquired into the base word GRAPH:

Their first attempt at creating a word matrix:

This group enquired into the base word STRUCT:

(Brainstorming words we know with the base word STRUCT in it.  It's important they write these on post it notes so that they can later put them into groups)

Their enquiry:

Their first attempt at a matrix:

Sharing their enquiries with their classmates:

Over the next few weeks, we used these matrixes as part of our home learning to build words using the base words.  Student-created home learning! :)

Connecting Word Enquiries with Units of Enquiry

To connect with our unit of inquiry exploring migration, we enquired into the base word MIGR.

Using our online etymolgy dictionary:  http://www.etymonline.com/ , we found out the meaning of MIGR was 'to wander or to move place'

We brainstormed as many words as we could think of in English that had the base word MIGR in them.

We then thought about other languages we knew that also used the base word MIGR.  It was amazing how many other languages we knew of that also used it:

As we were still new to word enquiries and what a spelling matrix is, we used these steps on the Google slideshow to structure our enquiry afterwards:

Word Enquiry: MIGR

Resources

Pete Bowers' amazing website: 

http://www.wordworkskingston.com/WordWorks/Home.html 





Where did English words come from?  (5 min TedTalk)

Why are English words spelt the way they are?

To begin our enquiry into our big question:

      CAUSATION:      Why are English words spelt they way they are?

we began with a post it note and jotted anything we knew about the question. We then shared our ideas with our table partners to find out their theories or understandings. 

To help extend their understanding, we jotted down words that have 1 syllable with our partner and then shared some of these as a whole class.  As I wrote some of their words on the board, I occasionally would say: 
" I wonder why this word is spelt like this?"
"I wonder why this word has two t's in it?"

We kept repeating this process for 2, 3 and 4 or more syllable words all the time encouraging the children to wonder why these words are spelt that way and connections they can see if the spelling of the words in all the columns we were generating.  (See below)

Looking at all the words, I then asked the children to share any connections they can see with the way those words were spelt.  

Some of our connections we made were:

° They all have vowels

° They are separated into sounds

   (Someone later expanded on this idea by suggesting they are separated by 

     syllables)

° They all have base words   

° Many have affixes added to them:  prefixes or suffixes

We identified prefixes we could find and then suffixes.

Suffixes we identified were:

AL,   ING,   ER,   ABLE,  ION,   S,   IAN,   LAND

Someone suggested the LY in BUTTERFLY was a suffix.  We debated about that 

and we then wondered whether FLY is a suffix of BUTTERFLY or not. Someone suggested it wasn't because BUTTERFLY is a compound word and we discussed what they are. Are compound words spelt because of meaning or sound?  Does BUTTER connect in meaning with BUTTERFLY? Is there ham in a HAMBURGER? Is a PINEAPPLE a type of APPLE? We felt this would be something interesting to discover- Why were compound words created and spelt in that way if they have no connection with the little words inside the words.

Such a great question to investigate!

We identified prefixes we could find in our words:

   SUPER,    A,    INTER,    PHOTO,   PRE

We wondered why the words BUTT, BOTTOM and BUTTERFLY all had 2 t's.

After this, we then wrote more on our post it note that showed what we knew now about: Why are English words spelt the way they are?

This helped us to expand upon our previous theories / knowledge.

A sample of how understanding expanded:

Whole class original and expanded theories / knowledge:

Some of our theories I know, aren't correct and that is perfectly alright.  I wouldn't expect them to be.  As we continue with our enquiries, we will reflect back on these and see what changes we want to make and how to expand on them further. 

We shared our understandings and also some wonderings we had about spelling in English:

Some great investigative questions emerged for future enquiries such as:

° Why do we need affixes?

° Does every word have a base word?

° Why do we have compound words?

° Are there any other reasons why English words are spelt they way they are?

° Are more words in English spelt because of sound or meaning?

° Why do some words have 3 or more different meanings / spelling such as chilly, chili and chilli?

From a pretty simple idea that was mostly generated with student ideas, we were able to come up with a really amazing and deep understanding of why English words are spelt the way they are.  

On top of this, the level of curiosity, excitement and pride in making discoveries was really high!

PS  After sharing this idea on Twitter, I was reminded that I had misspelt Canadian!   I showed the Twitter to my class and so we learnt how spelling IS an important skill to develop. :P