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How to Implement Words Their Way in Your Classroom

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How do you implement Words Their Way into a classroom? It is very simple. The first step is to give students the initial assessment: it is basically a spelling test. After you have given the spelling test, you use the score sheet to score student’s answers. The score sheet looks like this:



The column that your students miss the most (the ones I’ve circled) is the one where you being instruction. The column they fall under will determine what WTW book you will use. The books are: Letter Name-Alphabetic, Within Word Pattern, Syllables and Affixes, and Derrivational Relations. I have broken down the classroom instruction so that each day we are doing an activity with our Words Their Way sorts. Here is what my groups look like in the second grade classroom I’m mentoring. I’ve changed the names of the students for confidentiality purposes:

Short vowels: John, Sam, Jane, Sally, Audrey
Digraphs and Blends: Arron, Greg, Katie
Long vowels: Mary, Marlene, Josh, Nicole, Christina
Other vowel patterns: Eli
Syllables and affixes: James, Trey

**The score sheet will indicate which book to find each of these sorts. Look at the top row above short vowels, digraphs and blends, long vowels, etc. The row above this has the book title of each book: Letter Name/Alphabetic, Within Word Pattern, Syllables and Affixes, and Derrivational Relations.





Here are my activities for the week. Words Their Way takes about 15 minutes each day from the ELA block, so it is very simple to implement. The day it takes a bit longer is Fridays when you are assessing all your groups. To cut down on assessing time, you may choose to assess some of the advanced students every other week, or alternate assessing some groups one week and some groups another:

MONDAY: I briefly model to the class what each group’s word sort is, and what spelling pattern we are looking for. They receive their new word sort, cut their words, and put them in their baggies. If time allows, we sort our words once.
Below, you can see what the short a word sort looks like. As the sorts progress in difficulty, they don’t have pictures. This is one of the simplest sorts. They increase in difficulty according to the score sheet given in the initial assessment seen above. For the long a versus short a word sort, for example, students sort CVC short a words and CVCe long a words.




TUESDAY: Students sort the words on their own, following the teacher’s scaffolding from yesterday.

WEDNESDAY: Students sort with a partner that has the same sort as them.

THURSDAY: In pairs (preferably the ones from yesterday), students take turns testing each other on the words. To record their answers, students use their Words Their Way notebook. I tell them that one of them gets to be the teacher and say the words. The other one gets to be the student and writes the words. They check their answers, then they switch roles. Students LOVE this activity!


You can see some of my students above giving each other their spelling test.
FRIDAY: Students play words their way games while I pull WTW groups and assess each group.

Based on the Friday assessment, I determine whether to give that child a new word sort or have him practice the same words from this week.

If you are interested in independent work stations for your students that go along with the WTW spelling patterns, check out these products:

CVC short a

CVC short e

CVC short o

CVC short i

CVC short u

CVC Print n' Go Pack

Vowel Pairs ai/ay

Vowel Pairs ea/ee

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