Teaching Irregular Words

I was consulting in a classroom today where the teacher indicated that she was having difficulty teaching irregular sight words to her students. Because she couldn't locate her magnetic letters quickly, I told her about this and then sent it to her in an email rather than model the strategy for her. I thought there might be others out there who could use the information as well.

I have a book titled Instruction and Assessment for the Struggling Writer: Evidence Based Practice edited by Gary A. Troia (The Guilford Press: New York. 2009.) Chapter 10 was written by Louisa Moats who was one of the members of the National Reading Panel and a writer of the Common Core State Standards. Her chapter is "Teaching Spelling to Students with Language and Learning Disabilities." On page 279 she has 5 steps to teach irregular words.

1. Spell the word with letter tiles.
2. Ask students to say the letters and form an image of the word with their mental "cameras."
3. Turn over the tiles so that the letters are facing down. Ask students to identify the letters in 
     random order. Turn each tile right side up as a student names the letter.
4. Turn over the tiles and hide the letters again. Ask students to identify the letters in reverse
     order. Turn each tile right side up as a student names the letter.
5. Finally, ask students to spell the word correctly and write it from memory.

Follow this procedure with the same word for 2 or 3 days. It takes only a few minutes but can make a tremendous difference in the time it takes for the students to learn the "tricky" words.

I also like to use magnetic letters on metal stove burner covers. Each student in the small group is given their own set of letters for the target word to work with after the above steps were followed using teacher's set of letters. Everyone builds the word on their own "tray" and checks theirs with the teacher's. I then have them mix up the letters and pass  their "tray" to their neighbor. They  then unscramble the letters to spell the word again. I usually have them scramble, pass, and build the word 3 or 4 times to get the word set in their minds.

Hope this works for you and your students.