April 5, 2025 • 14 mins
Is your child struggling with reading longer words? Or maybe you want to boost their vocabulary without drilling flashcards?
This week on Falling for Learning, we explore how recognizing word patterns—from simple three letter words to longer multi-syllabic words.
Give it a listen—you'll walk away with practical, easy-to-try strategies that support real literacy growth at any age.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts!
#FallingForLearning #LiteracyMatters #ParentTips #ReadingStrategies #WordStudy #PatternRecognition #MorphologyInAction #EarlyLiteracy #AdvancedReaders
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
TD Flenaugh (00:00):
Is your child struggling with reading, or are
(00:03):
you trying to expand theirvocabulary without doing a bunch
of flashcards? Well, today we'regoing to talk about word
families for early and advancedreaders. So you want to stick
around like and subscribe. Youdon't want to miss this episode.
You TD,hi, thank you so much for
(00:27):
joining the Falling for LearningPodcast. I am TD Flenaugh, we
have this podcast to helpparents and caregivers with
having the resources, strategiesand tools needed to make sure
that their children are on trackfor learning and to stay on
track for success.
(00:52):
Welcome. Okay, so today, let'stalk about word families. Now,
before we get into that, we'regoing to be talking about
recognizing patterns. So ofcourse, this is April, we have
Poetry Month, and I almostforgot about this, but I
recently went to a professionaldevelopment with my composing
(01:12):
and computing collaborativeright. Shout out to the
California writing project, andso I'm going to read the
housewife's lament, becauseobviously there's some rhyming
there and recognizing patternsreally important. I have not
been a housewife before, but Ijust thought this was it in, you
(01:34):
know, a poem that I could readone day I was walking. This is
by Eliza Sproat Turner, okay.
One day I was walking, I heard acomplaining and saw an old
woman, the picture of gloom. Shelooked at the mud on her
doorstep. TD, was raining, andthis was her song as she wielded
(01:54):
her broom. Okay, there's toomany hours we spend getting
ready. Days of Our Lives beenironing a shirt. There's nothing
that pays back time wastedalready, nothing that lasts but
trouble and dirt and march it somuddy and slush. In December,
the mid summer breezes areloaded with dust. In fall, the
(02:17):
leaves litter and clutterSeptember, the wallpaper rots
and the faucets all rest.
There's worms on the cherriesand slugs on the roses, ants in
the sugar and mice in the pies.
The spiders wreak havoc rightunder our noses. The roaches
disgust me and those flies. It'ssweeping at six, and it's
(02:42):
dusting at seven, breakfast ateight, and dishes at nine. It's
potting and panning from 10 to11, we scarce break our fast
till we plan how to dine. Andthe last part, last night in my
dreams, I was stranded foreveron a rock in the midst of the
sea. My one chance of life was aceaseless endeavor to sweep off
(03:06):
the waves as they swept over me.
But I wasn't dreaming, justrudely awakened. I see that it's
helpless my fate to avert shelay down her broom, she folded
her apron. She laid down anddied and was buried in dirt. I
don't know it's pretty dark, butanyway, recognizing patterns.
(03:32):
Okay, so we're going to get intoit. I do have a little thing
behind me because, of course,I'm going to take it to the
board. My like, little cheap,you know, a post it poster. So
we're gonna be talking aboutword families now, yes, it is a
little slanted, but I'm notabout perfection anymore. I'm
(03:53):
recovering. I'm gonna move on.
Okay, okay, so let's get to it.
Okay, so we're going to startwith very simple, right? Always
go from simple. I'm going to putthis here the word in so as we
are having our young readersbuild words in it, right? And
(04:17):
then we give them these littlepost its you could also do this
with magnetic or whatever, butthis is, like the poor person's
way to do this. And you know,shout out to one of the teachers
that I work with. She gave usthis little hack, and I love it.
So here we go, so we could havethem build families with this.
(04:40):
Of course, you want to do it alittle bit closer or whatever,
right? So would be in been,right? Then you can do in sin,
right? So. Uh, deep in and a lotof kids don't know what that
(05:05):
means. It's just like, soundslike, you know, there's a den, a
slight den, of diners inside ofthe restaurant, right? Then
sound okay. And then there isthin. And again, I, I, you know,
that's one of the tricks. Yougotta make sure you position it
right on here. F I N N, helpingthe kids to blend it,
(05:30):
recognizing this pattern, theycan make lots of words with
this. Now I'm going to start in,expanding so there is in. And
then, of course, you want to putat the end of it another sound.
So we go from a three letterword to a four letter word. In
this case, I want to do hint. SoI'm going to and you could ask
(05:54):
learners, what would I add tomake this word it's in hen. How
do you make it hint? Right? Andyou could ask them. They may
tell you, if they're ready, theywould add, they would tell you
the T or that sound right, sothey have the word hint. Okay,
let's take some of this downagain. Of course, you could have
(06:17):
the word tin right, just movingaround those just changing it
one letter at a time. Then wehave when. Now, sometimes when
we have words like this, kidswill bring up words that
actually aren't part of the wordfamily, like the word went, and
in that case, I'll write wentfor them and say, Oh, it sounds
like it, but it actually is not.
It doesn't follow the rules. Imean it follows a different set
(06:40):
of rules. The word is when, soit doesn't follow it, when it
doesn't go, I got confused.
Went, went, right, yeah. So youget you, you, they expand their
knowledge so don't you know,acknowledge what they're saying.
Like, Oh, that's, that's one ofthose other words, and it's and
(07:01):
it's not, and it's fine, youexplain it to them. So here we
go. I know I have 10. I'm goingto put T at the end again, int,
and I'm going to addf, l, Flint. Shout out to my
dad. Is one of his nicknamesFlint. And even if you want to
(07:26):
even expand it further, I'mgoing to do three letters in the
front sprint, right, so theyhave a six letter word, and kids
are feeling more confidentbecause they know this int, and
they're able just to add otherthings to it. I'm going to take
it off and then go back and justadd two letters in the front of
(07:49):
in, and we have spin in, okay,hmm, I'm going to go ahead and
again, add an H in front so wehave hen
(08:12):
hinters are Coming Apart, butit's fine. It's fine. Hint okay.
Then there is the GL, oh, well,let me do it at the L, you have
a lint, and some kids may saytent. So tent also works. But
(08:39):
they may be thinking about tintlike when you go camping, and
again you write it for them.
This is tint t, e n t forcamping. This tint is like hair
tint like I tinted my hair. Andthen there is also glint. Okay,
so these are all different waysthat you can build these words,
(08:59):
right, showing them how to buildit again. You could do it with
magnetic letters. This is just away to do this quickly and
easily to show you. And afterthe break, we're going to show
you a way to expand it witholder readers. All right. Stay
tuned for our sponsor, therewrite method and the rewrite
(09:27):
method workbook are your go toresource for helping kids to
learn to fall in love withwriting. It has the tips, tools,
resources, strategies and skillbuilding activities to help kids
(09:47):
fall out of writing and intoloving. To write, get your book
set to. Today.
(10:10):
Okay, we're back so we have someof those words written down that
we had earlier. Good. So we'renow going to talk about how we
could do this with more advancedwords. So I'm going to go to the
word form. So we're going tomake a little space here the
word form. So this is a moreadvanced word, knowing that the
(10:33):
or makes the or sound is, youknow, a little bit more
advanced, and then making multisyllabic words, words that have
multiple syllables to help them.
So, of course, we have the wordin so we could go ahead and take
that right away, and we can haveinform right, and explaining to
(10:53):
them what these different wordparts mean, right? We could also
have reformperform so now we have a three
syllable word, okay, so multipleways to make you know long
(11:21):
words. So again, I'm going to goback to inform, and then I'm
going to add Asian information,right? So we can get students to
in for May shun before syllableword, helping them to
understand, recognizing thesepatterns throughout is the very
(11:43):
key in helping them to sound outwords, letting them know what
the base of this word means, andthe suffixes, the suffixes will
go the end of the words and theprefixes, helping them To
understand, you know how torecognize those patterns and
sound out the words. You caneven make some some nonsense
(12:04):
words with the kids, as long asyou're teaching them the meaning
of the prefix and the suffixesand the base word is very easy
to help them to transfer theirinformation to many, many, many
different multi syllabic words.
(12:27):
So words with multiple syllableshow to recognize them and read
them, and then they can startusing it in a sentence, then
challenging them to write withit. So it gives them so many
limitless opportunities for themto build on one thing that they
know and to exponentiallyincrease their vocabulary, their
(12:50):
reading vocabulary, theirspeaking vocabulary, and even
how they're able to spell wordsor write them correctly. So
there's multiple things that youcan do when you're thinking
about word families, helpingstudents to recognize these
patterns and transfer them tothe text that they're reading
again. Testing season will becoming up very soon for certain
(13:12):
children, and we know we are notable to help. Teachers are not
able to help. Testing is onthem. It's them really soaring
or finding that they need theyhave a challenge in a certain
area with words that theyalready know and with the
knowledge they already know andable to apply it to new text,
(13:32):
new challenges that they haven'tseen before. So I appreciate you
for joining us today. Hopefullyyou're doing something today
that is giving your child thecompetitive advantage. Thanks
again for supporting the fallingfor learning podcast. New
Episodes go live every Saturdayat 5pm you can watch us on
(13:58):
youtube.com, at falling forlearning or listen on all major
podcast platforms such as Apple,Google, Audible, Spotify and
much more for more resources,visit falling in love with
learning.com. We reallyappreciate you. Have a wonderful
(14:18):
week.
Is your child struggling with reading, or are
(00:03):
you trying to expand theirvocabulary without doing a bunch
of flashcards? Well, today we'regoing to talk about word
families for early and advancedreaders. So you want to stick
around like and subscribe. Youdon't want to miss this episode.
You TD,hi, thank you so much for
(00:27):
joining the Falling for LearningPodcast. I am TD Flenaugh, we
have this podcast to helpparents and caregivers with
having the resources, strategiesand tools needed to make sure
that their children are on trackfor learning and to stay on
track for success.
(00:52):
Welcome. Okay, so today, let'stalk about word families. Now,
before we get into that, we'regoing to be talking about
recognizing patterns. So ofcourse, this is April, we have
Poetry Month, and I almostforgot about this, but I
recently went to a professionaldevelopment with my composing
(01:12):
and computing collaborativeright. Shout out to the
California writing project, andso I'm going to read the
housewife's lament, becauseobviously there's some rhyming
there and recognizing patternsreally important. I have not
been a housewife before, but Ijust thought this was it in, you
(01:34):
know, a poem that I could readone day I was walking. This is
by Eliza Sproat Turner, okay.
One day I was walking, I heard acomplaining and saw an old
woman, the picture of gloom. Shelooked at the mud on her
doorstep. TD, was raining, andthis was her song as she wielded
(01:54):
her broom. Okay, there's toomany hours we spend getting
ready. Days of Our Lives beenironing a shirt. There's nothing
that pays back time wastedalready, nothing that lasts but
trouble and dirt and march it somuddy and slush. In December,
the mid summer breezes areloaded with dust. In fall, the
(02:17):
leaves litter and clutterSeptember, the wallpaper rots
and the faucets all rest.
There's worms on the cherriesand slugs on the roses, ants in
the sugar and mice in the pies.
The spiders wreak havoc rightunder our noses. The roaches
disgust me and those flies. It'ssweeping at six, and it's
(02:42):
dusting at seven, breakfast ateight, and dishes at nine. It's
potting and panning from 10 to11, we scarce break our fast
till we plan how to dine. Andthe last part, last night in my
dreams, I was stranded foreveron a rock in the midst of the
sea. My one chance of life was aceaseless endeavor to sweep off
(03:06):
the waves as they swept over me.
But I wasn't dreaming, justrudely awakened. I see that it's
helpless my fate to avert shelay down her broom, she folded
her apron. She laid down anddied and was buried in dirt. I
don't know it's pretty dark, butanyway, recognizing patterns.
(03:32):
Okay, so we're going to get intoit. I do have a little thing
behind me because, of course,I'm going to take it to the
board. My like, little cheap,you know, a post it poster. So
we're gonna be talking aboutword families now, yes, it is a
little slanted, but I'm notabout perfection anymore. I'm
(03:53):
recovering. I'm gonna move on.
Okay, okay, so let's get to it.
Okay, so we're going to startwith very simple, right? Always
go from simple. I'm going to putthis here the word in so as we
are having our young readersbuild words in it, right? And
(04:17):
then we give them these littlepost its you could also do this
with magnetic or whatever, butthis is, like the poor person's
way to do this. And you know,shout out to one of the teachers
that I work with. She gave usthis little hack, and I love it.
So here we go, so we could havethem build families with this.
(04:40):
Of course, you want to do it alittle bit closer or whatever,
right? So would be in been,right? Then you can do in sin,
right? So. Uh, deep in and a lotof kids don't know what that
(05:05):
means. It's just like, soundslike, you know, there's a den, a
slight den, of diners inside ofthe restaurant, right? Then
sound okay. And then there isthin. And again, I, I, you know,
that's one of the tricks. Yougotta make sure you position it
right on here. F I N N, helpingthe kids to blend it,
(05:30):
recognizing this pattern, theycan make lots of words with
this. Now I'm going to start in,expanding so there is in. And
then, of course, you want to putat the end of it another sound.
So we go from a three letterword to a four letter word. In
this case, I want to do hint. SoI'm going to and you could ask
(05:54):
learners, what would I add tomake this word it's in hen. How
do you make it hint? Right? Andyou could ask them. They may
tell you, if they're ready, theywould add, they would tell you
the T or that sound right, sothey have the word hint. Okay,
let's take some of this downagain. Of course, you could have
(06:17):
the word tin right, just movingaround those just changing it
one letter at a time. Then wehave when. Now, sometimes when
we have words like this, kidswill bring up words that
actually aren't part of the wordfamily, like the word went, and
in that case, I'll write wentfor them and say, Oh, it sounds
like it, but it actually is not.
It doesn't follow the rules. Imean it follows a different set
(06:40):
of rules. The word is when, soit doesn't follow it, when it
doesn't go, I got confused.
Went, went, right, yeah. So youget you, you, they expand their
knowledge so don't you know,acknowledge what they're saying.
Like, Oh, that's, that's one ofthose other words, and it's and
(07:01):
it's not, and it's fine, youexplain it to them. So here we
go. I know I have 10. I'm goingto put T at the end again, int,
and I'm going to addf, l, Flint. Shout out to my
dad. Is one of his nicknamesFlint. And even if you want to
(07:26):
even expand it further, I'mgoing to do three letters in the
front sprint, right, so theyhave a six letter word, and kids
are feeling more confidentbecause they know this int, and
they're able just to add otherthings to it. I'm going to take
it off and then go back and justadd two letters in the front of
(07:49):
in, and we have spin in, okay,hmm, I'm going to go ahead and
again, add an H in front so wehave hen
(08:12):
hinters are Coming Apart, butit's fine. It's fine. Hint okay.
Then there is the GL, oh, well,let me do it at the L, you have
a lint, and some kids may saytent. So tent also works. But
(08:39):
they may be thinking about tintlike when you go camping, and
again you write it for them.
This is tint t, e n t forcamping. This tint is like hair
tint like I tinted my hair. Andthen there is also glint. Okay,
so these are all different waysthat you can build these words,
(08:59):
right, showing them how to buildit again. You could do it with
magnetic letters. This is just away to do this quickly and
easily to show you. And afterthe break, we're going to show
you a way to expand it witholder readers. All right. Stay
tuned for our sponsor, therewrite method and the rewrite
(09:27):
method workbook are your go toresource for helping kids to
learn to fall in love withwriting. It has the tips, tools,
resources, strategies and skillbuilding activities to help kids
(09:47):
fall out of writing and intoloving. To write, get your book
set to. Today.
(10:10):
Okay, we're back so we have someof those words written down that
we had earlier. Good. So we'renow going to talk about how we
could do this with more advancedwords. So I'm going to go to the
word form. So we're going tomake a little space here the
word form. So this is a moreadvanced word, knowing that the
(10:33):
or makes the or sound is, youknow, a little bit more
advanced, and then making multisyllabic words, words that have
multiple syllables to help them.
So, of course, we have the wordin so we could go ahead and take
that right away, and we can haveinform right, and explaining to
(10:53):
them what these different wordparts mean, right? We could also
have reformperform so now we have a three
syllable word, okay, so multipleways to make you know long
(11:21):
words. So again, I'm going to goback to inform, and then I'm
going to add Asian information,right? So we can get students to
in for May shun before syllableword, helping them to
understand, recognizing thesepatterns throughout is the very
(11:43):
key in helping them to sound outwords, letting them know what
the base of this word means, andthe suffixes, the suffixes will
go the end of the words and theprefixes, helping them To
understand, you know how torecognize those patterns and
sound out the words. You caneven make some some nonsense
(12:04):
words with the kids, as long asyou're teaching them the meaning
of the prefix and the suffixesand the base word is very easy
to help them to transfer theirinformation to many, many, many
different multi syllabic words.
(12:27):
So words with multiple syllableshow to recognize them and read
them, and then they can startusing it in a sentence, then
challenging them to write withit. So it gives them so many
limitless opportunities for themto build on one thing that they
know and to exponentiallyincrease their vocabulary, their
(12:50):
reading vocabulary, theirspeaking vocabulary, and even
how they're able to spell wordsor write them correctly. So
there's multiple things that youcan do when you're thinking
about word families, helpingstudents to recognize these
patterns and transfer them tothe text that they're reading
again. Testing season will becoming up very soon for certain
(13:12):
children, and we know we are notable to help. Teachers are not
able to help. Testing is onthem. It's them really soaring
or finding that they need theyhave a challenge in a certain
area with words that theyalready know and with the
knowledge they already know andable to apply it to new text,
(13:32):
new challenges that they haven'tseen before. So I appreciate you
for joining us today. Hopefullyyou're doing something today
that is giving your child thecompetitive advantage. Thanks
again for supporting the fallingfor learning podcast. New
Episodes go live every Saturdayat 5pm you can watch us on
(13:58):
youtube.com, at falling forlearning or listen on all major
podcast platforms such as Apple,Google, Audible, Spotify and
much more for more resources,visit falling in love with
learning.com. We reallyappreciate you. Have a wonderful
(14:18):
week.
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