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=Word Family Reading=

Teaching reading to students who have cognitive disabilities can present a challenge, but is worthwhile. Most of the students with whom I've worked are very motivated to learn to read. They are especially eager when they feel that they are making progress and feel success while learning. Learning to read using word families gives students the opportunities that they need for practice. Learning the "rules" of reading is difficult. Let's face it, for every rule, there are a bunch of exceptions. Students with disabilities generally need repetitive practice in order to for skills and/or knowledge to be committed to long term memory.

This wiki contains many examples, at a variety of levels, of word family word lists. Each word family list is accompanied by a leveled story that contains each of the words on the lists. Students practice reading the words, first as words in isolation on the list ( one-minute drills), and then incorporated into a short story. Students are timed as they read the drill and the short story. Students are able to monitor their progress as they improve on the daily timings.

Information about word families: www.mrsalphabet.com/wordfamilies.html www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/wordfamilies/

Progress Monitoring
Monitoring the progress of students is an essential part of any curriculum. Progress monitoring a student's fluency can be done using any standard fluency measuring tool The daily stories should not be used. It is, however, interesting to compare a student's initial reading of a story to subsequent initial readings.

Benefits
Using word families to improve student reading is easy. Differentiation is simple. Several different reading levels can be accommodated simultaneously at one table. The readings and drills are done individually. While the teacher reads with a student, the others are busy with work that supports the learning of their word family.

Drawbacks
Because the reading is done one-to-one with each student, groups must be manageable. I have had up to seven students in a group and am able to complete the round, reading with each student and managing the others in an hour. As with any curriculum, this may not work with every student. This type of reading presupposes that the student knows the alphabet and is familiar with letter sounds.

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