GED and Learning to Read- Word Famililies

It is now that time of year when you find yourself wondering what 2010 will bring. Will it be better than 2009 and will you find a job. Perhaps getting your GED is your goal and you are wondering if you will EVER finish it. Remember to keep thinking positive. The power of positive thinking is amazing and the worst thing you can do is fall into depression. If you think you are in a state of depression, seek help. Call your family doctor or a friend. Depression affects men and women of all ages, races, and economic levels.

Using word families is a great way to teach spelling, reading, and writing. Word families are words which have the same ending. This ending, such as “at” forms a chunk and learners learn the chunk and then add other sounds to it forming additional words.

One activity that I will often use involves starting with the base word family such as “at”. I write the word on a piece of paper or on a white board and have the learner say it. I then write it again and this time put a line in front of it for another word, one line for each missing letter. at, _ at

I then ask the learner to spell cat. As I say the word cat, I carefully pronounce the “c” and “at” sounds. The learner then says the word “cat” and writes it. Learners could also spell it orally to you. It is important that the learner reads, writes, and spells the words. You will be amazed at how fast they learn new words.

The learner will quickly catch on to this activity and I have found that they LOVE it.