We believe that the hands-on word sorting approach to word study is invaluable to you and your students.  Broaden your word study understanding and instruction with this expanded word sorting tool for week by week implementation with Letter Name-Alphabetic spellers (Grades K - 3).  This stage-specific companion volume to Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction provides a complete curriculum of reproducible sorts and detailed directions for the teacher working with students in the letter name-alphabetic stage of spelling. 

This second edition boasts

• Literature Connections making links between features being studies and valuable children’s literature
• Targeted Learners sections that clarify which students will benefit most from the instruction
• Spell Checks and other Assessments available more frequently throughout
• High Frequency Words receive special attention 

Responses from the field…

A strength of each chapter is the Notes for the Teacher section that introduces each set of sorts.  This reminds teachers about developmental appropriateness and pacing variations based on learner needs.  Clearly the gradual release of responsibility model of guided instruction is promoted and reinforced throughout the text.

Barbara Pettegrew, Otterbein College

Chapter layout is excellent.  Format is designed to include anything that might be needed for the lesson, and each takes you step by step through the process being taught, allowing time for students to internalize and firm up the skills and strategies.

Susan K. McCloskey, California State University, Fresno

Meet the Authors

• Francine Johnston is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she teaches reading, language arts, and children’s literature.  A former first-grade teacher and reading specialist.
• Marcia Invernizzi is Director of the McGuffey Reading Center at the University of Virginia exploring developmental universals in non-English orthographies.  A former English and reading teacher, Marcia works with children experiencing difficulties learning to read and write in intervention programs such as Virginia’s Early Intervention Reading Initiative and Book Buddies
• Donald Bear is Director of the E.L. Cord Foundation Center for Learning and Literacy at the University of Nevada, Reno, assessing and teaching students who experience difficulties learning to read and write.  A former preschool and elementary teacher, Donald currently researches literacy development with a special interest in students who speak languages other than English, and he partners with schools and districts to consider assessment and literacy instruction. 
• Shane Templeton is Foundation Professor of Literacy Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.  A former classroom teacher at the primary and secondary levels, he researches the development of orthographic and vocabulary knowledge.