79 Word Ladder
Isabelle Ritz
Strategy Overview
Word Ladder is where students replace one letter in a word, rearrange the letters in the word, add or take away a letter in a word to create a new word. This helps them practice different ending sounds and vowel sounds within a word. Furthermore, they can see the relationships between letters and their sounds within a word. This can also introduce them to new vocabulary words and helps create steppingstones between words and their pronunciation. This activity can be used in the classroom during small group, whole group, or as an independent activity once students have learned the process. Word ladders offer many benefits one being, “students must link graphemes to phonemes and analyze written letter structures within possible words, as they discover the next word” (Ray, 2024). This forces students to critically think about the letter order in a word.
Strategy in Action
The teacher will odel how word ladders work. The teacher will put a word up on the board. For example, “CAP” and say, “what word is this?” Students will say CAP. The teacher will change a vowel and say let’s sound out this word C-O-P. The teacher will ask what word this is. Students will say COP. Teacher will change an ending letter to T. The word will read COT. The teacher will have students sound it out and then say it together. The process can continue EX:
COT to DOT to POT
OR
Tack to sack to pack to packing, etc.
References
Ray, S. P. (2024, April 28). The benefits of utilizing word ladders to teach literacy skills – spelling, vocabulary, writing, fluency, comprehension. The Literacy Brain. https://theliteracybrain.com/2024/04/28/the-benefits-of-utilizing-word-ladders-to-teach-literacy-skills-spelling-vocabulary-writing-fluency-comprehension/
