Stanley Teacher's Guide by Mona Voelkel

Teacher's/Reader's Guide by Mona Voelkel, NBCT

BOOK GUIDE with Literacy Links

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Synopsis Do you have a child who asks, "Why doesn't spelling make sense?" A student whose bad spelling cuts short their creative expression? That was Stanley. "I'm never writing again!" Stanley vows.

He crumples up his favorite dragon story and throws it into the trash. But a mysterious book hits him on the head and leads him into the Forest of Wild Words. There, Stanley learns that spelling is not all that hard. In this playful book, award-winning reading specialist Mona Voelkel shares the approach to spelling that has helped so many students gain confidence. Acclaimed artist Nancy Kincade's fanciful illustrations bring the Forest of Wild Words and its inhabitants vividly to life. Once you travel with Stanley on his adventure, spelling will never be the same.

What I Love About Stanley and the Wild Words When my students and I discovered that spelling makes sense, we were empowered beyond words.

It was so exciting to find answers to our questions about words through structured word investigations (Bowers, 2010) that we call Word Quests. To investigate a word, we ask 4 questions about a written word: 1. What is the word's meaning? 2. Who are its relatives? (etymology? 3. What is the structure? (morphology) 4. Pronunciation? (phonology)

Common Core English Language Arts Standards: CCSS.ElA-Literacy.RF.4.3.A Phonics/Word Recognition CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.2

I hope Stanley's journey makes you want to find answers to your own questions about words.

Discussion Questions/Activities Before Reading: Look at the book cover or view the .book trailer and complete a See/Think/Wonder activity. What do you predict a "wild word" is?

Describe your experiences with contests. Have they been a positive or negative experience? Why or why not? During Reading: Allow children ample time to study the illustrations. After Reading: How would you describe Stanley? Give evidence from the text to support your claim. How does Stanley change in the story? What causes Stanley to change?

Discussion Questions/Activities After Reading (continued) What surprised you most about this story?

Use the "Two Word" strategy or the "ColorSymbol-Image" strategy to reflect on your understanding of the story. Vocabulary/ Social-Emotional Learning: Looking at the cover and interior pages, hypothesize the emotion portrayed on Stanley and Pete's face and the faces of the Wild Words. Write each emotion on a separate index card.

Common Core English Language Arts Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY CCRA R.1 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY CCRA R.4 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY CCRA R.7 CCSS.ElA-Literacy.RF.4.3.A

Explore other Word Quests based on words from the story at www.monavoelkel.com

Discussion Questions/Activities

Movement: Select an "emotion" card from the previous activity. Ask students to act out the emotion or, with a partner, create a skit, and have others identify the emotion portrayed. Students could play (a variation of "4 Corners") "4 Wild Words." When the music stops, children run to a wild word corner and if that word is drawn out of the hat, everyone who ran to that corner is eliminated. Art: Groups of students can decide on a "wild word" or word family. Then, each student can create a letter or word, usimg the NORM family illustration as a mentor. Paste down all the words on butcher block paper and create your own, "Forest of Wild Words."

©Nancy Kincade 2022

Create a "Young You" illustration.

Discussion Questions/Activities

Writing: Select three "emotion" cards and write a story that includes all three of those emotions. Work individually or in partnerships to brainstorm, draft, revise, edit, and present your story. Students can write their own dragon story to "enter" into Stanley's teacher's writing contest. (See the flyer on the wall of page 3 of the story.) After investigating a word or word family. students can create their own " (Their Name) and the Wild Words" story with illustrations. Do a 7-minute QuickWrite about your best and worst experiences with spelling. Do you consider yourself a "good" or "bad" speller. Why?

ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.3 ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.10

Research some aspect of the history of the English language that interests you and share your findings.

Discussion Questions/Activities

Science/Stem: Read books about the science of linguistics here.

Music: Write a song for Stanley, Pete, and/or the Wild Words to sing before, during, or at the end of the story.

Extension: Go on your own Word Quest: With an teacher's help, investigate your questions about a word here.

Social-Emotional Learning Activities: Social-Emotional Learning: 1A. Have students identify Stanley's . emotions and how his actions related to his emotions. (Example: Stanley was feeling frustrated by the remarks about his spelling so he kicked the can.) 1A. Have students keep track of their emotions over the course of a day and record actions related to those emotions. 1C. What steps can Stanley now take towards his goal of becoming a better speller? 1C. Have students set an academic or personal goal and make a list of the steps they can take towards their goal. 2A. Write a letter to Stanley after he doesn't win the writing contest. What could you say to him that would validate his feelings and communicate understanding?

Can You Find... .

When you read this book, look for the fun things illustrator Nancy Kincade has hidden for you to discover: Cake Goldfish Rabbit Heart Letter L with stripes Cat Frog "Pat's" A sleeping letter Sailboat Whale Bird's nest Two angry letters standing together Squirrel lHow many little tiny shoes can you find? Name the expressions on each letter. How many times do you see the dragon pencil holder? Trumpet Basketball A stained glass window How many times do you see the red hat in the book?

Guest Literacy Expert: Mary Beth Steven .

Mary Beth Steven, administers the FB group, "Structured Word Inquiry in the Classroom." Visit her website at https://mbsteven.edublogs.org to sign up for her wonderful SWI and grammar classes and/or read her insightful blog. Mary Beth's post is reprinted with her permission, along with her additional thoughts for follow-up activities: "Your book lends itself well to the follow up activity of writing word sums and making a matrix ... and talking about portmanteau words and writing stories and looking for more 'norm' words at Word Searcher and noticing the prefixes and suffixes hanging in the tree (where have we seen them before?)!"

Guest Literacy Expert: Lisa Barnett

Lisa Barnett administers the FB group, "Structured Word Inquiry." Visit her website at https://www.seethebeautyindyslexia.com/elctutoring.html to sign up for her wonderful SWI classes, experienced tutoring, and/or read her informative blog. Lisa's post is reprinted with her permission, along with a link to the Jamboard she created with moveable morphemes and answer key.

Link to Jamboard (Make a Copy) here.

I hope you've enjoyed Stanley and the Wild Words! Contact me to book author visits, writing workshops, and spelling professional development events. Let's share the joy of reading together!

mona@monavoelkel.com www.monavoelkel.com Book Guide with Literacy Links, 2023

Bibliography/Resources Adoniou, Misty. (2019) “Literacy Leadership Brief: Teaching and Assessing Spelling.” International Literacy Association, https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/il a-teaching-and-assessing-spelling.pdf. Bowers, Pete. “Handouts for Spelling out Word Structure - Real Spellers.” WordWorks, http://www.files.realspellers.org/PetesFolder/resources/Handouts_for_spelling_out_word_structure.pdf. Retrieved June 24, 2022 Bowers, P. N., & Kirby, J. R. (2010, April 30). Effects of morphological instruction on vocabulary acquisition. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Retrieved December 18, 2021, from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ879800 Bowers, P. . “SWI Online Classes and Free Weekly Drop-ins (Various Dates 2018-2021), https://www.wordworkskingston.com/WordWorks/Home.html Bowers, Peter. Teaching How the Written Word Works: Using Morphological Problem-Solving to Develop Students' Language Skills & Engagement with the Written Word. WordWorks Literacy Centre, 2006/2009/2013. Cooke, G.. (2018). LEX Grapheme Cards, Third Edition. Ehri, L.C. The science of learning to read words: A case for systematic phonics instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(1), S45-S60. Special Issue: The Science of Reading: Supports, Critiques, and Questions. https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/rrq.334 Harper, D. (2001-2022). Etymonline - Online Etymology Dictionary. Etymology dictionary: Definition, meaning and word origins. Retrieved December 18, 2021, from https://www.etymonline.com/ Hegland, S. S. (2021). Beneath the Surface of Words. Learning About Spelling. Loveless, Rebecca blog and “SWI for Early Readers (Online Class)”. (Oct, 2020). Retrieved December 18, 2021, from https://rebeccaloveless.com/ Also, The High Frequency Word Project by Rebecca Loveless and Fiona Hamilton. Mrs. Steven's classroom blog and “Intro to SWI Online Class (Feb. 2018)”. Retrieved December 18, 2021, from https://mbsteven.edublogs.org/swi-class/ Ramsden, N. (2011-2013). Mini matrix-maker home page. Retrieved December 18, 2021, from http://www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/matrix/ Real Spelling Online Toolbox - Home. Retrieved December 18, 2021, from https://www.tbox2.online/ Real Spelling SuffixChecker © Real Spelling & Pascal Mira 2009 : https://www.realspellers.org/images/stories/docs/SuffixChecker-2009.pdf Templeton, S. (2020, October 19). International Literacy Association Hub. International Literacy Association (ILA). Retrieved January 6, 2022, from https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/trtr.1951 Venable, G. P. (2021). Backpocket Words: Sharing the Essence of English Spelling. OneMonkeyBooks.com. Venezky, Richard L. The American Way of Spelling: The Structure and Origins of American English Orthography. Guilford Press, 1999. ****I also recommend highly Patti Bottino-Bravo's "Fun with Phonetics" and advanced phonetics classes. Contact her for further information at speechteach28@gmail.com and Lisa Barnett’s “Structured Word Inquiry” Facebook Group , tutoring and classes.