The Word Bag

Playing the game:

Level 1 - Introduction for PreK and Kindergarten students

Decide on the base or word you want to work with for the lesson. Either have it written
on a piece of chart paper beforehand or write it out as you talk about the word with
students. For example, if the word is <play> you could spell out loud < p - l - ay >.
Emphasizing orally that <ay> is a digraph and that those letters are working together is
a critical seed to plant. Have children say the word aloud and feel for the phonemes in
the word. “Oh, I feel /p/ at the beginning of the word <play> and we write that with a
<p>. This letter here is <p>.” This is a wonderful avenue for teaching letter recognition
because children will repeat the letter names in this word several times over the course
of the game.

Ask students what this word means. You might also do this before you look at the
phoneme/grapheme relationships. It’s essential to anchor the group in the meaning of
the word because spelling is driven primarily by meaning. Solicit a variety of responses.
Young children are less likely to give a formal definition than to talk about the word in
context. This is a positive use of language. You can help them extend their oral
language by clarifying and building off their ideas. It can be helpful to create a
movement that captures the essence of the meaning of your word. Have students
come up with something meaningful to them. Or if you happen to know American Sign
Language you can teach them the sign.

Now it’s time for a student to draw a word from the word bag. Follow the directions
below for having students spell their word out loud. Once the word is spelled out and
recognized, students will use their analytical skills to determine if the word shares the
structure as the base. (Do <play> and <playing> sharing the same structure besides
any prefixes or suffixes?) They will also considering if they share the same essence of
meaning. (For example, <player> and <playground> don’t mean the same things, but
they both carry an essence of “playing.”) You can refer back to the hand movement to
see if both words fit that original sense and meaning.

For our youngest students, we have also implemented a third condition. A word pulled
from the bag or one suggested by a student needs to just be one word without any
spaces. When young students are still developing their concept of what makes a word,
they commonly suggest phrases like “play with me” or “I like playing.” As they learn to
look for word boundaries, they develop a deeper understanding of the conventions of
print.

You can play as long as students are engaged. You might work with three words and
return to the family later in the week. A word web holds rich opportunities for
continuing to make meaningful connections as students become aware of more
potential relatives. We often find that new related words just seem to “come up” in the
course of normal everyday activities, and this is met with much excitement by
students.

Level 2 - Playing with slightly older students (starting 1st or 2nd grade)

Have everyone sit in a circle on the floor. Invite a student to start by pulling a word card
from the bag. The student who pulls the card will look at it first. He or she will spell the
word out loud for the group (even if he/she can read the word). After spelling out the
word, if the student knows what the word says, he/she may read it out loud. Otherwise,
the student can show the word card to the group. Anyone who is able to may read the
word out loud. Remind students not to shout out someone else’s word before they’ve
shown it to the group (because everyone’s brain deserves thinking time).

This game has now become accessible for any child who knows at least some of their
alphabet letters. If a child doesn’t recognize < p > in the word < play >, this is a great
way to provide some individualized instruction in the moment.

Even students who are already confident readers should still spell the word out loud.
This attunes the brain to the actual structure of the word. Additionally, there are
assessment and learning benefits to this that will make more sense after you learn to
work with ‘word sums.’

Lay out the word cards in the center of the circle after each one is announced.
Students might start to have hypotheses for the base element (or the name of the word
family). When all the words have been chosen from the bag, you can take ideas from
the group. Use evidence from the collection of words to support or falsify each
hypothesis. Emphasize that falsifying a hypothesis is equally as important as identifying
the name of the family. That is the job of a scientist.

For example, a student might suggest that the name of the <play> family is <pla>
because they noticed that the word <plate> was in the bag, and ‘play’ and ‘plate’ both
share the string of letters <pla>. You could help them deepen their analysis by
questioning: “So what does <plate> mean? Do you think it shares a meaning with
<play>? Do ‘play’ and ‘plate’ have a strong meaning in common? You might play with a
plate, but does a ‘plate’ always mean ‘playing’? I also can’t think of any other words
where I would add <te> to change the meaning of a base.” The question, “What does
the word mean?” is the first question we ask in any word investigation.

Naturally students learn best when they are able to work through the evidence
themselves, creating their own path to understanding. But while this concept is still
new to them, it is okay to just tell them that two words do not share a base element.
Your input can be even seen as a part of the game in the sense that you are providing
clues to better understand how the rules work. “Great detective work, everyone, but I
can now tell you that these words don’t belong in the same family. See if that helps you
guide your next decisions.”

Later on in your studies, you all will learn how to look into a word’s etymology to find
evidence of whether or not two words share a historical root. This advanced level of the
meaning test, also known as the “root test,” provides the definitive evidence of a
word’s family of origin.

After students of any age play the Word Bag game a few times, they will begin to
understand how morphological word families work. They will become eager to share
potential words that they brainstorm themselves, once they know the base element
you’ll be working with. When asked if any PreK students could just “think of word in
their brain” that might belong in the word family, one boy said, “You mean like we’re
doing a Brain Bag?” You can allow the game and the conversations to take new
shapes to fit your classroom community.
First words Suffixing
play
Changes
plant
love

feel
bake

rain
run

build
create

cook stop

Other words
explore question

invent celebrate

sleep geography

friend grateful