Megawords: Advancing Word Knowledge for Comprehension is a unique series of workbooks that reinforce reading, spelling, and vocabulary skills. The series consists of eight books that can be used for grades four through twelve. The student book and the teacher’s guide are required for each level. Rather than being grade specific, each book focuses on particular types of word elements as follows:
- Megawords 1: Syllable types and syllabication rules
- Megawords 2: Prefixes and suffixes, plurals, spelling generalizations for adding suffixes
- Megawords 3: the schwa sound and accent patterns
- Megawords 4: Advanced suffixes and accent patterns
- Megawords 5: vowel combinations and vowels sounds made with y
- Megawords 6: consonant sounds: digraphs, soft c and g, and vowel-r combinations; accent patterns
- Megawords 7: consonant sounds: digraphs, soft c and g, and vowel-r combinations; accent patterns
- Megawords 8: assimilate prefixes (e.g., com, ad, sub, ob, and ex) and accent patterns
The series is designed to help students move beyond basic decoding skills so they can read and understand words they will encounter in their academic studies. It builds a strong phonetic base by focusing on phonograms and common word elements. Students can begin in whichever book best addresses their needs.
The series should be helpful for remediation, but it should also be used with students who have learned to read by sight and lack the phonetic base to decode complex words and to properly encode words to spell them correctly.
Each book has from four to eight lengthy word lists with several lessons for each list, and the books vary in length from about 80 to 140 pages. Each list concentrates on one broad category of word components. For instance, the first list in Megawords 5 works on vowel combinations with the letter o. Words on this list are categorized under seven heading such as “ow, oa =/ō/ and ou = /ǝ/.” Some words under the first category are approach, borrow, charcoal, and cocoa. Under the second heading are words like enormous, famous, and nervous.
The word lists are numbered consecutively throughout the series, with Megawords 1 presenting lists number 1 through 8, Megawords 2 presenting lists 9 through 14, and so on up through Megawords 8, which presents lists 39 through 44. Each word list is followed by up to 18 Practice Pages that are “numbered” with letters of the alphabet.
The series is intended to be used in a diagnostic/prescriptive fashion to differentiate instruction to suit each student, so the first thing to do is figure out which book should be the student’s starting place. The Assessment of Decoding and Encoding Skills is a 21-page book to be used for that purpose. However, most homeschooling parents are likely to think it too expensive, and if parents are familiar enough with their student’s reading and spelling skills, they can identify the correct book to use from the titles and descriptions above. Each book also has a Check Test to be used as a pre-test for only that book. (The same test will be used as a post-test.) The Check Tests might determine your starting point within a book, and some Practice Pages might be skipped if a student demonstrates proficiency in either reading or spelling the pertinent words. Recording forms for the skills taught are included in both the student workbook and the teacher’s guide. However, instructions for using the Check Test and forms are only in the teacher’s guide.
Each Practice Page works on a particular skill, such as 26F in Megawords 5 where the objective states: “Students will isolate, pronounce, and spell syllables that are parts of list words.” Other objectives focus on skills such as spelling and writing of words, pronunciation, reading fluency, reading with expression, applying accent patterns, pairing words with definitions, identifying prefixes, and working with reading passages. The types of activities vary depending upon the words lists and objectives. The many practice exercises help develop the fluency and proficiency required for academic success.
You can view some sample words lists and pages from teacher’s guides if you scroll down to Resources on this page. You can also see some sample student pages on the Megawords Product Brochure.
Summary
Megawords should be most helpful for students who are below level in reading or spelling, as well as those who struggle with reading and spelling words encountered in academic vocabulary. Using this targeted approach should help students improve their skills without having to work through complete courses.
