What are Word Chains?

To understand word chains, first think about sounds. Words are made of sounds. Letters are ‘pictures’ of the sounds in words.

• They are assembled like puzzle pieces or building blocks into various printed words.
• To create a word chain, create a list of words with only one sound difference between each word.
  For example:

cat, cut, cub, cob, rob, rub, sub, tub, tab, tap, top, etc.

• You can expand the word chain to include longer words.

stop, slop, slap, sleep, sleek, slick, slack, stack, slack, slam

• You can delete and insert sounds.

slam, Sam, sum, scum, scam, scamp, camp, cam, cram, cramp

     Using one sound change between words increases the awareness of sounds in words.
Seeing the sound changes in print teaches recognition of the consistency of the sound to letter ‘picture’ for the sounds.
Practicing writing the 'sounds' after comparing words with one sound change, helps recognition of the sound to phoneme and phonic rule patterns that apply.
For example, the 'final e rule' applies to words with long vowel sounds, and the -ck, -tch, and -dge letter patterns appear after short vowel sounds.

stick, slick, slim, slime, lime, like, lick, pick, pitch, patch
hedge, edge, ledge, lodge, dodge, dock, hock, Huck, hutch, such
teach, reach, roach, coach, catch, patch, pitch, rich, wretch, fetch

“Reading Sound Strategies” uses an outline for word study featuring word chains to develop awareness of sounds in words and letter patterns that follow the vowel tones based on phonic rules.

There are 160 word chains in "Reading Sound Strategies" based on the kinds of sounds [voiced sounds compared to voiceless sounds, short vowels compared to long vowels, etc.]. Students practice ‘tracking’ the sound changes, blending sounds, reading words, writing words, and reading and writing the words in sentence context.