Chunking
Chunking is when you look at a word and divide it into familiar parts.
It may be finding the root word and then dividing it from the prefix or suffix to help decode the word.
For first time readers it is learning the see patterns and then adding a letter. One example is looking at the letters “an”.
1. The students learn to blend the sounds “an”
2. They then learn to add a beginning or ending sound to make a new word, such as “can”, or “any”.
For older students it may be looking at a word such as "bystander", and noting it is made up of “by” and “stand" with the suffix of “er”. They then connect the familiar words. Even as we teach the students that we are decoding words by chunking them, we can use the word "chunking" as an example: "chunk" and "ing" are “chunking” put together.
As the students work through this they will also see that words are made up of syllables.
Sample:
Another example of chunking is " family", which when chunked is fam- i- ly. Here the student is learning about syllables and decoding by syllables.
One free website for young children that will allow children to practice chunking is http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/an/load.htm. This website is also good for ESL students and some students with special needs.
