How can we make phonics and spelling practice more engaging while helping students discover how words work? Making and Writing Words is an activity that gives students an opportunity to explore letters, sounds, spelling patterns, and word meanings through an active word study routine. Students use a limited set of letters to write words, beginning with shorter words and working toward a longer challenge word. Along the way, they identify patterns, sort words into categories, and apply their discoveries to new words.
In this article, you’ll learn what Making and Writing Words is, how it connects reading and spelling, and how to plan and teach a lesson in your classroom. You’ll also find ideas for extending the activity with word sorts, transfer words, and sentence writing.
Making and Writing Words (MWW) is a word study activity in which students use a set of letters to write a sequence of words with teacher guidance. The activity begins with shorter words and progresses toward a challenge word that uses all the available letters. Teachers provide words, clues, and prompts that encourage students to think about letter-sound relationships, spelling patterns, and word meanings.
MWW is a written variation of Making Words, an activity developed by Pat and Jim Cunningham. In the original activity, students manipulate individual letter cards or tiles to construct words. In MWW, students write the words on a prepared form instead. This variation offers a simpler way to manage the activity while keeping the focus on word construction and discovery.
The goal is to help students understand how words are built rather than simply memorize a list of spellings. As students write and examine words, they begin to notice patterns, recognize smaller words within larger ones, and see how changing the order of letters can create a different word.
One of the strengths of MWW is that it brings together two essential literacy skills: decoding and encoding.
During an MWW lesson, students listen to a word or clue, determine which letters they need, and write the word. They then read the words they have created, compare their spelling patterns, and discuss what they notice. These steps give students opportunities to practice both decoding and encoding while developing their understanding of how the English writing system works.
For example, students might compare words that share several letters but differ in their arrangement or vowel patterns. They may discover that a small word appears inside a longer word or that two words belong to the same word family. A word family is a group of words that share a common spelling pattern, such as cat, hat, and sat.
The learning continues when students sort their words into categories and use selected words in sentences. These activities connect phonics and spelling to vocabulary, reading, and writing.
In a classroom study I conducted with MWW, students began applying word knowledge beyond the MWW lesson. For example, one student used a familiar word to figure out an unfamiliar word during guided reading. Other students noticed spelling patterns during writing and recognized words from lessons during read-alouds. These observations illustrate how word study can support students as they encounter words in different contexts.
A successful MWW lesson begins with a clear learning focus. Choose the spelling pattern or word feature you want students to explore, then plan the activity around a challenge word. Follow these steps.
Decide what you want students to notice. You might focus on a word family, a consonant blend, a digraph, a vowel pattern, or a particular letter combination.
Next, select a challenge word that includes the letters and patterns you want students to explore. The challenge word should use all the letters provided for the activity.
Consider students' current word knowledge, interests, and classroom learning when selecting your word. In our classroom study, we used quarters as a challenge word because it highlighted the qu spelling pattern and connected to students' learning about coins in math.
Make a list of shorter words that can be formed from the letters in your challenge word. Arrange them so students move from simpler words toward more challenging ones.
Choose words that reinforce your learning focus. Include familiar words that help students get started, along with examples that encourage them to notice patterns or think about how letter order affects spelling.
Check that each word uses only the available letters and does not use any letter more times than it appears in the challenge word.
Plan how you will guide students through the word-building process. You can pronounce a word, describe its meaning, or offer a clue about its spelling.
For example, you might say
These are illustrative prompts. Choose clues that fit the actual words in your lesson.
Encourage students to explain their thinking rather than simply wait for the next answer. Questions such as “Which letters helped you figure out the word?" and "What do you notice about these two words?" can help students make connections.
Transfer words are new words that students work out using patterns or principles explored during the original activity. They help students apply their learning beyond the initial word list.
For example, after studying a consonant blend, students might try reading or spelling a new word containing that blend. Ask them to explain which pattern helped them figure out the word.
For an added challenge, students could work with transfer words such as trust, start, and quarrel after building the initial word list around quarters. Encourage students to explain how their earlier work helped them determine the spelling of the new words.
Plan how students will revisit their words after constructing them. Choose sorting categories that reinforce the lesson's learning focus, such as words with a shared spelling pattern, words with a particular sound, or words with similar meanings.
Finish by having students select several words and write sentences. This final step connects word recognition and spelling to vocabulary and written language.
Let's look at how these ideas come together in a classroom lesson.
The following example is based on the quarters lesson from a study conducted with second graders using MWW (2005). Our original study documents the challenge word and several transfer words. The teacher prompts below are suggested examples rather than a reproduction of the complete original word sequence.
Write the letters from quarters on the board or display them on a Making and Writing Words form. Identify the vowels and consonants with students.
Explain that students will use these letters to write a series of words. Each word must be made from the available letters, using each letter no more times than it appears in the original set.
Present one word at a time, beginning with shorter words and progressing toward more challenging ones. Students write each word in the appropriate space on their forms.
For example, using the letters in quarters, students might progress from shorter words to longer words, such as at, rat, rate, rates, and quarter. This progression gives students opportunities to explore how letters can be rearranged and combined to form different words.
Offer clues as needed, and give students time to think before revealing a word. As they work, ask questions such as
Encourage students to read each word aloud and compare it with words they have already written.
Invite students to use all the available letters to discover quarters. Give them time to experiment before offering additional clues.
Once students identify the word, discuss how they recognized it. Draw attention to the qu spelling pattern and connect the word to quarters as coins if students are studying money in math.
Next, invite students to apply their learning to new words. In the original classroom study, students explored trust, start, and quarrel as transfer words.
Ask students to explain how their knowledge of letters and spelling patterns helped them work out each word. This conversation helps make their thinking visible and reinforces the idea that word knowledge can be applied to unfamiliar words.
Before ending the lesson, ask students to share one pattern they noticed or one word they found interesting.
You might ask, "What did you learn about how words are spelled?" or "How could this pattern help you read another word?"
These brief reflections encourage students to recognize the strategies they can use during future reading and writing activities.
Once students have built their words, help them examine those words in new ways. Word sorts and sentence writing extend the activity beyond the initial word list and give students additional opportunities to apply what they have learned.
Choose one or two categories that match your lesson objective.
Ask students to explain why each word belongs in a particular category. You can also invite them to suggest their own sorting rules once they understand the task. Focus students' attention on both the structure and meaning of words. This gives teachers an opportunity to connect phonics and spelling with vocabulary and language development.
Have students select three words from their word list and write a sentence using each one.
To extend the activity, invite students to use two words in the same sentence, explain a word's meaning in context, or write a sentence using a transfer word. Sentence writing helps students move beyond constructing individual words and begin using them in meaningful language.
Making and Writing Words can be adapted to students' needs by adjusting the challenge word, the length of the word list, the complexity of the spelling patterns, and the amount of teacher support. Start with familiar words and clear clues, then introduce more complex patterns as students gain confidence. Invite students to explain their thinking, suggest additional word categories, and apply their discoveries to new words.
Classroom research on MWW has shown promising results for word recognition and students' ability to apply word knowledge during reading and writing. But the larger lesson is that word study can be so much more than memorizing spelling lists. When students actively build, read, sort, and write words, they have opportunities to explore the patterns that connect letters, sounds, and meanings. Making and Writing Words offers teachers a practical way to bring that exploration into everyday literacy instruction. Ready to try Making and Writing Words with your students? Download the free Making and Writing Words template to get started.
[1] Rasinski, T. (1999). Making and Writing Words. Reading Online. International Reading Association.
[2] Rasinski, T., & Oswald, R. (2005). Making and Writing Words: Constructivist word learning in a second-grade classroom. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 21(2), 151–163. https://doi.org/10.1080/10573560590915950