Unlock The List: Turning Spelling Lists into an Engaging Activity
What if you could get your students to approach each week’s spelling word list with eagerness and anticipation, ready to dive into the word study focus and strengthen their spelling skills?
Introducing a new Words Their Way aligned word list activity—Unlock the List! This innovative activity transforms your basic word lists and word sorts into engaging puzzles for students to solve, designed to ignite their problem-solving brains and enhance their spelling skills!
With Unlock the List, students encounter their weekly spelling word list in a whole new format and level of challenge. I've added a twist to the traditional approach by presenting students’ spelling sort list with missing letters, challenging them to "unlock the list" by filling in the blanks. It's a fun challenge based on letter patterns and word parts that will have them eagerly diving into their upcoming word study focus.
Read below for all the details and to see how UTL can best be incorporated into your word study routine!
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What is Unlock The List?
🪄 Unlock the List is an activity where students are given their word list with vowels, consonants, word parts, or word patterns removed. Students review the word list to see which words they can “unlock” or “crack” to discover the words on their word list and therefore the concept being studied. As students “unlock” words, they will see those spelling patterns or word study concepts repeated in other words on the list.
🪄 Each Unlock the List activity has a related clip art on the page. Students can use this as a clue to one of their words, helping them to unlock other similar words in the list!
🪄 The UTL activity sheet prompts students to identify the focus of the word list after they have unlocked a majority of the words. This can be attempted independently or saved for discussion during your small group.
🪄 Unlock the List is not meant to be an activity that students work on until finished--but to provide an entry activity for ENGAGING students’ word study skills and knowledge of spelling patterns in the English language.
WHere do the wordS in Unlock the list come from?
I use Words Their Way sort books so the words in my Unlock the List resource are directly aligned with the sorts found in Letter Name-Alphabetic Spellers, Within Word Pattern Spellers, Syllables & Affixes Spellers, and Derivational Relations Spellers sort books (3rd Edition). However, these lists can absolutely be used to complement any word study or spelling program.
Where Does Unlock The List Fit in a Word Study Routine?
I’ve always suggested using Discovery Word Searches to launch students’ new word lists on the first day of their word study rotations. In Discovery Word Searches, students search for words in the word search without having a list of words to refer to, and therefore “discover” their word list.
Unlock the List could:
replace Discovery Word Searches as an activity in your students’ word study rotation
come before or after Discovery Word Searches: If Unlock the List is completed before Discovery Word Searches, students get a preview of the words that can be found in their word searches; if UTL is assigned after the word search activity, students will do less “unlocking” of their word list and more “fill-in-the-blank” as the word search will have provided a preview of the words in their UTL activity.
be paired alongside Discovery Word Searches, acting as a word list for students. As students find words in the word search, they locate its fill-in-the-blank version on UTL and complete it. Students can also work in the other direction, observing word and letter patterns on the UTL sheet and searching for those letter sequences in the word search.
Other ways to use unlock the list
The beauty of the Unlock the List activity is that it is extremely versatile. First, it can be used with a small group of students or independently. More importantly, however, it can be used in a wide variety of settings depending on your students’ needs, how you have your word study block set up, and the goals you may have as you aim to increase the engagement and mastery during your word study time.
🪄 In a small group: Unlock the List is perfect to use during small group instruction. Students can work independently to begin solving for the words on the list prior to gathering or for the first few minutes of the small group meeting. Once many of the words have been "unlocked," bring students together as a group to discuss the patterns they notice and brainstorm what the word study focus might be for the new list of words. I recommend having students share the words they “solved” and sorting them on chart paper or a whiteboard as students share. If you are following Words Their Way, the lists include all the words students have on their corresponding word list.
🪄 In a word study center: This resource works well as part of students’ word study rotations or in a word study center because it can be used at any point in students’ word study sequence. For instance, you may want students to complete their Unlock the List prior to being exposed to their new word list, using the activity to activate their prior knowledge and engage them in getting ready to learn new word patterns or word study concepts. On the other hand, you may prefer to provide this resource to students after they have been working with their list of words for a few days as a fun strategy that gives them extra exposure and practice spelling their words.
Because centers easily lend themselves to differentiation, Unlock the List is a great addition to a word study program where students are assigned specific lists to solve based on where they are on the continuum of word study development.
🪄 Within whole group: If you plan to put these activities in a word study center, be sure to model "unlocking" a list of words in whole group to teach students how to use the activity and answer any questions students may have. Remember, just because you are using the resource in a whole group setting, doesn't mean everyone has to have the same list. You can still have “whole group” unlock the list time in a differentiated manner based on students’ word study levels and the small groups they are assigned to. You’ll just want to make sure you’ve made enough copies of the various lists you will need!
Pulling this activity out when you find yourself with extra, unscheduled time or as a class reward is also a fun “whole group” option! Even better if you can display a list on an interactive whiteboard and work together as a class to solve.
🪄 Assign for homework: Unlock the List can be used as an activity to send home with students as students are actively involved in solving the words as well as generalizing the word study patterns they see within their word list. Again, it can be used to "prime" students before meeting with them in a small group or as an informal check-in during the week, providing them another opportunity to see and work with their word lists.
helpful Tips to keep in mind
As you consider what will work best for you and your students, keep these things in mind.
Some fill-in-the-blanks have multiple possibilities for creating correctly spelled words when the blanks are filled in.
For example, _ate could be mate, late, date, rate, hate, or gate. If students come up with words that are spelled correctly, but are not the exact word intended by the list, praise them for coming up with words that work. Once you reveal the concept being studied with the word list, ask students if they want to make any changes to their answers. In addition, you can ask, “Does the word you discovered fit in with our word list?” In the example above, the concept is “Words Beginning with T, G, N, and P” so in that case, only gate fits. However, if the topic of the word list was “Words with Long A,” all of the options fit.
This is not an activity that students have to COMPLETE before discussing or finding value in it.
Words with missing letters can be challenging for many students. Unlock the List is meant to be a fun, engaging activity, either igniting students' interest as their first exposure to a word study concept or providing them with a supportive activity that helps them practice their words along the way. Best attempts at solving words should be celebrated! If students are stuck, encourage them to move on and try other ones.
If some students become overwhelmed and frustrated, don't hesitate to provide them with helpful clues or prompts or even help them fill in a few words. The goal is for students to have lots of opportunities to see and spell the words on their list, so don't get too bogged down on having students "unlock" an entire list before gathering them to talk about the word study focus, introduce the words on the word list, or provide them with support.
The missing letters in the words don’t always give away the pattern or focus of the word list.
Some of the word lists lend themselves to students being able to determine the focus of the word list based on the letters that were filled in. For example, when students are studying words that have various long E patterns, they should be able to make the connection easily once they begin to fill in the missing vowels. However, some word lists may contain missing vowels, but the word list focuses on a pattern or generalization related to consonants or another concept like compound words or contractions.
As students learn to identify the focus of the word list (which students are prompted to come up with on the bottom of the activity sheet), it’s important to bring this to their attention so that they consider the words and patterns holistically (not just the letters they are filling in) to come up with a reasonable idea for the focus of the word list.
Consider when and if it makes sense for students to determine the focus of the word list.
Keep an open mind about how you want to use the “focus of the word list” prompt at the bottom of each page so that it works best for your students. You may want students to just attempt to come up with an idea, you may want to make it optional, or you may want to ask students to leave it blank so that you can discuss it together during a small group meeting.
Remember, that some word study groups may be ready to tackle the generalizations, while others may need more support. If students are struggling and spending a lot of time and energy wracking their brains trying to figure out how all the words are related, it may be time to take the reins and provide direction instruction. You know your students best. Choose what will be most beneficial for them!
Oddball Words
These lists may include a few "oddballs," or words that are exceptions to the word study focus. Be sure to warn students about the possibility of oddballs so they don't get too confused when trying to determine the word study focus. Consider asking students to highlight or underline words that they suspect may be oddballs. These can be wonderful discussion starters in a small group! You may also find that students had difficulty “unlocking” a word because it was an oddball in the list.
Allow students to use a sheet protector and dry erase marker!
Allowing students to write with dry erase markers to try different letters and erase easily will lower the risk of being wrong on a word and increase fun and engagement for students. After having time with the sheet protector and dry erase, they can be directed to copy their work onto the sheet itself in pencil.
Have students use their list for word sorting!
Implementing word sorts into your classroom activities? Follow up Unlock the List by having students cut their words apart and sort them by sounds, letter patterns, and/or meaning.
If students made quite a few mistakes when “unlocking” their word list, be sure to have extra copies handy for any student who may need to start with a fresh word list before cutting the words apart.
Students can jot their sorts into word study notebooks or glue them to a sheet of paper.
In addition, word sorting can be valuable in helping students identify the focus of the word list, therefore, you could encourage students to complete a word sort in their word study notebooks if they are having trouble coming up with a concept or topic for a given word list. (This is also a step that you can build into students’ routines over time, after becoming comfortable with the Unlock the List activity itself.)
SHOP UNLOCK THE LIST!
Where to find?! You can purchase Unlock the List in my website store or on Teachers Pay Teachers. I’ve created these for all 4 levels of Words Their Way, including Letter Name-Alphabetic, Within Word Pattern, Syllables and Affixes, and Derivational Relations Spellers.