Michael Shanahan, Author at Word Cracking

-ic Endings Add ‘k’ Rule

This is a tricky spelling rule because you need to be familiar with a number of rules for it to make sense. When words end with -ic, and we add a vowel suffix that begins with e, i or y, we need to add a k. e.g. panic+ing becomes panicking. Preceding this, we recommend kids […]

St Peter’s Woodlands And Word Cracking

Why 96% of St Peters Woodlands year-one students perform at, or above, literacy benchmarks! Watch the Video and read on to discover exactly how St Peter’s Woodlands Grammar School transformed their literacy education by embedding the science of reading across the whole school, using explicit direct instruction principles and Word Cracker morphology resources and tools. […]

Sample Lesson -Suffix-s

The student(s) are introduced to the consonant suffix: Student(s) are also introduced to the terms: NOUN: A word for a person, place or thing. VERB: An action, doing or being word. SUFFIX: A letter or a group of letters added to the end of a base word, it changes the meaning slightly. For Playberry© students, this […]

Teaching morphology in the classroom

Word Cracker resources are built to be used to teach morphology no matter which scope and sequence a school use. However, the Word cracker includes a suggested progression and sequence for teaching morphology in the classroom. Our member’s section has detailed lesson suggestions that provide everything you need to explicitly teach important aspects of morphology […]

What is morphology?

Phonemes and graphemes If you have been teaching reading and spelling in line with evidence, then you’re familiar with the –emes; phonemes and graphemes that make up the –ology that we’ve all become very used to teaching, talking about and assessing – phonology! Phonology is non-by-passable stage of reading and spelling development, but we know […]