What is Word Work? Word work is the practice of working with words in some capacity. This can be working with a phonics pattern, memorizing sight words (also known as high-frequency words), looking at word families, producing rhyming words, practicing prefixes and suffixes and so much more.

What is the difference between word work and word study?

Teachers use a variety of hands-on activities, often called word work, to help students actively explore these layers of information. … The primary goal of word study is to support students’ development of a working knowledge of the orthography — knowledge that students can apply as they are reading and writing.

What is word work in balanced literacy?

Word work, or word study, is an important part of the balanced literacy approach to teaching reading. This is the time for the teacher to provide explicit, direct, and systematic teaching instruction on the foundation of the English language.