Lower & Middle Schools
6565 Skyline Boulevard
Hillsborough, CA 94010
(650) 350 – 4600
Upper School
131 E. 28th Ave.
San Mateo, CA 94403
(650) 235 – 7100
THE
NUEVA
JOURNAL
SUMMER 2015
DESIGN THINKING & ENGINEERING
STRUCTURED WORD INQUIRY
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STRUCTURED WORD INQUIRY AT NUEVA | GRADE 1
HYPOTHESIZING <CARDIOVASCULAR>
First graders use SWI to discover the
morphology and etymology of the word
<cardiovascular>
One day last semester, Luke’s first graders returned from
P.E. with Zubin, where they were learning about the
cardiovascular system, and asked Luke if they could use
Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) to investigate the word
<cardiovascular>. Luke put the word on a pad of paper and
asked the students, “Do any of you know what this word
means, or have any ideas of what it might mean?”
Sean responded, “It means your heart tube and your heart.”
“That’s very descriptive,” Luke said. “What do you mean?”
“The stuff that brings the blood to your body” Sean replied.
This kind of discussion is the first step in SWI: forming the
initial hypothesis. While Sean spoke, Luke drew a heart and a
sketch of blood vessels next to the word <cardiovascular>.
Then he asked the class the following: “Do you guys have
any ideas of how to parse this word? Any theories about
elements in it? Do you have any idea of what the base in it
could be? Remember, this is just a hypothesis. You may have
no idea and that’s fine, or just looking at it you might have
some ideas.” Luke called on Ryan and asked him to spell the
possible base.
“C-A-R-D,” Ryan answered.
After establishing that <card> could be the base of the word,
Luke asked, “What do you think that base means?”
With this question, the class began the process of finding
meaning in orthography, or the conventional spelling
system of a language. Luke asked the class how the possible
base, <card>, seemed to be related to the whole word,
<cardiovascular>.
“It’s clearly related in the spelling,” he commented, “but is it
related in the meaning?”
“No,” several students answered.
Caleb made a conjecture: “I think the base is <cardio>.”
Luke asked Caleb to spell the word while Luke wrote <cardio>
on the board.
“And why do you think that, Caleb?” Luke asked.
“Because my dad is a doctor and he says ‘cardio’ a lot,”
Caleb replied, bringing his own life experience to bear on the
discussion.
The next step in the process of SWI is forming a word sum,
or providing a formalized hypothesis about a word’s possible
elements, in this case “cardio + vascular > cardiovascular.”
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For the first graders, knowing that the hypothesis isn’t sacred
but needs to be tested is a big deal. Luke’s students are most
excited when they find that they can disprove something.
With SWI, they practice writing and saying a word to
understand that spelling is made of morphological elements
as opposed to sounds.
After forming the word sum, the class looked up the word
<cardiovascular> in the Oxford English Dictionary and
found a reference to the word <cerebrovascular>. This new
word suggested a need to adjust the initial hypothesis that
<cardio> is the base of <cardiovascular>, since both words
contain the element <vascular>. An English word needs at
least one base, so looking at <cerebrovascular>, the students
knew that <vascular> could be a base because they were
seeing it in two places. Luke encouraged the formation of
a new hypothesis, suggesting that students test out new
theories, ideas, and suggestions.
Anton offered a thought on <vascular>: “I can prove that
<vascular> is the base.” He wrote “cardiovascular” on the
board, then added “cerebrovascular” under it as Luke and
the class looked on. “So these are the same,” he explained,
pointing at <vascular> in both words, “But these aren’t,” he
continued, pointing at <cerebro> and <cardio>.
“Luke, could you look up what other words end with
‘vascular’?” Anton asked.
Luke went to his computer and pulled up the Word Searcher,
a large, simple text searcher that uses a database of English
language words, for the class to follow along.
“Ah, isn’t that interesting. What did it come up with?” Luke
asked. There were only two results for the word search:
<vascular> and <cardiovascular>. The kids were so excited,
everyone began talking at once, and Luke had to remind them
to raise their hands. Several hands immediately shot up; Luke
called on Alex.
“So, ‘vascular’ is the base because if it were a suffix or prefix,
it wouldn’t be a word!” Alex exclaimed.
“Ding ding ding! OK, so, clearly that means some part of this
element here [<vascular>] has to be a base.”
The students adjusted their hypothesis based on their
learning. Caleb ventured into new territory: “I think it might
be a compound word, because if my dad was using the word
‘cardio,’ it couldn’t be a prefix on its own.”
The class reviewed the new hypothesis. Because “cardio” can
be used on its own, and because <vascular> must contain a
base, <cardiovascular> may be a compound word.
“Who can raise a hand and share what he means by
compound word? We talked about it in passing. Anna, what’s
a compound word?” Luke asked.
Anya presented another guess. “It might just be a shorter
way to say <cardiovascular>,” she noted. Luke explained that
<cardio> could be a “clip,” or a word that is more convenient
to shorten, such as the word <taxi>, which is shortened
from <taximeter>. The class next looked up the etymology
of <cardiovascular> to learn more about its meaning and
structure. Luke explained that the entry showed that the
word <cardio> originally derived from the Greek word
“cardi,” meaning heart. Because this element has a very
clear meaning, the class could feel confident in thinking of
this element as a base. The class also looked up <vascular>,
and found out that it comes from Latin. One mystery then
remained for the class to solve: What is the <o> doing there?
Why is this word spelled the way it is?
Luke explained that in Greek and Latin words, we can often
have compound words. Some words in English come fully
from Latin, some come fully from Greek, and occasionally
others can be mixed (a hybrid compound). When we make
compound words in English using bases from Greek and Latin,
there is often a connecting vowel, in this case an <o>. “Oh!”
the first graders exclaimed.
“So it is a compound word,” Caleb chimed in. Mystery solved!
“A word that’s made of two bases,” Anna responded. The
class began to reexamine the word <cardio> yet again.
STRUCTURED WORD INQUIRY BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
DISCOVERY AT HOME:
NUEVA FAMILIES AND STRUCTURED
WORD INQUIRY
Parents and siblings have been drawn into the excitement
and satisfaction that they see Nueva students getting from
Structured Word inquiry
Kelly Ishida Sloan saw this excitement firsthand when her
son was introduced to SWI in second grade. “I saw how it
sparked excitement in my son about how to understand
and read words,” she said. “He would come home abuzz
and eager to continue exploring the investigation of words
like antidisestablishmentarianism that he had started in
school with his class.” Wanting to further build on this kind of enthusiasm, Nueva
literacy specialist Gail Venable offered to teach a SWI primer
for Kelly and other parents like her, whose children were just
as excited as hers. Together they mapped out strategies for
extending the learning process at home as a family. Jennifer Tyler Lee also wanted to bring SWI into the home
after her son was introduced to it by his first-grade teacher,
Emily Mitchell. What began as investigation into word study
quickly morphed into a game at the family table. “It started
with a curious question that my son posed at dinner one
evening, ‘What is it called when a word is spelled the same
way, but has a different
meaning, like wind (that
which powers a sail) and
wind (to turn)?’ I didn’t
know the answer, so we
set out on an adventure
to find out together,” she
said.
Realizing the impact of
this kind of exploration,
Jennifer wanted to
spread the word about the power of SWI, so she incorporated
it into her own book, The 52 New Foods Challenge. In it,
Jennifer approaches the family meal as an opportunity for
creativity and exploration, including SWI activities. There
is a hunt for food-related homophones, like beet and beat
or chews and choose, as well as more challenging word
investigations of homographs like mint and buffet.
“Structured Word Inquiry transformed learning about
language into a game for my kids,” said Jennifer. “It was a
catalyst that led my whole family to look at language in an
entirely new way.”
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