How To: Look-Alike Words & Analysis

• Lesson Objective: Build fluency and accuracy through word mapping.

• Grouping:  Small-group

• Methodology:

  • Students independently read a curated word list with subtle differences. They must highlight at least one difference between each word.

  • Teacher plugs in to ensure students are actually decoding.

  • Option to have students hunt for phonological patterns.

• Duration: 10-15 minutes

  
  

"Compensators" Beware!

We all know our compensator readers—those students who’ve mastered every strategy except applying the alphabetic principle. They rely heavily on context clues, recognize the first and last letters, and pull from a strong bank of high-frequency words. While these strategies can carry them for a while, they’re not sustainable for fluent, accurate reading and spelling.

This blending routine, taken from David Kilpatrick's Equipped for Reading Success, is particularly effective for these students because it strengthens orthographic mapping—the process of anchoring sound-letter relationships in long-term memory. By focusing on words with only subtle differences, students are forced to analyze each letter and sound, rather than relying on guessing or context. This kind of deliberate practice builds the essential habit of attending to every letter-sound correspondence. Over time, it helps our compensators shift from surface-level strategies to the deep, automatic decoding skills that proficient readers rely on.

🖍 How the Routine Works

Sample Look-Alike Words & Analysis from the first unit.

Each student receives a Look-Alike Words & Analysis handout along with a highlighter. They work independently to highlight at least one difference between each pair of words, moving at their own pace. This quiet, focused work gives them a chance to attend closely to the details of each word.

It’s essential, though, to check in with every student at least once during the activity. I make a point to ask them to whisper-read a list aloud to me. Without this step, some students will only attend spelling differences—ignoring the grapheme-phoneme relationships entirely and skipping the blending process altogether.

I just love it when, deep into the school year, a student looks up and says, "Bruh—you want me to actually read this?" As if that hasn’t been the expectation all along. Sigh. The joys of teaching.

If time allows, I'll ask students to grab a different colored highlighter and highlight specific phonemes. For example: Highlight the graphemes that represent /ĕ/.

Check out the Interactive Unit Guides to see how this lesson fits within each unit. There, you’ll find links to the unit-specific Look Alike Words & Analysis. I build these for each unit to both review and target our current phonological patterns.