Introduction to Structured Word Inquiry

Pete Bowers

Peter Bowers, Ph.D., is a teacher, researcher, author, and founder of WordWorks Literacy Centre. He taught elementary school for 10 years before earning his Ph.D. from the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University. Bowers’ research has investigated the effects of morphological instruction on literacy learning (spelling, vocabulary, reading). His meta-analysis (Bowers, Kirby & Deacon, 2010) was the first to show that younger and less able students gain the most from morphological instruction, a finding that has been corroborated by all subsequent meta-analyses. More broadly, his research and practical work with schools looks at the effect of teaching the interrelation of morphology, etymology and phonology. His research and practical work with students shows how English orthography works to mark meaningful connections between words, and how grapheme-phoneme correspondences can be understood in this wider context. Bowers and Kirby’s (2010) vocabulary intervention introduced the phrase “structured word inquiry” to describe this instruction. His workshops have taken him across Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, and North America were communities of educators are working together to refine instructional practice and continually push forward students' understanding of the written word.