Spelling - Getting it write, wright, right!EYFS & KS1

Why are we here?

To help children to be confident spellers – school/home working closely

Give you ideas how you can help your child improve spelling

National curriculum is demanding

- increase in expectations

- challenging word lists

- spelling rules to learn

- Greater focus on word roots and origins (where words come from)

Are you good at spelling?

• Confidence

• Spelling involves several skills

• English system is very complicated

• Good memory is very useful – visual/rules

Because of this we need to be flexible and fluid in the activities we give learners

What skills do you need to be a good speller?

• Phonics – hearing the sounds that make up a word and knowing how to write each sound.

• Visual Memorisation – Look and remember what you have seen.

• Language Study or Morphology –understand how words work: spelling rules, origins of words, families of words etc.

Early spelling strategies - using phonics

• Learn letter sounds

• Learn alphabet names

• Learn how to represent each letter sound/name with written form

• Learn how letters go together to make a different sound.

a y ay

h - i - t th - i - s

Sound knowledge & using the sound chart

• The sound chart is useful and shows

how sounds can be made by different letters

• Pupils need to develop understanding of

- digraphs - 2 letters make 1 sound (sh)

- trigraphs - 3 letters make 1 sound (igh)

- split digraphs - 2 letters that make 1 sound but are

separated by another letter ( a-e b a k e )

• Pupils must also develop understanding of silent letters

in words (l i s t e n / k n e e)

Putting sounds together

• Stretch the word to hear all of the sounds in a word

• Fred talk – saying all of the sounds, count

the sounds

• Read the word back – does it sound right

(s i p sh i p)

• Break words into sounds/syllables (don-key child - ren)

What errors do we make?

• Sounds are not represented in words

garage gaj first frist

• The correct sounds are used but are inaccurately spelt

good gud calm carm

• Errors that are due to lack of awareness of morphemes (parts of words)

trapped trappt relation relashun

Other Skills- Visual Memorisation • Look and remember what you have seen.

- does it look right?

right / rihgt / rhigt

- learn exception words was said friend

- learn days of the week/months/number words

- homophones write / right hear/ here

Draw around the word

to show the shape

Words within wordsSoldier= the soldier was oldBusy = the bus was busy

Other Skills - Language Study or Morphology • Understand how words work: spelling rules, origins of words,

families of words etc.

Students who understand how words are formed tend to have:

• larger vocabularies

• better reading comprehension

“Teaching morphological awareness and decoding in school may be the way to narrow the gap for children.” (Nagy 2007)

Word jigsaws – cut up

words

un friend ly

See separate documents of

information for each year group/phase

• Early Years – Physical Development/

Language & Literacy

• Year 1

• Year 2

Strategies

Games such as hangman

Writing with chalk in the garden on the wall/patio

Words on post it notes around the house

Saying/chanting/singing words whilst walking to school

Type words on laptop/ipad

Games on computers – spelling shed

Creative Strategies

Make and BreakNeil Mackay- Dyslexia Toolkit• The multi sensory alternative to Look, cover, write,

check

•The learner is given the letters and:

•Makes the word

•Breaks the word

•Jumbles the letters

•Makes the word

Spelling SOS

The most reliable method for dyslexic pupils to learn the spellings of irregular and tricky words is simultaneous oral spelling:

1. Print the word clearly for the pupil to read: s a i d.2. Pupil reads the word.3. Pupil writes over the word, naming each letter aloud as he

forms it in a joined style.(Stage 3 is repeated as many times as is necessary.)4. The word is covered. The pupil says the word and writes it,

naming the letters aloud as before.5. Pupil checks his attempt carefully with the original model.

Spelling SOS1. Model 2. Copy

3. Spell from memory 4. Write with eyes closed

Neuro –linguistic programmingNLP

• The first time you do this with a child...

• Tell the child we all have a camera in our heads which lets us remember things as if a picture was taken.

• Ask the child to imagine his bedroom in his head and tell you details such as where the bed is, the shape of the window

NLP

• Write the word correctly on a piece of paper.

• Hold the word 3 feet in front, about 1 foot to the left of the child’s face and about 1 foot above the child’s face

• Talk about the word while its held there-it’s meaning, it’s shape, bits that stick up or down words that are in the word , beginnings and ends of words

• Ask the child to write the word and check that it is right.

Spelling Self-help

• Is there a root word and are there any prefixes and suffixes?

• Can you see the root word in your visual memory? • Listen to the syllables. • Listen to the vowel sound. Is it long or short? • Is there a rule? • Do you remember a memory hook that you have

learnt?

Spelling top tips

• Encourage – have a go!

• Be positive

• Play games

• Encourage reading

• Celebrate ‘lovely mistakes’

• Look for errors in everyday life

Questions

Final Thought…

I take it you already know

Of tough and bough and cough and

dough?

Others may stumble, but not you,

On hiccough, thorough, tough and

through.

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,

To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word

That looks like beard and sounds like

bird,

And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead –

For goodness sake don’t call it deed!

Watch out for meat and great and threat

(They rhyme with suite and straight and

debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,

Nor both in bother, broth in brother,

And here is not a match for there

Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

And then there’s dose and rose and

lose –

Just look them up – and goose and

choose,

And cork and work and card and ward,

And font and front and word and

sword,

And do and go and thwart and cart –

Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!

I’d mastered it when I was five!