Hiltingbury Infant School Thursday 14 th January 2016

Learning to spell. Why is it so confusing? You may feel that English spelling is illogical or strange.It's true that there are some strange irregular spellings. This is because it includes words from many languages and some very old words. The English spelling system has developed over the centuries and the irregularities came about because of various invaders and writers trying to fit their alphabet and sounds to English. English developed from the Romans, Anglo-Saxons & Vikings,the French scribes, (1066) caused the most problems with spelling,in the 1400s, the printers with their new fangled printing presses changed words and spelt them how they wanted, and then the 16th Century English academics decided to make spelling more like its Latin roots and added all sorts of silent letters in words. Then in 1828, American Noah Webster decided to simplify American spellings and brought out his American English dictionary. This lot changed and brought 'strange' ways of spelling words ( For more information about the origins of spelling look at the book ‘Spell it out’ by David Crystal)

Spelling Expectations Common Exception words for spelling Year 1 the, a, do, to, today, of, said, says, are, were, was, is, his, has, I, you, your, they, be, he, me, she, we, no, go, so, by, my, here, there, where, love, come, some, one, once, ask, friend, school, put, push, pull, full, house, our Year 2 door, floor, poor, because, find, kind, mind, behind, child, children*, wild, climb, most, only, both, old, cold, gold, hold, told, every, everybody, even, great, break, steak, pretty, beautiful, after, fast, last, past, father, class, grass, pass, plant, path, bath, hour, move, prove, improve, sure, sugar, eye, could, should, would, who, whole, any, many, clothes, busy, people, water, again, half, money, Mr, Mrs, parents, Christmas Please look at the full National Curriculum expectations on the link below. al_curriculum_-_English_ pdf

How children learn to spell in school. Environment – word walls colour coded grammar walls topic words Mnemonics- a rhyme or chant that helps the children remember the spellings.

How children learn to spell in school. Resources – word mats, alphabet mats, year group words It is essential for children to be an independent learner, like Frankie Fox and use the visual aids independently when writing. When do we teach them? - through guided reading spelling games, phonics, computer games, – exposed across curriculum and at reading level to get a visual image.

Spelling Games. Rules of Battle 1. Child A goes first and calls out a number. 2. If Child B has a word in that number, they call it out and Child A must attempt to spell the word. 3. If the child spells the word correctly, they receive an explosion! 4. The winner is the child who receives the most explosions in two minutes of play. Battleship For this game, each child is given a blank spelling board. They then have to fill in ten words with the pattern they have been learning. Alternatively, if you have children who may find it difficult to complete the grid by writing in the word themselves, I may hand out boards which already have ten words written in to different squares.

Dominoes Take your phonic focus of the week and create spelling dominoes. For example: approximately twenty dominoes which require the ‘ay’ sound spelt either: ay, ai or a-e. Explain to the children that all of the dominoes have some letters missing. Their job is to decide which graphemes are needed to complete the word. Set the timer to two minutes and off they go! The winning pair are the first team to complete their domino sequence with the correct graphemes.

Treasure Hunt This one is great fun! I have tried it with Year One and Two and they absolutely loved it! Find ten to twelve pictures with your phonic pattern of the week. Print these out on A4 and make sure that each picture is clearly numbered. Then, use talk tins to record the word in full (do NOT sound out). Hide the pictures with the talk tins around the playground. Then, give children a sheet on which to record the words. They have five minutes to find all the hidden treasure! The one who finds all the words and spells them correctly is the winner! Depending on the ability of children in your group, you may wish to provide a recording sheet with the corresponding number of boxes for each word. 1.

Spelling Tennis This is a great game for pairs. Decide who will be A and who will be B teams. Call out a word. The teams take it in turns to call out the letters and bat it across to the opposition. Once the final letter has been called, both team say the whole word. Mnemonics ( rhyme for each letter) Mnemonics like ‘When’ “ Witches Hen’. ‘What’ “ Witches Hat”. Said= Silly ants in dirt. Could, would and should = “ Oh, you, lucky duck!” Because = “ Big elephants can always use small elephants” When spelling having a rhyme or a picture helps to remind children of the spelling.

Other ways to support your child at home It is essential that phonemes are correctly pronounced in order for children to blend words successfully. Please ask class teachers if you are unsure how to pronounce the phonemes given. Free spelling app on IPad- ‘spelling free’. Children can record their own voice saying the word and they can practise spelling the words. Play Bingo – either with their tricky words or with words containing their weekly phonemes. Play Hangman Play pairs – matching the same words with the focus phoneme. Ask your child to find you 3 things around the house with the focus phoneme in. Give them a time allowance e.g. 1 minute. Or they could play with a brother or sister to see who can get the most words. Practise writing the words in different colour felt pens. Put words containing their phonemes or tricky words into a sentence. They can write the sentence down themselves or tell it to you to write down for them. How many alien words can they say or spell in 1 minute with the focus phoneme? Use magnetic letters to write different words containing the focus phoneme. Could they change the word by changing 1 letter e.g. change paid to maid or hat to bat etc.

Learning to Spell This is the correspondence between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). Phonemic Principles tends to include: · Phonics—knowledge about letter and sound correspondence, difference between long and short vowels, identification, segmentation and blending of phonemes in speech and how these influence spelling. Within the Phonics workshop · Spelling Patterns and Conventions—e.g. How the consonant doubles after a short vowel, words with common letter strings but different pronunciation · Homophones—Words which sound the same but are spelt differently and mean something different · Phonological Knowledge—Syllables, rhymes Morphological Knowledge This is the spelling of grammatical units within words or the building blocks needed to become a speller. It includes knowledge about: · Root words—contain one morpheme and cannot be broken down into smaller grammatical units (e.g. elephant, table, girl, day) and are sometimes referred to as the stem or base form; · Compound words—two root words combined to make a word (playground, football); · Etymology (word derivations) words in the English language come from a range of sources; understanding the origin of words helps pupils’ spelling (audi relates to hearing—audible, audience, audition). Support for Spelling—National Strategies