1. Spelling Workshop
Monday 4th February 2019

2. What makes spelling in English so challenging?
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough 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).

3. There are:
26 letters of the alphabet
44 sounds or ‘phonemes’
19 vowel sounds
25 consonant sounds
Sounds can be represented by more than one letter, e.g. sh-o-p
One sound can be represented in a variety of different ways, e.g. shop, chef, sugar, tissue
One spelling can represent a variety of sounds e.g. moon, book.
No wonder spelling is tricky!

4. Learning to spell involves several skills and strategies
including:
Phonics
Grammar Knowledge
Visual memory
Knowledge of rules and conventions and exceptions!

5. Aims for our Spelling Workshop: • To share how spelling is taught in our school; • To give you practical ideas of how to support your child with spelling; • To share helpful resources and websites.
Help us on our spelling journey…

6. How did you do? Quick Write Challenge
On your whiteboards please write the following words:
How did you do?

7. Now let’s have a taster of phonics and spelling lessons at our school…

8. Reception

9. Letters and Sounds Phase 5
The purpose of this phase is for children to broaden their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes for use in reading and spelling.
They learn new graphemes and alternative pronunciations for these and graphemes they already know.
Children become quicker at recognising graphemes of more than one letter in words and at blending the phonemes they represent.
When spelling words they will learn to choose the appropriate graphemes to represent phonemes and begin to build word-specific knowledge of the spellings of words.

10. Revisit and review
Practise previously learned graphemes
Practise blending and segmentation
Teach
Teach new graphemes
Teach tricky words
Practise
Practise blending and reading words with the new GPC
Practise segmenting and spelling words with the new GPC
Apply
Read or write a sentence using one or more high-frequency words and words containing the new graphemes

11. oy

12. ea

13. oa

14. er

15. ear

16. or

17. aw

18. ou

19. igh

20. o-e

21. air

22. i-e

23. joy

24. light

25. sound

26. Revisit and review
Practise previously learned graphemes
Practise blending and segmentation
Teach
Teach new graphemes
Teach tricky words
Practise
Practise blending and reading words with the new GPC
Practise segmenting and spelling words with the new GPC
Apply
Read or write a sentence using one or more high-frequency words and words containing the new graphemes

27. people

28. called

29. their

30. ew
ew, ew, chew the stew

31. Revisit and review
Practise previously learned graphemes
Practise blending and segmentation
Teach
Teach new graphemes
Teach tricky words
Practise
Practise blending and reading words with the new GPC
Practise segmenting and spelling words with the new GPC
Apply
Read or write a sentence using one or more high-frequency words and words containing the new graphemes

32. grew

33. few

34. chew

35. Revisit and review
Practise previously learned graphemes
Practise blending and segmentation
Teach
Teach new graphemes
Teach tricky words
Practise
Practise blending and reading words with the new GPC
Practise segmenting and spelling words with the new GPC
Apply
Read or write a sentence using one or more high-frequency words and words containing the new graphemes

36. Where is the screw?

37. The children are also encouraged to practise their handwriting using the graphemes, tricky words and CEWs they have been learning. We use handwriting lines to help them with the size and orientation of letters. At Merley, all children are taught cursive handwriting. The children regularly practise their handwriting during English workshop.

38. Cursive letters all have a lead-in from the line, and a lead-out.

39. In each Year group there is a list of Common Exception Words (CEWs) which the children need to be able to read and spell by the end of the year. We include these words in our daily phonic teaching wherever we can and they are displayed in the classroom. The children also have a list of these words which is kept in their reading folder. They are encouraged to colour half of the word when they can read it consistently (on sight) and the other half when they can spell it correctly and consistently.

41. The children also have a weekly spelling list and they are encouraged to take responsibility for learning these at home and at school. These words include Year 1 CEWs, words containing the graphemes children have already learned and words with suffixes added to the end (in Year 1 these are: -s, -es, -ed, - ing, -er and –est) They then have a weekly spelling quiz.

43. There is a weekly spelling quiz of the words learned and then there is a dictation session where the children are encouraged to write the sentence said aloud by the adult. These sentences contain a mixture of all words which the children should know how to spell and those which the children are currently learning. All of the evidence of this reading, spelling and writing work is put into the children’s SPaG book (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar).

44. Writing When writing the children have access to word mats and displays of graphemes and are encouraged to use these independently. Where CEWs are correctly spelt in independent writing, these are highlighted using a pink pen. Where they are incorrect, the children have to write these three times along with other words they should be able to spell (to a maximum of three). They are encouraged to sound out words using their phoneme fingers and select the correct grapheme, even though it may not be the correct one for that word at this stage (eg ‘tea’ – ‘tee’ which is a phonically plausible spelling).

45. Year 2

46. In year 2 we use letters and sounds to revisit phase 5 and teach phase 6.
Suffixes (est, ment, ly, ful, ness, less, es, s, ves, ed, er etc.)
Spelling long words (hopelessness, disappointment etc).
Finding difficult bits in words (sounds that don’t always follow the rule)
Learning and practising spelling (rainbow write, have a go sheet, look, say, cover, write, check, segmenting, purple pen of progress, mnemonics etc.)
Common Exception Words (CEW)
Homophones (words that sound the same but are spelt differently, son and sun.)
Children are responsible for learning spellings and are tested weekly on the spellings that get sent home, which often apply to the rules we have been learning and practising in class. They are tested on spellings weekly and are given a dictation.

47. Revisit and review
Practise identified phase 5 gaps.
Practise previously taught rules.
Teach
Teach new graphemes
Teach tricky words
Practise
Practise blending and reading words with the new GPC
Practise segmenting and spelling words with the new GPC
Apply
Read or write a sentence using one or more high-frequency words and words containing the new graphemes

48. ai

49. ar

50. ee

51. igh

52. ea

53. ay

54. oy

55. or

56. i-e

57. a-e

58. oe

59. oa

60. ew

61. o-e

62. or

63. ie

64. Review: Last week we looked at turning singular nouns into plural nouns. Discuss with your partner the rule we discovered for these words; leaf knife loaf Now can you change them into plural. Leaf Leaves

65. Revisit and review
Practise identified phase 5 gaps.
Practise previously taught rules.
Teach
Teach new rules for suffixes.
Practise
Practise blending and reading words with the new GPC
Practise segmenting and spelling words with the new GPC
Apply
Read or write a sentence using one or more high-frequency words and words containing the new graphemes

66. Today we are looking at...
How to change nouns from singular to plural.
What does the word singular mean? What does the word plural mean?

67. Play game:
Does the rule we learnt last week apply to the words you have in front of you?
Can you find a partner and discuss the rule that is used?

68. What have you spotted?

69. Revisit and review
Practise identified phase 5 gaps.
Practise previously taught rules.
Teach
Teach new rules for suffixes.
Practise
Develop and practise the new rule.
Apply
Read or write a sentence using one or more high-frequency words and words containing the new graphemes

70. What is the rule and when does it apply?

71. Revisit and review
Practise identified phase 5 gaps.
Practise previously taught rules.
Teach
Teach new rules for suffixes.
Practise
Develop and practise the new rule.
Apply
Children then apply it to a variety of words to practise using this rule.
Children are encouraged to use their learning from their letters and sounds session in their everyday writing. There is also a variety of resources around the room to help them, such as; have a go sheets, word mats and word walls.

72. Now have a go at these words:
There is a witch. There are two
box
cat
leaf
table

73. Following on from year one the children are still encouraged to practise their handwriting during the letters and sounds sessions.
During our English workshop handwriting sessions we use handwriting lines to help them with the size and orientation of letters.
At Merley, all children are taught cursive handwriting.

74. In each Year group there is a list of Common Exception Words (CEWs) which the children need to be able to read and spell by the end of the year.
We include these words in our daily phonic teaching wherever we can and they are displayed in the classroom.

76. Year 3

77. Year 3 (and 4)
We revisit work from Years 1 and 2;
Learn new prefix and suffix rules;
Learn homophones/near homophones;
Word endings (-ion and –ian);
Words with Greek, French and Latin origins;
‘ay’ sounds spelt ‘ei’, ‘eigh’ or ‘ey’;
Possessive apostrophes;
Y3 and Y4 Common Exception Words.

78. forget prefer commit begin occur forbid
Your Year 3 Challenge!
All of these words have 2 or more syllables. Clap with me…
forget
prefer
commit
begin
occur
forbid

79. What do you think the rule might be?
Now try adding –ing to these root words.
What do you notice?
What do you think the rule might be?

82. offer garden benefit focus limit Now try adding –ing to these words:
What do you notice?
focus
limit

83. OFF/ering GAR/dening BEN/e/fiting FO/cusing LIM/iting
Root words like this do not change as the first syllable is stressed:
OFF/ering
GAR/dening
BEN/e/fiting
FO/cusing
LIM/iting

86. Some handy websites:
‘Oxford Owl‘

87. Year 4

88. Summary
- Continuation of learning and applying spelling rules from Year 3 as well as common exception words.
Home Learning Spelling
- Gap Filling
Daily homophones

89. Homophones
Pepe’s Pairs of Pears

90. Homophones
Quiz Time Dictation

91. Dictation cold quiet sole seen blew bear roll sea hour
10 knight 11 knot 12 great 13 were 14 grate 15 heard 16 ewe 17 bored 18 morning