Download Spelling Booklet - Northolmes Junior School

Northolmes
Junior School
Believe... Achieve... Succeed
Spelling
Booklet
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Stages of Spelling
Children pass through a number of stages on their way to
becoming efficient spellers.
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Stage one: random letters are used to express meaning.
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Stage two: letter-sound correspondence is
attempted, for example ‘cts’ for ‘carrots’
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Stage three: all sounds are represented phonetically, for
example, ‘ate’ for ‘eighty’.
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Stage four: a knowledge of visual patterns becomes
apparent, for example, ‘eightee’ for ‘eighty’.
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Stage five: correct spelling is used with words being visualised in the mind.
With the above in mind, it is important to remember that
inventive spellings are a natural step along the spelling route
and that errors may well signal progress.
Children’s play writing, early and later attempts to spell, should
be accepted positively—praise children for parts of words that
are correctly spelled. Say ‘Spell it like it sounds’, ‘Spell it like
you think it looks’, or ‘Try it on your own’. If your child makes
an incorrect attempt, give them another clue e.g.: ‘There’s a
letter missing’ or ‘There’s a letter too many here’. Having access to a dictionary and allowing your child to see you using it
will encourage their use of it when exploring their own spellings.
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Opportunities for spelling at home
Families do many things at home every day to encourage
learning to spell.
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Going shopping ... writing lists, helping to find goods on the
shelves and reading the labels.
Environmental print ... Walks, rides in the car, on buses and
trains expose children to familiar words, new words and
signs. You can have fun looking for spellings that have
been changed for effect e.g. ’KWIK-FIT’, spot the road
signs and signs on restaurants. Look for words within
words e.g. ’off’ in ’office’.
Creating opportunities for writing activities—sending
letters, emails, postcards to family and friends. Exploring
the words that can be made from the letters in their name.
Published and traditional family games help with spelling
and are good fun! Scrabble, Boggle, Snap, Lotto, Hangman,
crosswords and wordsearches.
Make up and encourage the use of a ‘Writer’s Kit’ ... put in
items such as post its, scissors, pencils, pens, staplers and
glue.
‘Find it’ challenges... pages from magazines and newspapers
together with a highlighter are a cheap and easy way to
provide and encourage visual skills. For example, ask your
child to find words with silent letters, or words with ’ch’ in
them, etc...
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Ways to investigate and learn spellings
1. Create a crossword— Children construct a crossword
using the words that they are trying to learn and then
work on making up clues.
2. Word steps— This enables children to write out their
spellings and can be very motivating. Children write out
their words like a staircase. Each word must begin with
the final letter of the previous word. They may need to
add in additional words. E.g.
Read
r
e
a
m e e t i n g
3. Magic words—Children choose one of their words to
change into another word, changing only one letter at a
time, e.g.
h a t e
w h e n
h a v e
t h e n
h o v e
t h e y
l o v e
w h e y
4. Family of words—Children could take one of their spellings and create a ‘family’, e.g.
refer
referee
reference
referenced
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5. Making up a mnemonic— because; Big Elephants Can Always Upset Small Elephants.
6. Words within words
E.g. Together— To
get
her
Island— Is land
7. Syllables—Beat out the syllables and say each one.
E.g. Jan - u - a - ry
Re - mem - ber
8. Over-articulation— Say the word as it appears rather
than the accepted pronunciation.
E.g. Wed - nes - day
9. Say the names of the letters in a rhythm.
10.Look at word origins
E.g. Bi - is the Greek word for two and cycle - is
the Greek for circle.
11. Highlight the difficult part of the word,
E.g separate
12.Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check
13. Look for common letter strings, eg, light,might,fight
14. Picture mnemonics—In the word ‘see’ the ‘ee’ could be
made into a pair of eyes.
15. Investigating common spelling rules and conventions
E.g Take off the ‘e’ add ‘ing’ Does it always work?
16. Feeling a word—Writing a word in sand, paint or in
the air. Now get a partner to ask you questions about
your word. For example they could ask, ‘What is the
first letter?’ ‘What is the last letter?’ ‘How many
letters are there?’
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17. Wordle—Create a beautiful word cloud with the
you are learning. (www.wordle.net/)
words
18. Media search—Use a newspaper or magazine and you
have x amount of minutes to look for your spelling
words. Circle them in different colours. Which
spellings are used the most times?
19. Shaving Cream Practice—Squirt some shaving cream
onto a table and practice spelling your words by
writing them with your finger in the shaving cream.
20. Scrabble Spelling—Find the letters you need to spell
your words and then mix them up in the bag. Get some
one to time you unscrambling your letters. For extra
maths practice you could find out the value of your
words.
21. Pyramid Power—Sort your words into a list from easiest to hardest. Write the easiest word at the
top of
the page near the middle. Write the next easiest word
twice underneath. Write the third word three times underneath again until you have built your pyramid.
22. Ransom note—Cut the letters needed for your
words
from a newspaper or magazine and glue them down to spell
the words.
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23. Colourful words—Use two coloured pens to write
your words. One to write the consonants and one to
write the vowels. Do this a couple of times then write
the whole word in one colour.
24. Finger tracing—Use your finger to spell out each of
your words on a partner’s back. Then it’s their turn to
write the words on your back for you to feel and spell.
25. Ambidextrous—Swap your pen into the hand that you
don’t normally write with. Now try writing out
your
spellings with that hand.
26. Telephone words—Translate your words into
numbers from the telephone keypad. Speed text.
27. Missing letters—Ask a partner to write out one of
your words lots of times on pieces of paper, but each
time they have to miss out a letter or two. Then you
have to fill in the missing letters.
28. Rhyme webs—Create rhyme webs for one of you
phonemes—Use them to write a rap.
29. Deliberate mistake—Working with a partner write a
list of words, with some mistakes, can your partner
spot the mistakes?
30. Hangman—Play using some of your spellings—How quickly can your partner spot the word?
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Games to play
The following games have been divided into ‘developing confidence’ and ‘extending confidence’. However, most of the
games can be adapted to suit different abilities. By varying
the words used as a basis for each game, they can be
tailored specifically to your child’s abilities.
Developing Confidence
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Open sorts; Give your child a collection of words that
can be sorted by any criteria and then ask them to
explain how they sorted them and why.
Guess my sort: Give your child a list of words that
have already been sorted and they have to work out how
they have been sorted.
Bingo: Make bingo cards from common, high
frequency words. Call out the words one at a time
and the players cover up the word on their card.
Snap: Make a set of cards with one common, high
frequency word on each card and one replica set. Play
snap in the usual way.
Sound detective: Players to list as many words as they
can with a given sound or letter, in a set amount of time,
e.g. Words that have ‘ch’ in them
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Alphabet feast: Ask your child to invent a menu for an
alphabet feasts, by listing a food item for each letter
of the alphabet.
Variations of this can be played by listing words on
other themes, such as animals, or, a more advanced
version, listing adjectives to de scribe an object,
person or place.
Alphabet cards: It is worth making a set of
alphabet cards as there are lots of games that can be
played with them, here are some ideas:
Pick a card: A player picks a card and has to spell a
word beginning with that letter (the word may have to
be of a certain length.) If they spell the word correctly,
they win the card. The winner is the player with the
most cards at the end of the game.
Spell a word: Keep taking a card out at a time and
display all the cards taken out together. The player
who is first to spell a word with the cards on display,
wins the cards. The winner is the player with the
most cards.
Speedy alphabet: Time how long it takes to put the
alphabet cards in the correct order. Can your child
become quicker?
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Extending Confidence
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Shannon’s Game: This is a version of ‘Hangman’ but
the words need to come in order. Give a clue for the
first letter, e.g. It is between ‘k’ and ‘m’. The child then
needs to guess what letter come next. If it is a
Possible combination but not the right letter, write it in
a column under the title ‘could be’. The child then
gives a word with that combination e.g. ‘li’ begins the
word ‘liver’. If the child gives a letter that cannot be
combined, write it in a column labelled ‘couldn’t be’ e.g
bk. Continue until the hidden word is discovered.
Write your own tongue twisters
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Back to front: Choose a word and write it down the
left hand side of the page. Then, leaving
sufficient space between the two sides, write it back
wards up the right hand side. The child then fills in the
space between the vertical words starting with a letter
on the left and ending with a letter
on the
right.
For example:
Batch
electric
a
a
c
e
h
b
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Codes: Use symbols or numbers to represent letters
and write a coded message. Your child needs to crack
the code in order to read the message.
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Make up a word search
Anagrams: Make anagrams of suitable words for your
child to solve. You may wish to give clues to help.
Call my bluff: Each player finds an unusual word in the
dictionary and writes it down along with the
correct definition and two that they have made up.
The words and definitions are then shared with the
other players. If the other players guess the
correct definition they win a point, but if they fail to
spot the correct definition, the player that wrote
the definition wins a point.
Countdown: Many versions of the popular television
program can be played. Letters to play with can be
picked from alphabet cards, or a longer words can be
chosen, from which to make smaller words.
Switch a letter: The first player says any word that
comes into their mind (words with four letters are
best). The other players then take it in turn to change
one letter at a time to form a new word. Words cannot
be repeated and the game continues until a player cannot make a new word and they are then ‘out’.
Example: Past
part
port
post
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Websites to help support your child in
spelling
www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/english
If you have any questions, queries or worries
about your child’s spelling progress then please do
not hesitate to contact your child’s class teacher
V Humphrey and V.Boxall
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