Download spelling - Sacred Heart RC Primary School

Pupils should be provided with opportunities to explore how words with similar sounds are often written
in different ways such as 'shush' being written with '-tious or -cious'. Games such as writing as many
words as possible with the same sound help children to investigate this and determine a way to
remember the differences in spelling e.g. e.g. simply hear and here can be remembered by noting hear
has an -ear at the end or making humorous sentences that contain some of these words like vicious,
delicious, ambitious and cautious.
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EES for Schools is owned by Essex County Council
Pupils should be provided with opportunities to explore how words with similar sounds are often written
in different ways such as 'shush' being written with '-tious or -cious'. Games such as writing as many
words as possible with the same sound help children to investigate this and determine a way to
remember the differences in spelling e.g. e.g. simply hear and here can be remembered by noting hear
has an -ear at the end or making humorous sentences that contain some of these words like vicious,
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EES for Schools is owned by Essex County Council
Pupils should be provided with opportunities to explore how words with similar sounds are often written
in different ways such as 'shil' being written with '-cial or -tial'. Games such as writing as many words as
possible with the same sound help children to investigate this and determine a way to remember the
differences in spelling e.g. simply hear and here can be remembered by noting hear has an -ear at the
end or making humorous sentences that contain some of these words like special and official.
Pupils should be provided with opportunities to explore how words can have varied meanings by
manipulating the endings such as adding -ant,-ance or -ancy such as compliant, compliance or
compliancy. In sentences these words would have different effects on the meanings and order of
words.
Pupils should be taught the different graphemes that could be used to spell the same phoneme and
that sometimes there are quite a few ways of spelling the same sound. Alternatively, some words use
the same letter strings but have a different sound. In English lessons, these should be made explicit
when the adult models shared writing or spelling words. Pupils should be reminded of this when
reading and writing independent or guided work e.g. the 'ough' letter string is said as an 'or' sound in
'bought' but as an 'ow' sound in 'bough' and an 'uff' sound in 'enough'. Pupils will need to be taught
how to write these from memory, and so games where they can take a mental picture and visualise the
word before writing and exploring the shape and environment of the word (visual, auditory, cognitive
and kinaesthetic) should be played in order to practise.
Pupils should be taught that some words contain silent letters. Pupils will need to be taught how to
write these from memory, and so games where they can take a mental picture and visualise the word
before writing and exploring the shape and environment of the word (visual, auditory, cognitive and
kinaesthetic) should be played in order to practise. Pupils could create their own rules for knowing the
difference and should be allowed to make pictorial representations of these words.
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EES for Schools is owned by Essex County Council
Pupils should be provided with opportunities to explore how words can have varied meanings by
manipulating the endings by adding -able or -ible and -ably or -ibly. In sentences these words have
different effects on the meanings and order of words. Pupils should be taught the effects of the
changes e.g. -ably makes the word an adverb and should explore how some words have 'able' and
some have 'ible' even though it sounds similar. Pupils should be encouraged to list as many words as
they can think of with this at the end and compare them, speed write with them and come up with rules
to remember the differences.
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EES for Schools is owned by Essex County Council
Spelling rules for the words found in the English Appendix 1 should be taught to pupils with some
opportunities for them to play with the rule and explore this in games, songs and reading. For words
that are commonly misspelt, games that teach pupils to look for and explain mistakes will help them
learn the correct spellings. Some words will need regular revision and practise e.g. through
speedwriting activities and identifying the correct spelling in a range spelled incorrectly.
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EES for Schools is owned by Essex County Council
Pupils should be taught that words often have different root words and meanings and that they have
different origins and histories in the English language. This is why we have many different spelling
rules and sometimes words which seem not to adhere to a pattern or rule at all. In English lessons,
such words should be made explicit when the adult is shared writing or spelling words. Pupils should
be reminded of this when reading and writing independently or guided work. Pupils will need to be
taught how to write these from memory, and so games where they can take a mental picture and
visualise the word before writing and exploring the shape and environment of the word (visual,
auditory, cognitive and kinaesthetic) should be played in order to practise.
Pupils should be taught dictionary skills, applying their learning from Year 1 where they are expected to
know which letters represent sounds in the alphabet and for the 40+ phonemes. Pupils should play
games and be set challenges which require them to use the first three or four letters to find words,
knowing what letters come before or after others in the alphabet and what to do when they are faced
with lots of words with the same starting letters. Pupils should be able to apply this learning on a daily
basis by being allowed access to dictionaries. Other activities such as word searches will help pupils to
apply these skills.
Pupils should be taught how and when to use a thesaurus. Pupils should play games and be set
challenges which require them to find alternative words, this could be during other sentence related
work or improving their writing. Pupils should be able to apply this learning on a daily basis by being
allowed access to thesauri. It is important that these skills are taught alongside wider work on the use
of adjectives and adverbs and how best to use them in sentences e.g. don't use too many, don't use
words in the same sentence that mean the opposite, don't use more than one that mean exactly the
same thing and make sure choices are precise to match the noun or verb and will have the desired
impact on the audience. Additionally, knowing when an adjective is not necessary because a more
precise noun would be more appropriate.
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EES for Schools is owned by Essex County Council