Download Spelling policy - St Pauls Ryhope

St. Paul’s CE Primary
Spelling Policy
July 2013
John Howe English Coordinator Summer 2013
Spelling Policy
This policy to be read in conjunction with English, Presentation, Marking and Feedback Policies.
RATIONALE
In St Paul’s CE Primary (“our school”) spelling is taught, practised and valued throughout
the school. We consider the ability to be able to spell correctly an essential life skill and
one that prepares children for real-life contexts. The English language is not a regular
language but is systematic and patterned. Learning to spell is a process of working out such
patterns and applying them to new words. Learning to spell is not just learning lists of
words. It is a developmental process of learning to apply different strategies
appropriately. Children should have organised, structured and appropriate support to
improve their spelling skills.
AIMS
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Encourage all children to be confident in reading and spelling.
Know and use a variety of spelling strategies and apply these in their writing.
To enable children to write independently.
To enhance skills of proof reading for spelling errors and correction (editing and
re-draft.)
PROVISION
We believe spelling must be taught as exercises, wordlists and spelling tests are not
enough. Children need explicit and interactive teaching, which should:
 Draw their attention to the patterns and rules of English spelling.
 Help them remember these rules, and recognise exceptions and anomalies.
 Provide a variety of strategies for remembering spellings.
 Interest them in English language and its variety.
 Help them to apply correct spelling rules in their own writing.
The Teaching of Spelling
Foundation Stage
During the Foundation Stage, children will be working towards using their phonic knowledge
to write simple, regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex
words. They will take part in a daily synthetic phonics lesson, using a combination of
resources, for 20‐30 minutes.
John Howe English Coordinator Summer 2013
Children will learn:
 A multi‐sensory approach linking the teaching and practising of letter shapes and
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patterns. At this early stage, children learn to discriminate and make connections
between letter sounds.
To recognise words that rhyme.
To write beginning and ending sounds of words.
To blend cv, vc, cvc words (c=consonant, v=vowel).
‘Tricky’ words and high frequency words.
Key Stage 1
Children will learn to:
 Write each letter of the alphabet and regular vowel digraphs and begin to use
irregular digraphs and trigraphs.
 Use their knowledge of sound symbol relationships and phonological patterns.
 Recognise and use simple spelling patterns.
 Write common letter strings.
 Spell common words and high frequency words.
 Spell words with common prefixes and suffixes.
 Check their spelling by using word banks and dictionaries.
 Use knowledge of word families.
 Synthetic phonic programme.
 Use the first hundred high frequency words.
 Use rhyming strings to help with spelling strategies.
Key Stage 2
Pupils should be taught to use strategies for spelling unfamiliar words:
 Sounding out phonemes.
 Breaking words into syllables.
 Applying knowledge of spelling conventions.
 Use knowledge of common letter strings, visual patterns.
 Use word banks, dictionaries and spell‐checkers.
 Use and spell common prefixes and suffixes.
 The relevance of word families, roots and origins of words.
 Use appropriate terminology including vowel, consonant, homophone and syllables.
 Pupils should be taught to revise and consolidate words they can spell correctly and
to check the spelling and meaning of words.
John Howe English Coordinator Summer 2013
At St Paul’s, the preferred programme of study is Read, Write Inc, although staff
adapt this to meet the needs of all children and, if necessary, use a variety of
other tailored programmes in order to secure success.
INTERVENTIONS
Where pupils make limited progress in their confidence and ability to spell, intervention
programmes are set up. For example - children in Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 will receive a tailored
programme of synthetic phonics intervention. LSAs will lead these intervention groups,
depending on the needs of the whole year group. Individual cases may be referred to the
SENCo where necessary.
MARKING SPELLING WITHIN A PIECE OF WRITING
Children should be able to spell in context, not just in a spelling exercise, however it is
very important that the teacher correcting every spelling mistake does not destroy a
child’s piece of writing. Our marking approach is as follows:
Teachers will highlight spelling errors in a child’s piece of writing if:
 the spelling rule has been taught recently.
 the words are high frequency/common words which the children should know.
 the same mistake has been repeated.
The teacher writes ‘sp’ next to the word and the child will practice the spelling, three
times at the end of the piece of writing.
The teacher will monitor that these same mistakes are not repeated within the next
piece of writing. If a mistake is recurrent then it will be included for targeted
intervention. There will be an appropriate amount of words to practise for each child.
Whole-School Consistent Approach/Building Confidence
At KS2, where children are not part of a daily synthetic phonics programme, spelling must
be taught discreetly, for at least three sessions of between 15-20 minutes, a week.
Teachers and TAs are all responsible for creating a positive, independent ethos where
children feel confident in their approach to spelling. An emphasis is placed on children
applying their knowledge when carrying out any writing within the classroom.
Peer and self-marking is encouraged for spelling improvement. For this reason and to
foster independence, Personal Spelling books are used. Within their personal spelling book
each child identifies and logs mis-spelt words from their work throughout the course of
the week. During the week children are given time during the day to practise spelling these
words using the ‘Look, Cover, Write, Check!’ (LCWC) approach.
John Howe English Coordinator Summer 2013
Each week, class teachers in Years 2 - 6 hold a ‘Spelling Bee’ competition within their
own classrooms. Children are tested on the homework spelling words that they have been
learning from their differentiated ‘Tricky and High Frequency Words Bank’. A ‘Speller of
the Week’ certificate is presented to one child within each class and their names are then
displayed on a ‘Star Spellers’ display in the respective KS1 and KS2 halls.
HOME LEARNING
Children have their own LCWC spelling books for these and their weekly scores are logged
on the relevant page to inform parents of their spelling test outcomes. From time to time,
topic words may also form part of homework activities.
ASSESSMENT
Assessment of pupil progress is in the first instance, on-going by the class teacher as part
of formative assessment. In addition to this, pupils are tracked on synthetic phonics
tracking sheets from Foundation to year 2. Children are tested on their high frequency
words at different points though the year. At the end of year 1 all children will take the
Phonics Screening Check as part of the government statutory requirements. Formal
summative assessments are carried at the end of KS1 in year 2 as well as optional SATs
that take place at the end of year 3,4,5 and the spelling, punctuation and grammar test in
year 6.
MONITORING
The school monitors the teaching of spelling at regular intervals, using the following
strategies:
lesson observations or drop- ins from the English Co-ordinator and the Senior Leadership
Team
Synthetic phonics sessions are also monitored by the SENCO.
monitoring teachers’ planning
pupil interviews
evaluating pupils’ progress through assessment
work sampling.
John Howe English Coordinator Summer 2013
Scope and sequence
Year 1
Revision of reception work eg ccvcc words, consonant diagraphs, words ending in nk
Tch
V sound at the end of words
Adding s and es to words
Adding endings –ing, -ed and –er to verbs/adjectives
Vowel digraphs and trigraphs – eg ai, oi, ay, oy, ir, ur, oo, oo and ow, ow, ie, ie, igh
Ear, ear
Words ending –y
New consonant spellings ph and wh
Using k for the k sound
Adding the prefix – un
Compound words – football
Year 2
The j sound as ge/dge
Soft c – fancy
N sound, spelt kn
The r sound spelt wr
L sound spelt le/el/al at the end of words
Words ending –il
The igh sound spelt y at the end of words
Adding es to nouns and verbs ending in y
Adding –ed, -ing, -er and –est to root words ending in consonant –y
Adding the endings – ing, -ed, -er –est a –y to words ending in vowel consonant –e or single consonant
letter after a single vowel letter.
The aw sound spelt a before l and ll
The u sound spelt o
The ee sound spelt ey
The o sound spelt a after w and qu
The ur sound spelt or after w
The aw sound splet ar after w
The zh sould splet s
John Howe English Coordinator Summer 2013
The suffixes –ment, -ness, -ful and –less
Contractions
Possessive apostrophe
Words ending in-tion
Homophones and near-homophones
Common exception words
Year 3
Revise work from Y2, particularly suffixes.
Adding suffixes beginning with vowels to words of more than one syllable – forgotten
The I sound spelt y elsewhere in word eg pyramid
The u sound, spelt ou
More prefixes – un, de, dis, mis, re, pre, sub, inter, super, anti, auto
Further prefixes
The suffix – ation
The suffix – ly, ful, less
Recap on basic rules for changing the spelling of nouns, when s is added
Silent letters eg knee
More compound words
Homonyms
Common homophones
Irregular tense changes eg go/went
Year 4
Revise work from Y3, particularly suffixes/prefixes
Suffixes: ship, hood, mess, ment.
Investigate what happens to words ending in f when suffixes are added.
Spell words with common endings – ight
Prefixes – al
Words with endings sounding like zhuh or chuh eg treasure
Endings which sould like zhun
The suffix – ous
Endings which sound like shun
Endings – ible/able/ive
To understand how diminutives are formed eg mini, ette, ling, micro, adjectives
Words with the k spelt ch eg chemist
Words with the sh sould spelt ch eg machine
Words ending with the g sound spelt gue and k sound spelt que
John Howe English Coordinator Summer 2013
Common letter strings, different pronounciations ough, ear, ight, ou, au, ice
Words with the s sound spelt sc – scissors
Words with the ai sound spelt ei, eigh, or ey
Possessive apostrophe with plural words
Homophones or near homophones
Misspelt words when prefixes and suffixes are added – disappear, business.
Year 5
Endings which sound like shus, cious, or tious.
Endings which sound like shul.
Words ending in –ant, -ance, ancy, -ent, -ence, ency
Words ending in –able and –ible
Adding suffixes beginning with vowels to words ending in –fer, referring.
Use of the hyphen to link words eg co-rodinate
Words with ee sound splet ei after c
Words containing the letter string ough
Words with silent letters
Homophones
Changing F to ves
To explore spelling patterns of consonants and formulate rules – ll in ful becomes l
Correct spelling of possessive pronouns.
Year 6
Revision of spelling rules above, particularly through KS2.
John Howe English Coordinator Summer 2013