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Raysfield Infants’ School
Learn, Enjoy, Achieve, Discover, Together
Policy – Spelling
RATIONALE
Raysfield Infants’ School believes that all its pupils should be given
the opportunity to develop themselves to their full potential.
We wish to ensure that pupils are provided with the necessary skills
to become confident, fluent, independent young writers. Communicating
with others is an essential skill in achieving this aim; the ability
to spell age-appropriate words correctly is a central part of
effective written communication with others, moreover it contributes
to helping our pupils in their overall literacy development.
We recognise that there is a range of different ways that spelling is
learnt and that any approach to the teaching and learning of spelling
has to have a high degree of personalisation. The teaching of spelling
at Raysfield is therefore both a progressive learning program and a
response to individual needs.
AIMS

To promote good spelling habits and provide a range of strategies to
meet the needs of all children (See appendix 1).

To act as good role models i.e. to show that spelling is part of the
process of making meaning to others.

To ensure that our pupils have a growing number and range of words
that they can spell correctly from memory, matched to their ability
and need.

To make the connection
correctly spelt words.
between
correctly
spoken
sounds
and
Foundation Stage Spelling Provision
In the Foundation Stage phonics is taught systematically using Letters
and Sounds.
Children learn about spelling as they:



Learn environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body sounds, rhythm
and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and finally oral blending and
segmenting (Phase 1 – started in pre-school/nursery).
Learn 19 letters of the alphabet and one sound for each. Blending
sounds together to make words. Segmenting words into their separate
sounds. Beginning to read simple captions (Phase 2).
Learn the remaining 7 letters of the alphabet, one sound for each.
Graphemes such as ch, oo, th representing the remaining phonemes not
covered by single letters. Reading captions, sentences and
questions. On completion of this phase, children will have learnt

the "simple code", i.e. one grapheme for each phoneme in the English
language (Phase 3).
Additionally some children may learn to blend and segment longer
words with adjacent consonants, e.g. swim, clap, jump (Phase 4).
Opportunities for children to practice early mark making and spelling,
takes place daily through adult led activities and during Child
Initiated Play. Here children are encouraged to attempt writing for a
variety of purposes e.g. taking phone messages in the role-play area,
making signs for dens and models.
Staff in the Foundation stage constantly model early writing and
spelling strategies within meaningful contexts.
KS1 Spelling Provision
Year 1 to 2
Our Year 1 spelling strategy follows the guidelines set out in Letters
and Sounds and is primarily delivered through daily phonics and
supported during literacy and others areas of the curriculum.
Spelling strategies are constantly modelled by staff and dictionary
skills are encouraged throughout the year.
Children learn more graphemes for the phonemes which they
already know, plus different ways of pronouncing the graphemes
they already know (phase 4 and moving into phase 5).
In Year 2, pupils continue to work on spelling, including
prefixes and suffixes, doubling and dropping letters etc
(phase 5 and moving into phase 6).
In both year groups , our pupils are learning about spelling
in the following ways:

Teaching the 44 phonemes

Developing an understanding of diagraphs and tri-graphs

Teaching the children the alternative ways of making a
given phoneme eg. Ay ai a-e eigh

Teaching strategies for choosing the correct spelling eg.
oi is generally in the middle of a word whereas oy is at
the end.

Teaching the use of and using phoneme frames to chunk
words into phonemes.

Teaching children to apply their knowledge of other words
e.g. If you know how to spell s-m –all, then you can use
that knowledge to spell s-m –all –e-s-t.
They are encouraged to apply their knowledge of spelling by:

Focusing on correct pronunciation of a word to hear all
the phonemes.

Trying to spell words in their writing books and
developing the confidence to see if it looks right.

Positive encouragement for using ‘wow’ words spelt
phonetically eg. Inormus.
High frequency words (HFW) are learnt by:
 Introducing ‘tricky’ words that cannot be sounded out eg.
Woz /was –these are words that have to be learnt.
Supported by HFW word games. Talking through each word to
find the ‘tricky’ part eg. The ai in said.

Teaching HFW in phonics as outlined in Letters and
Sounds.
Pupils continue to be supported in the following ways:
 Whiteboards are used daily for our pupils to practice
their spelling knowledge and to `Have a go`.
 Pupils are encouraged to use jottings to try out
spellings.
 Key words may be sent home every week to practise.
 Key words are used for independent handwriting practise
Spelling Homework
We ask parents to support us in spelling homework by
encouraging and supporting children to either sound to blend
or learn to spell the words sent home. In Reception, when a
child is ready, this takes the form of word boxes with an
emphasis on sounding and blending.
When the teacher feels it is appropriate a child will progress
to taking words home to learn to spell, followed by checking
in school.
Marking and correction of spelling errors in pupil’s work.
When correcting spellings in written work, teachers vary their
methods according to the age and ability of the child.
We
feel it is important to maintain motivation, and also to mark
according to the main teaching/learning objectives, of which
the class should be made aware. For instance, if the piece of
writing is presented to the class as a "have-a-go" story, then
certain incorrect spellings may be highlighted in line with
‘pink
to
think’.
(See
feedback
and
marking
policy).
Conversely, if the work is cloze procedure with a choice of
alternatives given to fill the gaps, then incorrect spellings
would be indicated.
Incorrect spelling of common usage words is shown, and may be
used as a teaching point, with the individual. The correct
spelling of this word may then be chosen as one of a child’s
personal literacy goals. This would then be marked against in
subsequent pieces of work. Children, especially in Year 2, are
encouraged to have a go at spelling before having it checked
by an adult.
In Year 1 good use is made of the tricky word
wall.
Redrafting and proof reading.
With our Year 2 children, we encourage proof reading and
redrafting, to encourage the flow of writing.
In these
processes, the pupil makes best attempts at spellings with
minimal help from dictionaries, word banks or another person,
and pauses either during the writing or at the end to check
any questionable spellings. Initially, this would be with the
teacher’s guidance, but may progress to paired and individual
redrafting as appropriate.
Dictionaries, thesauruses and other word books.
A variety of word books of this kind, of differing
complexities, is readily available in all
classrooms.
Pupils are taught to use them, and practise
dictionary skills by means of games or more formal exercises.
They are encouraged to use them in the proof reading and
redrafting processes, or when checking spellings in their word
books. They are also used when information about words, other
than direct spellings, is required.
Use of Information Communication Technology
We acknowledge the importance of I.C.T. across the curriculum,
and view it as another strategy to help improve children’s
spelling. Programs are available to be used for a variety of
purposes.
They may reinforce the Look-hide-write-check
technique,
clarify
letter
confusion,
extend
children’s
knowledge of word formation, or teach basic alphabet letters.
We make extensive use in Years 1 and 2 of the interactive
white board and laptops, online resources and short teaching
programmes.
Variety of strategies
We believe that, whilst we have elaborated on the main
considerations in our teaching of spelling, there remain many
additional strategies which we actively use to support our
main methods.
Since children learn in a variety of ways, we
feel we must give a variety of learning opportunities through
our teaching.
A list of spelling strategies and means of
teaching and practising them is found in appendix1
Modelling spelling
We acknowledge the importance of correct spelling, a positive
attitude to words, and good spelling habits by the teachers
and other adults in the school, as models for the children.
This applies to writing on the board, on worksheets, on
letters home, in displays and comments on work.
Conclusion
We believe that regular monitoring, review and evaluation of
practice (as outlined in our policy) will contribute to
progression, continuity and consistency in the teaching of
spelling.
We take opportunities to maximize positive impacts for
disabled and non-disabled people, people of different ethnic,
cultural and religious backgrounds, girls, boys, men and
women.
Ratified
March 2012
Review March 2013
STRATEGIES/TEACHING APPROACHES TO SUPPORT SPELLING
Appendix (1)
Reception Class:
 Introduce the sound and formation of letters side by side
 Teach blending and segmenting simultaneously
 Group similar words e.g. no, go
 Use phrases for writing that include tricky words as well as the
sounds being taught
 Use of phonic and keyword learning mats during writing activities;
made readily available in the writing area
 1 finger 1 sound relationship (phoneme fingers) when writing
phonetically plausible words
 ‘Have a go’ attitude encouraged
 Peer support encouraged, e.g. read to a friend, what have you
written? Can you spot anything that needs to be changed? Can your
friend spot anything?
 Learning environment is print rich, tricky words and phonemes
displayed
 Teacher models the use of the learning environment to support
writing/spelling
 Sound dictation in guided groups
 Word dictation in guided groups, e.g. rhyming words/tricky words
 Shared writing where children are encouraged to help spell words
taught or phonetically plausible words
 Teacher modelling sentence writing at the beginning of the day and
again during review time
Year 1 and Year 2
 Teach and use Look-say-hide-write-check
 "Have-a-go" spelling, ‘Pink to Think’
 Word Banks and lists
 Crosswords, tracking and word searches
 Games like pelmanism, happy families, word dominoes
 Word books like dictionaries either personal or class
 Clarifying speech/listening games
 Looking for hidden words/making new words from within other words
 Highlighting phonic blends, patterns
 Kim`s game/ symbols on cards for visual memory
 Finger tracing words
 Teach mnemonics
 Commercially produced games e.g. Scrabble
 Making spelling games
 ICT activities
 Investigate word or sound families
 Teach letter sound through poetry and rhyme
 Developing wall displays ( themes, letters, blends, high frequency
words) including posters
 Detective work e.g. syllables in words
 Appropriate spelling rules
 Saying words as they are spelt e.g Wed-nes-day, w – hat, w – hen.