Learning to spell has strong links with reading and writing. In reading, the children’s knowledge of the relationship between letters and sounds sets the foundations for them as spellers. Spelling is also a significant aspect of the writing element within the curriculum. If we want children to become confident writers, a strong understanding of spelling and spelling patterns is crucial. As stated in the National Curriculum (2014), ‘Writing down ideas fluently depends on effective transcription: that is, on spelling quickly and accurately through knowing the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics) and understanding the morphology (word structure) and orthography (spelling structure) of words.’
We have adopted a whole-school approach to spelling that builds as the children move through the school. In EYFS to the end of KS1 children are initially taught spelling using our Read Write Inc Phonic Scheme. This continues into KS2 for those children needing additional support. During Year 2, most children will transition to our Rising Stars Spelling scheme which continues to support our pupils through to year 6.
Handy Tips for Supporting Your Child with Spelling
Practise spelling common exception words regularly.
Revisit spellings from previous weeks.
Ask your child to explain the rule for the week and get them to give you example words so that you can build up a word bank that can be referred to frequently.
Make a note of the common exception words which you notice your child is spelling wrong (remember that these are quite often words that are not phenetically decodeable)
Play homophone games where you give them a word like right/write and they write you both spellings and show you on the sounds chart which graphemes they would choose to spell them right! Make sure they know which one is which!
Play hold a sentence dictation where you give the child a short sentence with one of their spellings in which will help them to understand the meaning of the word and spell and punctuate correctly.
Supporting Your Child’s Spelling at Home
To help you to support your children at home with their spellings on a weekly basis, the children will be given 6-10 spellings from the unit they are currently on which will follow a set pattern. They will be tested on these at the end of the week.
To access a copy of the National Curriculum word list for each year group click on this link.