Spelling

09 September 2016

In a change to past practice, children will no longer be given a list of words to learn each week before being tested on the Friday. Instead, we will focus on the same spelling rule for two weeks. This will allow children more time to learn, and retain, the spellings. One week, children will be given a task or activity to complete. The next, they will be given a list of words that follow the rule.

This week’s spelling activity is due on THURSDAY 15 September 2016.

Sort these words according to the sound the ‘ough’ letter string makes when you say the word.

For example, when you say ‘enough’, the ‘ough’ letter string makes an ‘uff’ sound.

09 September 2016

In a change from last year, spellings will be tested fortnightly, not weekly. This means there won’t be a test next week. Instead, you should spend more time not just practising the words but looking for other words which have the same sound in them. Sometimes, you will have spelling challenges do to to help your children deepen their learning of these and other words which fit the ‘sound’ or spelling rule .

Because of this extra time and practice, when it comes to the tests, the children won’t just be tested on the words in the initial list. I will choose some of the words from the list and some other words which fit the theme (the children will have been exposed to these extra words in class learning). Also, in future tests, some of the words from previous tests will be recapped to check that children are remembering what they have learnt. Children in Year 2 will be tested on ten words.

For the next few weeks, we’ll spend time recapping the different vowel sounds and their alternative sounds.

This week, it’s the long ‘a’ sound which can be written in different ways: play, rain, grey, plate, eight.

Here are the words your children should learn:

• shake
• mistake
• train
• Spain
• spray
• Monday
• they
• grey

Take a look at the sheet inside your Homework book called Can you become a master of spelling? This has lots of different strategies for learning words. Find a few which work for your child.

If you have any questions, please ask.

Have a happy and healthy holiday

It’s the summer holidays at last, so there are no homework or spelling activities. Enjoy the holidays instead!

Does your child spend less time outdoors than prison inmates? A survey suggests three-quarters of children do, as the time spent playing in parks, woods and fields has shrunk dramatically due to lack of green spaces, digital technology and parents’ fears.

Research shows that playing outdoors promotes social skills, improves vision, reduces stress, increases attention span and provides vitamin D.

15 July 2016

This week’s spellings are all individualised. Children have looked back through their test books and chosen ten words that they have previously spelled incorrectly. Each child has identified these words because they struggle to spell them or don’t feel confident when trying to use these words in their writing.

Children should learn their words in preparation for their final spelling test on Thursday 21 July.

15 July 2016

The spellings this week are for the whole class. The focus is on words that use a double consonant for a short vowel sound. However, a range of the suffixes we’ve learned this year are also recapped. The spelling test will be on Thursday morning.

15 July 2016

These are the last spellings of the year! They focus on certain rules we have learnt:  -ed, -ing, -er, -s and -es endings.

All children in Year 1 have the same spellings.

look
looked
looking
looks
box
boxes
sing
singer

15 July 2016

The above spellings include a lot of words that we have learnt this year; some words that follow the spelling rules that we have focused on and some words that may be new to your child. Like the Year 3/4 spelling list, this represents the sorts of spellings Year 3 children are expected to spell confidently.

We have spent a lot of time in class discussing effective ways of practising spellings. Your child will be able to explain the following techniques:
~highlighting
~drawing around spellings
~spelling pyramids
~illustrating spellings
~letter colouring

Why not spend some time with your child trying out these different techniques?

Your child will be tested on eight of these spellings at the end of next week.

15 July 2016

Gobblefunk words

To promote the big read and celebrate the work of Roald Dahl, this week’s spellings are all words found in his books.

Children should learn how to spell these words in preparation for their final spelling test on Thursday 21st July.

Although these are made-up words, your child be practising the skill of learning new words – a vital life skill. There are lots of rules in these words which apply to spelling real or made-up words. (‘Squibbling’, for example, is probably a verb, ‘to squibble’, and uses two key rules: ‘drop the e for i n g‘ and the always important ‘double up for short vowel sounds’.)

I wonder if you can figure out what they mean too or even track down some Roald Dahl books that have them in!

08 July 2016

Gobblefunk words

To promote the big read and celebrate the work of Roald Dahl, this week’s spellings are all words found in his books.

Children should learn how to spell these words in preparation for their final spelling test on Friday 15 July.

Although these are made-up words, your child be practising the skill of learning new words – a vital life skill. There are lots of rules in these words which apply to spelling real or made-up words. (‘Squibbling’, for example, is probably a verb, ‘to squibble’, and uses two key rules: ‘drop the e for i n g‘ and the always important ‘double up for short vowel sounds’.)

08 July 2016

This week’s spellings have all been taken from a recent spelling test we took as a class. The words are all “Year 3/4” words that pupils are expected to be able to spell (actually one isn’t but you will have to check the whole list which is in your child’s spelling book to find out which).

• favourite
• neighbour
• chemist
• expression
• week
• weak
• unique
• certain
• enough
• television

You may wish to discuss what spelling rules and patterns your child can see within these words. Do any spelling patterns apply to more than one spelling? (expression and television both have ‘sion’ suffix)