Year 3 Spelling

24 June 2016

This week’s spellings all follow the double up for a short vowel sound rule and are from the Year 3/4 spelling curriculum.

accidentally
actually
business
disappear
different
difficult
occasionally
thousand
opposite
possession

Some of these spellings may seem familiar but it is essential that we keep revisiting the double up for a short vowel sound  rule. Within this list, there are examples where the double up rule isn’t always followed. Can you child spot these? There is also a red herring within this list. Can you spot it?

double up for a short vowel sound

In English spelling, we come across two types of vowel sounds – short vowel sounds like ‘a’ in apple and ‘e’ in berry and long vowel sounds like ‘a’ in change. Usually (but not always), the consonants after a short vowel sound are doubled. For example, opposite has a short ‘o’ at the start and is followed by a pair of ‘p’s.

17 June 2016

This week’s spellings have come about as a result of all the spelling learning we have done around the letter w.

wait
weight
went
where
were
woman
women
weather
whether
wrong

There are some homophones (two words that sound the same but are spelt differently), an irregular plural and some high frequency words that are commonly spelt wrong. Why not try encouraging your child to spot words within words to help memorise spellings (the response to “where?” could be “here!”)?

10 June 2016

This week’s spellings are brought to you by the letter ‘w‘. Here is a list of common ‘w‘ words. Go through these words  with your child and decide which spellings they already know and which spellings they think they need to focus on learning. A very common error in class is using ‘Wh’ instead of ‘W’ (whent instead of went). On Friday, your child will be assessed through a dictation activity. The following week’s spellings will be based on the whole class’s results in that assessment.

Can your child spot any of our school spelling rules (drop the ‘y’ for an i, double up for a short vowel sound, drop the ‘e’ for ‘ing’)? Can your child spot any words within words to help them remember a spelling (warm)?

Summer Half Term

In line with our Homework Policy, there are no homework tasks or spellings to learn next week because it’s the Summer half-term holiday. Of course, there are plenty of ways to help your child continue learning: get reading, go places, talk lots!

Have a happy and healthy holiday.

20 May 2016

The week’s spellings all link in with money week.

• penny
• pound
• amount
• pence
• currency
• Euro
• change
• budget
• charity

Your child has nine spellings to learn and must find their own money word that they will also be tested on.

13 May 2016

This week’s spellings are all common exception words. These are words that Year 3 children are expected to know. Lower down school they are often called tricky words because they don’t always follow expected phonetic rules. For example the ‘ar’ in forward makes an ‘uh’ sound.

• forward
• fruit
• grammar
• group
• guide
• heard
• heart
• height
• history

We’ve learnt some of these words before but they are still cropping up as errors in class.

06 May 2016

This week’s spellings are all homophones. Homophones are two or more words that sound the same but are spelt differently and mean different things. For example: fair (a place with rides and games) and fare (the cost of public transport).

• grown / groan
• eight / ate
• woman / women
• heard / herd

Your child also needs to find their own pair (not pear!) of homophones which they will be tested on.

29 April 2016

This week’s spellings all have the ‘-ou’ digraph. These spellings all have ‘-ou’ making an ‘uh’ sound (as in touch and country) or ‘-ough’   making an ‘uff’ sound (as in enough).

young
touch
double
trouble
country
tough
rough
enough
cough
fought

These spellings will be tested next Friday. Why not go on spellodrome to practise your spellings?

22 March 2016

This week’s spellings end in ‘-sure’ and ‘-ture’.

measure
treasure
pleasure
enclosure
creature
furniture
picture
nature
adventure

Your child has nine spellings to learn and must find their own tenth spelling that ends in either ‘-sure’ or ‘-ture’. They will be tested on seven of these spellings and their own word next Friday.

25 March 2016

This week, your child has a word study to complete. They must find an A – Z list of words that follow the ‘double up for a short vowel sound’ spelling rule. For example, ‘apple’ and ‘attractive’ have a doubled-up letter to make the ‘a’ in front a short sound (compare the ‘a’ sound in ‘apple’ and ‘able’).

The words your child finds must be words that they feel they could use in their writing in class. I would encourage the use of a dictionary or even the use of an internet search engine. If your child is searching for words online, make sure you speak to them about being e-safe.