The Spelling Book: Transforming the Teaching of Spelling (Year 2)

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understand a range of punctuation and the effect it can have on the reader in both writing and reading. Teachers are guided through the rationale and approaches to ensure that they have a deep understanding of the processes they can follow to become more effective teachers of spelling. Pupils will extend their knowledge of phonics throughout their time in primary school. They will improve their outcomes as they develop a culture of becoming ‘pattern finders’ and ‘spelling detectives’ instead of being demotivated by the repetitive failure of the weekly ’spelling test’ and they will acquire a range of strategies to apply during real-life composition of writing. Our writing lessons are carefully structured to deliver the complete English National Curriculum. You can see this document here: English programmes of study: key stages 1 and 2 (publishing.service.gov.uk) At Helmsley Primary School, we value Spoken Language as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Spoken Language provides the children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas.

Daily reading time – Class novels, picture books, poems, newspapers...all sorts of reading genres!These are recorded in a class reading journal that goes up with them through the school. https://www.twinkl.co.uk/- a range of resources for all subjects (presentations, worksheets, etc.)- they are offering free logins to parents.Children are taught to spell high frequency words from Reception. In each phonic phase, high frequency words are identified that children need to be able to spell. From the Spring term in Year 2, daily phonics is replaced with daily spelling sessions.Children in Year 2, who still need support with phonics, are taught spelling but also have extra catch up sessions for phonics. Year 2 follow the Little Wandle spelling programme. In her new book, which is aimed at teachers, Considine outlines what she is suggesting to replace weekly spelling tests. “What we need to do is keep everything within schools, so we don’t up the anxiety. Then, we need to focus on the words each individual child needs to learn to spell – and that’s different for each pupil.” Explore other genres – your child might like to write a poem or song lyrics about a topic of their choice, or might find non-fiction writing more appealing https://www.discoveryeducation.co.uk/- children can use the school login for this to access a range of activities, videos, etc. This challenge consists of 3 lists : Year 1 and 2, Year 3 and 4, Year 5 and 6. Within these lists are book titles which support and extend reading taught in school and promote a love of reading for pleasure through favourite and well known books for children. The books were carefully chosen using resources and information from places like the CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education).

Lessons encourage children to look deeply at words, draw and build upon their knowledge of phonics from KS1 and make connections with spellings or letter patterns that they may already know. From the first days in school, speaking and listening play a large part in a child’s progress in all curriculum areas and teachers plan to develop these skills in a wide variety of ways. We aim to develop and encourage fluent speakers, who are confident to operate in a wide range of situations. From Y3, spelling lessons are taught for 20 minutes 4 times a week. We follow the Jane Considine 'The Spelling Book' programme for our teaching of spelling. Theprogramme is linked to the 2014 National Curriculum guidelines and statutory spellings and ensures all elements of spelling, grammar and punctuation are taught, as wellas the ability to spell accurately within their everyday writing. Pupils are taught in year groups,with smaller, more targeted groups, where appropriate. Children have a clear view of what high quality writing looks like and their learning is structured clearly and misconceptions dealt with.Next, Considine turned her attention to teachers. “I set up a support group for teachers, #teachersquad. It became a kind of online staffroom – there’s a lot of professional love out there, people sharing lesson plans, talking about how to best serve children in these difficult times.” Parents, she explains, are extremely good at ‘modelling anxiety’ – whilst everybody wants their children to succeed in school, some parents whose children struggle with these spelling tasks can pass on that anxiety they feel when they see their child finding it difficult- and Considine thinks that this cyclical anxiety isn’t helpful when it comes to learning how to spell. 76% of the 1,362 primary school teachers that she surveyed agree that this kind of testing isn’t an effective way to teach spelling, too – and it’s also their least favourite subject to teach, except for PE. In The Write Stuff approach to writing, the children explore high level, rich vocabulary and are taught grammar in context through different writing lenses on the Writing Rainbow. There are three lenses used to support children with their writing: In Reception, children are given daily opportunities to develop their fine motor skills, pencil control and letter formation. Different genres of writing are introduced and modeled and the children are both supported and encouraged to write in these forms during their independent play. A variety of opportunities are provided for the children to engage in writing activities in both the indoor and outdoor areas. These include: whole class teaching every morning, adult-led focus activities and child initiated learning (for example at the writing table, in the construction area and in the role-play area). The Spelling Book not only provides an implementable and comprehensive overview of spelling for Primary school senior leaders, but excitingly also provides a system of highly-engaging resources for classroom teachers to use and their pupils to love!”