MALTON PRIMARY ACADEMY

SPELLING POLICY 2022.23

Intent

Our aim is to produce capable and independent spellers through an engaging and challenging whole school approach. The best spelling sessions are investigative. If children have explored the patterns, ‘tricky bits’ and history of words, they are far more likely to make informed decisions about how to spell a word when writing it independently.

We will:

• Use the Twinkl spelling resources, to provide quality teaching of spelling patterns, rules and strategies to enable children to spell familiar words correctly and employ a range of strategies to spell difficult and unfamiliar words.
• Capitalise on spelling opportunities in reading and writing to ensure a meaningful approach and secure understanding of word definitions.
• Give opportunities for children to use a range of appropriate strategies to edit, proofread and correct spellings in their own work, on paper and on screen.
• Be fully inclusive of the individual, providing tailored support to ensure progress.
• Continue to build on phonological awareness and Read, Write Inc. followed in the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1.

Teachers should be familiar with what pupils have been taught about spelling in earlier years, such as which rules pupils have been taught for adding prefixes and suffixes.

Year 1

Phonic knowledge should continue to underpin spelling after key stage 1; teachers should still draw pupils’ attention to GPCs that do and do not fit in with what has been taught so far. Increasingly, however, pupils also need to understand the role of morphology and etymology. Pupils can also be helped to spell words with prefixes and suffixes correctly if they understand some general principles for adding them.

Basic revision should include:

• all letters of the alphabet and the sounds which they most commonly represent
• consonant digraphs which have been taught and the sounds which they represent
• vowel digraphs which have been taught and the sounds which they represent
• the process of segmenting spoken words into sounds before choosing graphemes to represent the sounds
• words with adjacent consonants
• guidance and rules which have been taught in Reception, using the Read, Write Inc. programme.

Spelling rules

Year 1	Regular plural noun suffixes –s or -es Suffixes that be added to words with no change to the root words Prefix –un The /v/ sound at the end of words Adding the endings –ing, –ed and –er to verbs where no change is needed to the root word Compound words Common exception words
Year 2	The /dʒ/ sound spelt as ge and dge at the end of words, and sometimes spelt as g elsewhere in words before e, i and y The /s/ sound spelt c before e, i and y The /n/ sound spelt kn and (less often) gn at the beginning of words The /r/ sound spelt wr at the beginning of words The /l/ or /əl/ sound spelt –le at the end of words The /l/ or /əl/ sound spelt –el at the end of words The /l/ or /əl/ sound spelt –al at the end of words Words ending –il The /aɪ/ sound spelt –y at the end of words Adding –es to nouns and verbs ending in –y Adding –ed, –ing, –er and –est to a root word ending in –y with a consonant before it Adding the endings – ing, –ed, –er, –est and –y to words ending in –e with a consonant before it Adding –ing, –ed, –er, –est and –y to words of one syllable ending in a single consonant letter after a single vowel letter The /ɔ:/ sound spelt a before l and ll The /ʌ/ sound spelt o The /i:/ sound spelt –ey The /ɒ/ sound spelt a after w and qu The /ɜ:/ sound spelt or after w The /ɔ:/ sound spelt ar after w The /ʒ/ sound spelt s The suffixes –ment, –ness, –ful , –less and –ly Contractions The possessive apostrophe (singular nouns) Words ending in –tion
Year 3	Adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words of more than one syllable The / / ɪ sound spelt y elsewhere than at the end of words The /ʌ/ sound spelt ou The suffix –ly Words with endings sounding like /ʒə/ or /tʃə/ Endings which sound like /ʒən/ Words with the /k/ sound spelt ch (Greek in origin) Words with the /ʃ/ sound spelt ch (mostly French in origin) Words ending with the /g/ sound spelt – gue and the /k/ sound spelt –que (French in origin) Words with the /eɪ/ sound spelt ei, eigh, or ey
Year 4	More prefixes: in-; im-; il-. Prefix sub- and super- Prefix inter- Prefix anti- Prefix auto- Prefix ex- Prefix non- The suffix –ation Homophones and near-homophones Endings which sound like /ʃən/, spelt –tion, –sion, –ssion, –cian Possessive apostrophe with plural words Words with the /s/ sound spelt sc (Latin in origin) The suffix –ous
Year 5	Endings which sound like /ʃəs/ spelt –cious or –tious Homophones and other words that are often confused Homophones and other words that are often confused (continued) Words with ‘silent’ letters (i.e. letters whose presence cannot be predicted from the pronunciation of the word) Words containing the letter-string ough
Year 6	Endings which sound like /ʃəl/ Words ending in –ant, –ance/–ancy, –ent, –ence/–ency Words ending in –able and –ible Words ending in –ably and –ibly Adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words ending in –fer Use of the hyphen Words with the /i:/ sound spelt ei after c

 

Implementation

The whole school spelling scheme will be followed by all year groups and teachers are responsible for ensuring full coverage and progression.

For pupils who do not have the phonic knowledge and skills they need for year 2, teachers should use the year 1 programmes of study for spelling so that pupils catch up.

Spelling sessions should take place daily for at least 15 minutes.

Sessions

Teachers should begin each week by reading the spellings with the children and discussing the rule. Power-points found in the Twinkl Bumper Spelling online files can be used to support this element.

1. Activate prior knowledge
2. Revisit previous linked learning
3. Investigate spelling patterns/ words
4. Practise together
5. Extend/explore the concept independently
6. Apply (LSCSC)

The following list is not exhaustive but includes strategies which should be used to enable pupils to learnt their spellings:

• Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check (LSCSC) (statutory)

The school’s proforma should be used. Pupils may write their own weekly spellings in the first column or this may be pre-populated by the teacher.

• Keep copying
• Make a pyramid
• Create with colour
• Learn your ABC
• Picture this
• Build a sentence
• Strategies found in No Nonsense Spelling

The following units should be followed for each year group’s Twinkl Overviews except for Reception and Year 1- see bespoke plan which aligns with Read, Write Inc:

	Term 1	Term 2	Term 3	Term 4	Term 5	Term 6
Reception and Year 1- bespoke plan	1a	1b	2a	2b	3a	3b
Year 2	1a	1b	2a	2b	3a	3b
Year 3	1a	1b	2a	2b	3a	3b
Year 4	1a	1b	2a	2b	3a	3b
Year 5	1a	1b	2a	2b	3a	3b
Year 6	1a	1b	2a	2b	3a	3b

To clarify: The majority of children in Reception and Year 1 are on the Read, Write Inc. Programme. The spelling term should therefore align with their stage on the programme.

Children are encouraged to spot their own spelling errors in their written work and make the appropriate corrections. When marking written work, the teacher will point out a selection of errors that is appropriate to the age and ability of the child. Children should be given the opportunity as part of Marking Response Time to correct their spellings independently or with a Buddy using dictionaries or word banks.

The spelling dot should be used in workbooks.

Practising at home

Spellings should be sent home on Mondays once the initial teacher modelling session has taken place. Pupils can continue to practice spelling rules learned to date if teachers wish to provide spellings over the weekend.

Impact

Assessment

The assess and review week must be used to assess pupils’ progress against the objectives that have been covered each half term. This includes Dictation and Spot the mistake exercises. Informal weekly spelling tests will also be administered on Fridays.

Termly assessments will be made using NFER and SAT spelling tests. Marking will focus on spelling rules learned to date.

At the end of each term teachers should use their formative assessment to offer the opportunity for revision. If there are mistakes from previous tests, then these words should be tested again. It is essential that children are given the opportunity to consolidate their spelling knowledge of patterns and rules and that they are not simply learnt for the weekly test.

SEN and Inclusion

Where individuals are early EAL, SEN or unable to access the expected age related level for spelling, provision will be made by the class teacher to enable pupils to access the appropriate spellings.

Additional time must be given for Look, Cover, Spell, Check.

Ensure that the pupil is using a multi-sensory method to learn spellings.

When learning spellings at home encourage the pupil to learn the spellings using the multi-sensory method and to check the words again 10 minutes later to ensure that the words go from the short term to the long term memory.

Identify high frequency words being misspelt and proof read for these throughout the week, with support where necessary.

Encourage the pupil to proof read for approximately 3 new words each week.

Ensure that the pupil is recording their own high frequency word errors in their workbooks.

Spelling Interventions

• Stareway to Spelling