Spellings

Ways to support your child with their spellings

Sounding out, applying their phonic knowledge. Encourage them to think about whether or not the sounds they are hearing are made by more than one letter. For example ar in car and igh in light.

Make large flash cards that can be placed around the home/bedroom.

Look, say, cover, write, check – Children look at the word, say it out loud and then cover it up to spell it from memory. They then uncover the word to check whether or not they have spelt it correctly.

Talk about the meanings of each word. Use a dictionary to show how to find out the meaning if they are not sure.

Does the word have an opposite? For example, up – down, him – her.

Support your child to write sentences, stories and poems containing the week’s spellings.

Play word snap, making pairs of each word.

Use memory devices such as mnemonics. Make up silly sentences/phrases using words that start with each letter. For example, are – angry red elephants , some – scary ostriches make eggs

Have fun writing words in the air, on different textures e.g. sand, condensation, paint.

Challenge your child to make a silly sentence using as many of the week’s spelling words as possible in one sentence.

Ask your child to identify the vowels and consonants in the word by colouring them in different colours.

Jumble the letters up and see if they can then unscramble them to spell the word correctly.