Post Primary - Spelling

The pupil may have a difficulty sequencing sounds or letter patterns

• Segment and blend sounds in unfamiliar words (teach words in patterns to develop orthographic mappings, for example, chalk, talk, stalk)
• Use sticky notes for word building
• Provide a visual of the word and model segmenting and blending of the onset and rime of that word

The pupil may find it difficult to break words up into syllables

• Teach a pupil how to segment words into syllables
• Syllables are an abstract concept that need to be taught clearly and explicitly. A pupil may benefit from knowing the six syllable types and their rules:
  • Closed:   the vowel is closed in by one or more consonants, vowel will only make its short sound, for example, cat, hit, mop, in, spell, vet
  • Open: the vowel is left alone at the end, the vowel will say its letter name eg, go, she, he, no, hi 
  • Split e / Split Digraph:  there is a vowel, consonant and e in the word (VCE), although word has 2 vowels there is only one syllable, for example, gate, kite, cake, globe
  • R Controlled: when r comes after a vowel it is controlled by the r, the vowel sound and the r work together (for example, car, stir, fur, (1 syllable words) and progressing to 2 syllable words: car/pet, or/bit, spi/der, tur/ban 
  • Vowel Teams: if two vowels are together and make one sound they become a vowel team syllable - rain, boat, clay and usually make one long vowel sound
  • Consonant plus le (c+le):   ta/ble, jun/gle, ti/tle (double consonants: ap/ple, drib/ble, gig/gle) 

• Develop auditory skills of hearing and seeing letter (grapheme) and corresponding sound (phoneme)
• Use games to develop spelling skills and knowledge, such as, Hangman, Word Bingo and Boggle

Pupil appears unaware of repeated errors

Pupil’s self-esteem may be impacted 

• Mark a pupil’s work with him / her so that you can discuss errors and give the pupil an opportunity to explain what he / she finds difficult
• Encourage a pupil to proofread work before handing it in. Model the technique of underlining words that do not look right:
  Printable Resource: Proofreading Prompt Card - CAMPS
• Wherever possible, mark for content  

The pupil may have difficulty breaking down or sequencing multi-syllabic words

He / she may be unable to remember the letters to encode a word so relies on phonemic knowledge

• Motor memory can aid recall of spellings; joined handwriting has been found to be of particular benefit
• Providing a subject-specific vocabulary list with spelling strategies to accompany the list; or create these with the vocabulary tool in Texthelp’s ‘Read and Write’ software:
  Read and Write Quick Reference Guide for Google Chrome
  Read and Write for Windows: Support Tools for Students with Dyslexia
  • Give the pupil the opportunity to look at specialist words or keyword lists in advance
  • It is important that the pupil knows the meaning of the words
  • Texthelp’s Read and Write software will provide definitions and create personalised vocabulary lists:
• Sentence dictation is useful for reinforcing punctuation as well as developing note taking and proofreading skills:
  EA Guidance Video: Dictation Routine (9:02 mins)
  Teacher Guidance: Dictation Routine
• Chunking is a useful strategy to support a pupil with a poor working memory. It helps the pupil to recall and retain spellings
• Teach mnemonics for those tricky word that are hard to recaxll
• Use colour to highlight the syllables / tricky part of words such as: reproductive 
  Printable Resources: Spelling Mnemonics 
• Introduce memorable topic-based mnemonics across the curriculum: 
  Printable Resource: Mnemonics for Post Primary Pupils (Topic - Based)

The pupil may spell words purely phonetically

He / she may be very unsure of the essential spelling rules

• Teach word patterns to highlight the consistencies in the English language
• Explicit instruction in orthographic knowledge (the ability to recognise letter patterns) removes the need to encode sound by sound for spelling. This enables the development of automatic retrieval from memory
• A pupil may need anchor words for spelling patterns, to help develop automaticity in the recall of other words belonging to that pattern
• Guided Discovery Approach - the pupil is asked to listen to words and identify a pattern, for example, the /ge/ and /dge/ pattern when a single syllable word ends in /j/:
  EA Guidance Video: Guided Discovery (auditory) (3:10 mins)
• For unknown spellings where there could be several choices, highlighting the choices provides the pupil with a strategy for attacking unfamiliar words. The target spelling attempts are written down so the pupil can judge which one looks right
• Neuro Linguistic Processing is a visual spelling strategy where the pupil looks at the word, pictures it in his / her mind, writes it down and checks the spelling 
• Teach ‘See it right’ spelling strategy (use a ‘try page’)
• It is important to revisit and provide explicit teaching of spelling rules, such as:
  • When to use ‘ck’ at the end of words 
  • The doubling rule: When a word has one vowel before a single consonant, double the consonant before adding the ending. The word ‘sit’ becomes ‘sitting’
  • The drop ‘e’ rule: When a word ends in ‘e’ you drop the ‘e’ before adding a suffix, for example, if the suffix begins with a vowel, ‘care’ becomes ‘cared’
  • The add rule: If the suffix begins with a consonant, such as, ly, ness, ful, s, less, ment, some, ty, keep the ‘e’ and just add the suffix:
    • Hope becomes hopes / hopeful / hopeless
    • Wise becomes, wisely
    • Tire becomes, tiresome / tireless
    • Like becomes, likely, unlikely: (link below has no access)

Teacher Guidance: Advice for Teachers on Spelling Rules

• Use mnemonics for phonetically irregular words. Tricky words should have a visual hook. Allow the pupil to create their own versions for tricky words:         

      An island - is land

Printable Resources: Spelling Mnemonics 

• Teach self-correction strategies:

Printable Resource: Proofreading Prompt Card - CAMPS

The pupil may have poor morphological awareness 

The pupil may struggle to understand more complex topic words

• Provide visuals of root words and their etymology when developing a pupils morphological awareness:
  Teacher PowerPoint to explain Science Root Words
• The pupil can learn to make generalisations by asking questions such as: 

“What does the word mean?”

“Do I know the meaning of any of the morphemes (parts of the word)?” 

“Does the sound of the word tell me anything about its meaning that could be useful for spelling?”

“Is the word a compound word?”

“Are there any prefixes or suffixes in the word?”

“Do I know the meanings of them?”

• Teach the study of the relationship between grammar and words and how they can be used to match the meaning
• Make use of graphic organisers, such as, Frayer Organiser to help pupils -define target vocabulary, analyse words, generate examples and draw a picture to illustrate the meaning of a word:      

The pupil may overuse simple language as he / she is unsure of more complex words

• Prefix and suffix rules and meaning will need to be explicitly taught
• Introduce morpheme graphs and write the meaning of the morpheme down, for example, autograph, photograph and telegraph. If the pupil knows the meaning of the morpheme ‘photo’ (meaning light) in the words, photograph, photosensitivity and photosynthesis, it can help with understanding and spelling these words
• Teach root words, for example, ‘joy’ and demonstrate how the word meaning changes as we add prefixes or suffixes:
• Morphological knowledge becomes increasingly significant as it supports the knowledge of increasingly complex words, which pupils will encounter in Post Primary school:

Teacher Guidance: Words derived from Greek and Latin Origins- Morphology and Etymology

Teacher Guidance: Morphology on the Days of the Week 

Pupil Activities: Days of the Week 

Teacher Guidance: PowerPoint to explain Science Root Words

• Morphological language can be created digitally using the vocabulary tool in Read and Write software
• Look, Visualise, Say, Cover, Write and Check (LVSCWC) is a visual strategy for learning spellings - visualising a word in your mind can be useful

The pupil may be unsure of homophones and their meanings 

• Homophones and commonly confused words such as, ‘advice’ and ‘advise’ or ‘practice’ and ‘practise’ can be written on flash cards with images and strategies beside them
• Link homophones with sentences to emphasise their meanings
• The pupil can have a personalised set of cards for checking purposes