Sub Strand: Conventions
2.L.CV.301
Component: Spelling
Uses a variety of spelling strategies to spell words with common spelling
patterns and frequently occurring words.
For spelling skills to continue to develop students must be engaging in purposeful writing daily. Modelling
will continue to be a key strategy
Students will have achieved this when they







Grade 1
Understand a letter can represent more than
one sound
Understand that a sound can be represented
by various letter combinations
Can spell one and two syllable words with
common letter patterns
Know that high frequency words like, and,
but and the have little meaning on their own
and need to be learnt
Use letter clusters and diagraphs to spell
unfamiliar words
Recognise some letters are silent
Consistently spells some high frequency
words correctly








Grade 2
Know a good speller uses more than one
strategy to spell words
Can discuss the spelling strategies used
Can spell and increasing number of high
frequency words correctly
Can use knowledge of diagraphs, long
vowels, blends and silent letters to spell one
and two syllable words
Can build word families using knowledge of
suffixes and prefixes
Use letter/sound and morphemes to spell
high frequency words
Know that sounds can be represented in
different ways when spelling eg to, two, too
Are beginning to apply spelling
generalisations when spelling by applying
morphemic knowledge of spelling rules eg
adding suffixes es or s to make plurals
These are examples of classroom activities which help students learn




Grade 1
Teach high frequency words by discussing,
playing matching games, looking for the
‘tricky’ part of the word, eg the silent letter
in knit
Explore letter clusters and identify the
individual sounds of the consonants and the
sound of the cluster. Example, g and r in
growl; g and r combine to gr
Explore vowel diagraphs. The combination
of two vowels makes one sound: oo in hoot,
shoot; ai in wait
Look for similar words with the same lettersound patterns.
Document1





Grade 2
Explore homophones with a focus on
meaning and grammar meaning (meetverb/meat-noun). Make lists and display
and word cards for sorting.
Explore prefixes and suffixes and meaning
(use builder-er; builder is one who builds).
Make some lists and cards for sorting.
Build known words, eg thumb, then spell
crumb
Brainstorm compound words, eg
rain+fall=rainfall
Explore morphemic knowledge-one, once,
only, alone
1

Grade 1
Introduce proofreading by giving a list of
high frequency words to look for in
completed writing and correct if necessary.


Grade 2
Engage students in matching high frequency
words. Students need to learn and recognise
common high frequency words such as and,
because, went, the, it, was, etc.
Have student proofread their writing
individually and in pairs by circling words
identified as incorrect. Through modeling,
gradually introduce a proofreading guide
which includes spelling and simple
punctuation, in particular the correct use of
capital letters.
Teaching notes
If students are writing on the computer, teach how to use spell check and discuss the limitations.
At this stage the spelling strategies that need to be regularly modeled include:
Spelling Strategy
Sounding Out
Example
Say the word slowly and listen for the sounds
Segmenting or syllabification
Break the word into parts eg diff/er/ent
Visual
Write a word more than once to see if it ‘looks right’
Refer to a reference
This includes dictionaries and spell check but at this stage
continue to encourage use of the class word wall and print in
the room as well as any personal lists in use.
Morphemes
There are three kinds of morphemes



a free morpheme stands by itself, it is a word eg elephant, student, play
a bound morpheme is an affix added to a free morpheme to change its meaning eg adding s or es to
indicate more than one; ed indicating past tense
a non-word morpheme links meaning in the word where it occurs eg auto means self; automatic,
autocrat, auto graph
Words sorts
This involves students using their graphological, phonological and word knowledge to group words in a
variety of ways. As well as sorting students should be encouraged to ‘hunt’ for words when they are
reading that belong to the categories being studied. The teacher should display word charts illustrating
examples of the different patterns studied, and encourage students to add to the charts when hunting.
Students might also keep word study notebook to record the known patterns and their new understandings
about words. Do not accept nonsense words when brainstorming the word lists and playing with sounds
and words. Meaning is always the key. Always pause and make sure you discuss the words on the list.
Document1
2
Assessment
Have students do word sorts related to the teaching point, for example, certain letter clusters or diagraphs.
Add new words following the pattern to the sorts the students have been doing. Observing the results will
indicate if the student is successful in applying learning to new words.


Grade 1
Note sight and high frequency words spelled
correctly in writing. Praise students doing
this correctly and others for attempts.
Respond to students not yet achieving this
by writing the words on cards for them to
keep handy.
Formal assessment: Use the Writing
Vocabulary task from The Observation
Survey (Clay). Give each child a blank piece
of paper and ask them to write as many
words as they know. Prompt by saying they
can write their name, I, a, etc Give students
10 minutes. Score by giving 1 point to each
word spelled correctly.
Document1






Grade 2
Note sight and high frequency words spelled
correctly in writing. Praise students doing
this correctly. Support students not
achieving this by using the strategies above.
Assess use of the simple proofreading guide.
Support those having difficulty in smaller
groups.
Proofreading
Can the student identify non-standard
spelling and incorrect simple grammar?
Can the student correct identified errors?
Is the student applying a range of spelling
strategies?
3