Primary
Feature: Spelling Round-up
Spelling
Round-up
Spelling seems
to be an issue in
many schools at the
moment. Janet Gough
considers some of the
reasons for this and
suggests a range of
resources to help.
Say what you like about the Primary National
Strategy, there was certainly a wealth of resources,
advice, training and funding when it was introduced.
Conversely, the curriculum introduced in 2014 has
come along with nothing. Nothing. Schools and
teachers across the country are struggling to develop
their own school curricula with no support or guidance
whatsoever, other than the statutory and non-statutory
guidance. And assessment? The almost weekly debacles
and alterations to assessment requirements is surely
eroding what little faith teachers had in the educational
policies of the government.
Much of the support I am being asked for in schools
at the moment is around spelling and vocabulary.
Many teachers lament the fact that, at Year 6, children
still spell ‘whith’ whent’ ‘wen’ etc.. Homophones are
particularly challenging: there, their and there being a
well-known perennial problem. Another thing I have
noticed in schools is the number of older children who
do not use letter names when spelling words aloud but
rather rely on the phonic sounds.
The Key Stage 2 spelling test shows that children
are still spelling in a phonetically plausible way at Year
6 – stayshon, for example. How have they got to Year
6 without grasping a basic and common suffix such as
‘tion’? you might ask. Now, these children had not been
taught the curriculum with its higher expectations for
spelling from Year 1, and perhaps when the children
who have, our current Year 2 children, arrive in Year 6,
the picture may look a lot different.
But what is the picture? It’s very difficult to separate
spelling results from the all-encompassing Grammar,
Punctuation and Spelling statistics available, so it’s with
a feeling that this domain of the English curriculum
needs attention, and feedback from colleagues in
primary and secondary schools, rather than empirical
evidence, that I approach this article.
We will see from other articles in this magazine that
phonics teaching from the start is the main approach to
teaching children to read and spell. If schools are using
Letters and Sounds, and many are, then what next? Many
KS2 colleagues lack confidence in the use of phonemes,
graphemes, split digraphs and the like, but the children
don’t. They have had three years of it and are probably
the experts, so these skills need to be continued, built
upon and extended into the other spelling strategies:
morphology and etymology. As they move further up
the school, it seems to be that where spelling is actually
taught thoroughly with a focus on word investigation
and learning the rules, children spell more confidently.
“Why are
children in
Year 6 still
spelling the
word ‘station’
as ‘stayshon’?”
NATE | Teaching English | Primary Matters | Summer 2016 | 37
Primary
Feature: Spelling Round-up
Why is spelling so difficult?
English is a ‘polyglot’ or borrowing language. We have
acquired countless thousands of new words, many of
which remain untouched preserving their original
roots. English spelling appears to have no structure.
In fact it does, it’s just well-hidden and little known.
Spelling has been traditionally taught as a list of words,
which may or may not bear any relationship to each
other, to be learned specifically for a test. The only
thing that mattered was that you got them right in the
test. It didn’t matter whether you ever used those words
again and, if you did, it didn’t matter if you got them
right because invariably the teacher would write them
in for you and you just had to copy them out a few times.
Those of you who are a little longer in the tooth than
others may have come across the Schonell spelling test.
Some of you might even still use it. It was a list of 3,200
‘everyday’ words devised in the 1930s by an Australian
educationalist called Professor Schonell. With a name
like Schonell, you’d expect him to be a Pierre or Jacques,
but no. His first name was Fred. His list included words
like ineradicable, judicature and somnambulist. All jolly
useful. The words were grouped from ‘easiest’ to ‘hardest’
and a selection of these words were presented as a noncontextual spelling test which only tested children’s decoding
skills. Sound familiar, Year 1 colleagues?
“Spelling has been traditionally taught as
a list of words, which may or may not bear
any relationship to each other, to be learned
specifically for a test.”
The First Aid in English came along with its quaint
approach to knowing the gender of nouns: coster,
donah; giant, giantess; proprietor, proprietrix; and its mindboggling spelling lists grouped under headings such as
‘Sky’ and ‘Hospital’. Once you’d memorised chloroform,
insane and poison, you were set for life. I’ve still got mine.
What’s really amazing is that you can still buy both
books! The Schonell one looks to be a collectors’ item,
but First Aid is right there for sale on Amazon. It’s got
pictures in now. I’m guessing it has also lost some of its
political incorrectness on the way.
But think about it. The teaching of English was
vastly different in those days. For one thing, it was
lots of reading and writing which did include plenty
of grammar and spelling. Books, apart from those for
the very young, tended not to have many illustrations,
and there wasn’t much else for a ten-year-old to do
other than read or play out. At my primary school,
the ‘maths’ was arithmetic, we had a nature table so I
suppose that counted as science and we once went on a
trip to Hadrian’s Wall. Oh, and we did a bit of singing on
a Friday afternoon. Vastly different to today’s primary
teacher trying to shoe-horn ten or more subjects into
the same number of hours.
And you want me to teach spelling as well? In
a rigorous and thorough way with a focus on word
investigation and learning the rules?
What is at our disposal to support this approach?
Read on.
Let’s start with the free stuff
The government issued a number of resources to
support the spelling and vocabulary elements of the
Primary and Secondary Strategies: Spelling Bank (2001);
38 | NATE | Teaching English | Primary Matters | Summer 2016
Year 2 and Year 3 Planning Exemplification and Spelling
Programme (2003); Teaching Effective Vocabulary (2008);
Support for Spelling (2009). These were all Primary
publications issued by the government and are Crown
Copyright. The secondary publication Grammar for
Reading © Crown copyright 2003 Module 1: Words has
a wealth of information with strong links to grammar
but still very relevant for the understanding required
at Year 6. The KS3 Literacy Progress Unit: Spelling is
a brilliant resource – full of ideas and activities to be
plundered.
Spelling Bank is still an excellent repository of words,
rules, activities, etc. It does mention ‘connectives’ but
we can cope with that. The range of resources within
this small book is excellent and the word lists are, in the
main, still applicable to the statutory requirements.
A word of caution – what was previously a Year 6
objective is probably now a Year 3 one so don’t look for
your year group when finding resources. Look for the
objective you are teaching. There will be other areas we
no longer need to consider. Words ending in vowels other
than e (Year 5 Term 1 Objective 4) is not necessary any
more, thank goodness. I have never known a child use
the word ‘ecru’ in his or her writing.
To increase your own knowledge and confidence
Spell it Out by David Crystal published by Profile Books
Just as we would expect from the English guru, this is
such an entertaining read but also a skilful manual for
understanding the history of the English spelling. It
has been described as ‘light on its feet’ which is a perfect
description of this consummate guide to English
spelling. I found myself nodding in agreement and
smiling with amusement. Give it a go.
The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules by
John Fulford published by Astoria Press
John Fulford has over forty years teaching experience
in a number of countries. He was educated in England,
brought up in Canada and now lives in America, but
don’t let that put you off. He explains that every other
language has an academy or a committee which governs
its spelling, but English is allowed to grow and develop,
which makes for a vibrant language but a difficult one
to learn all the rules. In this book, John’s commonsense approach and clear guide covers all the rules you
thought you knew and plenty you didn’t.
Understanding Spelling by Olivia O’Sullivan and
Anne Thomas published by Routledge
‘How do children learn to spell and how can teachers work
most effectively to support their progress in spelling?’ ask the
authors of this publication from CLPE, the independent
UK charity with a global reputation for the quality of
our research into literacy and teaching. Full of case
studies and sound advice, this is another recommended
read. What are the links between learning to read and
learning to spell? What kinds of systematic teaching and
interventions make a difference to children’s progress?
The book contains clear guidelines on teaching spelling
throughout the primary school.
Resources to purchase
CGP (Co-ordination Group Publications) publish lots
of helpful books for teachers and for children and I’m
pleased to see that they have produced some dedicated
spelling books for each year group, plus two SAT Buster
books for Year 6. This is what they say:
You can never have too much spelling practice for the KS2
English SATS, so we’ve rustled up this smashing Book
2, fully up-to-date for the tests in 2016 and beyond! It
contains a whole new set of SATS-style questions covering
all the spelling techniques pupils will need to master, with
self-assessment tick-boxes throughout the book.
Not only are their publications clear and accessible for
children, they are also reasonably priced and the service
from CGP is second to none with great customer service
and delivery usually the next day. Highly recommended.
The lovely people at CGP have donated a full set of
their spelling resources for us to offer as a prize at the
conference in June.
No Nonsense Spelling won a Primary Teacher
Award in 2015.
If you like a structure to plan from, then look no further
than No Nonsense Spelling written by the Babcock
Education Devon Literacy Advisors and published
by Raintree. This spelling programme, for Years 2-6,
provides outlines for daily lessons along with a useful
bank of resources. No Nonsense Spelling comes packaged
in a box that provides a teacher’s book for each year
group containing termly overviews and daily lessons
plus a memory stick with the whole resource on it so
that you can load it on to your school server. This part
of the resource is created in Microsoft Word so that
teachers can adapt the lessons to suit their classes. It’s
a great starting point for an effective whole-school
spelling programme at a reasonable price.
Word Blaze from Rising Stars
This is a fast-paced spelling programme which
consists of 6 pupil books, a teacher handbook and a
CDRom. The programme can be used with Key Stage 2
intervention groups to improve reading fluency, embed
letter patterns and widen vocabulary. Global challenges
motivate children to improve their reading and
spelling skills and meet the new National Curriculum
expectations, including the large area of prefixes and
suffixes. One-minute daily tests keep the spellings in
focus. Sizzling Syllables and Fiery Phrases keep the
learning on the boil.
Online resources
http://membean.com/educator/wordroots
What a fab site this is! If children can understand
this element of spelling, I believe they are a good way
to becoming accurate spellers. The site has links to
hundreds of roots, some that are words in their own
right (free morphemes) and some which are just roots.
They are displayed in an accessible and attractive
way with links for further explanation and definition,
for example:
cred – believe
The Latin root word cred means ‘believe.’ This
Latin root is the word origin of a good number of
English vocabulary words, including credit, credo,
and credentials. The Latin root word cred is easily
recalled through the English word incredible, for
if something incredible happens it can hardly be
believed. Worth a visit. Look for the tree and roots.
https://www.spellingcity.com/
Type in a list of words which follow the spelling
pattern being studied and children can access a range
of free games and activities to explore and practise
with further resources available in the ‘Premium’ (or
chargeable) area. Just a point to note – it’s an American
site so if you choose any of the activities with audio, the
words are read in an American accent. There are some
engaging games for the children to play which reinforce
spelling rules.
There are also some nice activities at http://www.
topmarks.co.uk as well but they are lumped in with
the grammar and punctuation so you’ll need to hunt
for them.
And you might just have a look at Schonell’s list of
everyday words as well. Whilst your children (and you)
will be bewildered by the words, there are some great
examples of roots, prefixes and suffixes, of etymology
and phonology, and of fascinating and miscellaneous
letter patterns galore. Get looking them up and you
could be ‘using the first three or four letters to check spelling,
meaning or both in a dictionary’.
All of these resources are recommendations based
on their usefulness in the classroom. There are a great
deal more books, resources and websites out there, but
a lot are not up to the job. The personal endorsements
made by the author are not intended to represent the
views of NATE.
“You can
never have too
much spelling
practice.”
Janet Gough
is an experienced teacher,
leading teacher and
English subject leader
with a proven track record
of raising standards at
Key Stage Two. She is
a freelance and NATE
English and Literacy
consultant, a marker for
the KS2 GPS test and a
writer of online materials
for Teacher-of-Primary.
com. She has an interest
in visual literacy and
a passion for teaching
writing. She specialises in supporting teachers with the
teaching of Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling.
NATE | Teaching English | Primary Matters | Summer 2016 | 39