Spelling

The National Curriculum places great emphasis on correct spelling, and it is an important part of the process of learning to write.

In Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 the children have daily phonics lessons where they learn phonemes and graphemes.  They are taught to segment words (for example, splitting ‘frog’ into ‘f’, ‘r’, ‘o’, and ‘g’, or sheep into ‘sh, ‘ee’, ‘p’).

In Years 3 and 4 the children learn a new spelling pattern every few weeks as well as revising those already taught.

In addition to the phonics and spelling patterns, children in all year groups learn tricky or common exception words.  These are frequently occurring words that cannot be sounded out, or don’t follow the spelling patterns.

It takes lots of regular practise to learn these words, so these are also given as homework.

The spelling booklets for each year group can be found below.  There are lots of ideas for strategies you can use at home to support your child in the booklets.