Here are some spelling activities you could try at home: - Word sorts: Cut out words with the same spelling pattern (e.g. words with 'ight') and sort them into groups. - Scrambled words: Write words on strips of paper, scramble the letters and have your child rearrange them to spell the word. - Find the spelling: Write clues for spelling words and have your child figure out the word (e.g. A place you sleep - B E D). - Make words: Use letter tiles or magnetic letters to make as many words as possible that follow a spelling pattern. - Write a story: Give your child a spelling word and have them write a short story that incorporates

1. SPELLING
@
STM
Parent workshop
All images displayed in this presentation were obtained from creative commons sources siting permission to use and modify content provided

2. At STM our
teaching is
guided by
research.

3. What
research
says about
spelling...

4. 1) Focus needs to be on teaching
spelling strategies not lists of
words.
“The emphasis of a spelling program should be on
developing independent spellers who have the necessary
skills to use resources to locate the correct spelling of
words they are not familiar with .”
Shepherd, J. (1994). Spell it out: Success with spelling. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

5. 2) Spelling needs to be taught in
context.
“Learning to spell
involves being able to
recognise non-standard
forms in text. It is
important that teaching
always focuses on words
in text, not words in
isolation.”
Bean, W & Bouffler, C. (1997). Spelling: An Integrated
Approach. Armadale, Vic. : Eleanor Curtain Publishing.

6. 3)There are problems with
conventional phonics
teaching.
If we begin to teach children how to spell by starting
with one sound per letter, we then have to reteach the
exceptions to those rules e.g. for words such as rice,
swan, happy etc. This can be very hard for children to
grasp as patterns relating to letters and sounds seem
to always change.
“The letter ‘a’ is given the sound [a], as in ant and so on. The problem is when we come to read a word like baby the
letter ‘a’ isn’t making [a] as in ant, but is representing the phoneme[A], heard in words such as tape, snail and tray.
Similarly with words such as what and was, the letter ‘a’ represents the phoneme [A], as heard in words such as frog and
swan.” This is both inconsistent and unsustainable.
http://www.thrass.com.au/infobrouch/Thrass%20InfomationBrochure%20.pdf

7. 3)Spelling is developmental
“ Spelling develops in clearly defined stages... Children revert to previous stages and
strategies when attempting unknown spellings.”
Wing Jan, L. (1991). Spelling and grammar in a whole language classroom. Sydney: Ashton Scholastic.

8. Spelling developmental stages
1) Precommunicative spelling:
- child uses symbols to represent writing
2) Semiphonetic spelling:
- child attempts to apply letter sound correspondence
3) Phonetic spelling
- child has a knowledge of sounds that allows writing to be understood but spelling conventions not applied
4) Transitional spelling:
- child uses other spelling strategies, displays correct letters but not always in correct order
5) Correct spelling :
- child uses all strategies to spell words, can recognise incorrect spelling and uses generalisations to help with
new spelling problems
Gentry, B (1982, cited in Wing Jan, L. (1991). Spelling and grammar in a whole language classroom. Sydney: Ashton Scholastic.

9. How STM
tackles
spelling

10. 1) Through teaching
spelling strategies
Sound Visual Meaning
Strategies Strategies Strategies
- Sounding out words - visualising letter - spelling choices based
- exploring the sounds patterns e.g. blends, on what the word
of different letter letter clusters, means ( eg. two/too/to
patterns compound words, - prefixes/ suffixes
- word origin / original
meaning of word(or part
of word)
Fountas, Irene and Pinnell, G.S. Guiding readers and Wr.iters, Grades 3-6. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001

11. Sounds
Strategies
✤Some of the ways we address sound strategies include:
★Start from an oral language & sounds basis
★Utilising sounds charts
★Rhyme games/ activities/ nursery rhymes/ songs/ rhyming cloze/ rhyming tag/ rhyming
words that are spelt the same and not spelt the same
★Forming generalisations about sounds
★Focusing on sounds in shared reading/ writing/ Literacy activities & sessions
★Cued articulation
★Online sounds based games/ blending games
★alliteration games
★Puppetry
★Word wheels
★Alliteration and tongue twisters
★Beats / claps and syllables
★Word sorts according to sounds
★homophones
★silent letters

12. Visual
strategies
✤Some of the ways we address visual strategies include:
★Utilising sounds charts ★CH.I.M.P or Look Say Cover Write Check
★Magnetic letters ★Create the word shape on grid paper
★Forming generalisations about letter ★Cloze exercises with patterns included e.g. - --
patterns ough- he was ---ough for I though he was
through /Cloze exercises using big books (masking
★Bingo games letters)
★Onset and rime ★Crosswords
★Online visual/ letter pattern based games ★Word searches
★word walls/ generalisation walls ★Write a sentence with vowels missing & fill in
vowel
★Dictation develops visual memory in
context – seen dictation / unseen dictation ★Hangman
★M100W words and related games ★Wordlinks – find the hidden words –
mnksladyjuskluneighbourmjuiopsd
★Flashcards
★Using cards with individual words – take one
★Compound word snap away – what is missing?
★Silent letters ★Speed copying
★Break word into syllables / highlight ★Proofreading
difficult part (larger font, colour)
★ Illustrate particular words or word parts ★mnemonics
that cause difficulty

13. Meaning Strategies
Etymological
Where the word comes from
✤Some of the ways we address etymological strategies include:
★Word webs e.g. from the Greek
★Word meaning investigations “aer” meaning air
★Word origin investigations ★Word sorts according to etymology
★Word walls ★topic words e.g. food words and
locate origin of words eg sushi
★ Forming generalisations about word meaning
★Word derivation charts
★ Explicit identification of word meaning/ origin in
shared reading/ writing/ inquiry/ literacy tasks ★Root words are written on cards and
task is to write as many words as
★Breaking words apart and looking at the meaning possible that come from this root
of sections of the word
★Create an animal using Greek or
★ Identifying word meaning when reading texts Latin roots e.g. punctata
quadrocornisbiped (dotted four-horned
★Activities two footed animal)
★Word origins – matching cards ★Cartoons for word origins (eg Word
for Word – Atchison)
★Acronym and abbreviation hunt
★Explore different forms of etymology
★Words with “ch” from English (hard ch), Greek (k) e.g.
and French (sh) origins – what pronunciation?
★Words that sound like their meaning

14. Meaning Strategies
Morphemic
Parts of words that have meaning
✤Some of the ways we address Morphemic strategies include:
affixes – prefixes and suffixes / affix snap
base word families
homophone concentration
compound words / Compound word race (base word e.g.
water – form as many compound words as possible
antonyms / synonyms
contractions / abbreviations
changing tense – “ed”, “ing” “s”/
Headlight vs. head light / changing f to v and adding es
plurals – adding “s” “es” / plurals – changing y to i and adding
es or ed
nouns that change vowels eg foot to feet
word webs
word sorts according to common morpheme
using letter tiles to make new words
Palindromes

15. 2) Through
tackling
Spelling in
context

16. We contextualise spelling by:
Assessing your child’s individual writing pieces/
spelling assessments ( e.g. Peters Dictation)
Working one on one or in small groups with your
children to identify spelling errors in their writing and
deliver explicit point of need teaching
Identifying spelling / letter patterns/ sounds/ word
meaning etc. in shared texts during reading/ writing/
inquiry etc
Encouraging students to identify words from their own
texts/ writing
Using analogy to teach words with similar letter/
sound patterns when a word in their work is identified
as a spelling error

17. 3) Through
integrating
spelling into other
curriculum areas
and providing
varied ways of
learning to spell

18. We integrate spelling into the
curriculum by:
Identifying spelling choices, sounds,
terminology across all subjects
linking spelling and vocabulary to our Inquiry
units
Maintaining word walls which:
- house words in sound categories
- support matching explanations
- display word definitions
- highlight letter patterns
Provide a range of hands on, written and
online spelling activities

19. So where do
lists come in?
•At STM, we don’t start our spelling teaching with lists
•Once a student’s writing piece or assessment has been
analysed, one or two words/ letter patterns will be identified
•Once a focus point has been identified then other words
containing that letter combination/ sound will be selected
•lists will not exceed 5 or so words
•children will engage in activities or tasks at school (and
possibly as part of their homework)which help them to make
connections with and memorise the spelling strategy/ letter
choice
•assessment of spelling will be done in a variety of ways
including analysis of children’s writing, small tests or through
teacher observation/ note taking when in one on one or
small group learning situations

20. Things you
can do at
home

21. Things you can do at home :
Play spelling games
Play rhyming games/ sing rhyming songs
Spell out words when asking your children to do things
Point out the spelling of different words when children ask
what they mean
Point out new or interesting words you see the media or on
signs etc and break them up as you read them
encourage children to think of different words that mean the
same thing and prompt them to have a go at attempting the
spelling of those words
Identify other words which have the same sound/ letter
pattern as words they use
discuss the meaning of new words
Look up where words originated in the dictionary/ thesaurus
or online
Play online spelling games
Play games like scrabble ( always with a dictionary handy)

22. Spelling
Websites:

23. Spelling Websites:
http://docs.google.com/viewer? http://www.spellingcity.com/
url=http://www.decs.sa.gov.au/
barossa/files/links/ http://www.superteacherideas.com/
thinkingspelling.pdf&chrome=true spelling.html
http://www.primarygames.com/see- http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/
n-spell/see-n-spell.htm wordsandpictures/phonics/
postcard/
http://www.elgweb.net/
spell_act.html http://www.kidsspell.com/
http://www.gamesgames.com/ http://www.kidspot.com.au/
games/spelling/spelling.html SpellingGames/wordscrambler-
index-kidspot.asp
http://www.theclassroomkit.com/
word-families-games.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/
wordsandpictures/phonics/
http://www.gamequarium.com/ sandcastle/
spelling.html
http://roythezebra.com/
http://www.spinandspell.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/
spellits/

24. Spelling Websites continued:
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/english/contents08writingspelling.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/spelling/
http://www.ezschool.com/EZSheets/index.html
http://www.tutpup.com/plays/new/2-word-game
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/english.htm
http://www.toolsforeducators.com/
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/literacy.html#7
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/spellits/index.shtml
http://www.worksheetworks.com/english/alphabetizing.html
http://www.edhelper.com/?gclid=CMaftZKFzZgCFQlrgwodsHnu1A
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/literacy/index.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hardspell/starspell_game.shtml
http://www.ezschool.com/Tutorials/index.html
http://www.ezschool.com/Spelling/index.html

25. Time to have
a go at some
spelling
activities