Spelling: teaching and learning spelling

Planning a whole school programme

A whole-school spelling policy

Primary schools

• For primary schools, it makes sense to start with the Spelling Appendix of the National Curriculum, and then to plan as a school how to share out some of the Key Stage 2 work into wider curricular areas, particularly in Years 5 and 6.
• The 'Weekly Spelling Lists' of the popular Lancashire-based 'Topical Resources' group show how this can be done. The activity booklets (you can peek at sample pages for free) are not just spelling lists: they start from the 100 high-frequency words in the Letters and Sounds Appendix (Primary National Strategy, 2007), but then have activity booklets that go through to Year 6, with a wide range of materials, including photocopiable record sheets, vocabulary development work, games, dictionary work and personal spelling logs. There are also suggestions for cross-curricular applications and extension tasks for the quicker learners. It would be a fairly straightforward job to derive most of a whole-school spelling policy from these materials.
• The other key element of any whole-school policy is consistency and implementation across every class and year group:
  • Are the head teacher(s), Literacy Coordinator and SENCO all involved in writing and supporting the whole-school spelling policy?
  • Is there an agreed approach within every year group?
  • Is there a coherent policy on progression in spelling from Y1-Y6?
  • Is there a consistent policy on how many spelling errors are noted, and how they are discussed, corrected, and followed up?
  • Is there an agreed policy on how personal spelling logs are used?
  • Is there agreement on what ICT resources might best support the spelling policy?
  • Is there an agreed policy on where spelling fits in with overall writing development?
  • Is there agreement on the role Learning Assistants and parents/carers might play in supporting the school’s spelling policy?
  • Is there a school policy for record-keeping on children's progress on learning the spellings in the new Y3-Y4 and Y5-Y6 spelling lists?

Secondary schools

For secondary schools, a number of key principles are the similar to those for a primary school:

• Are the head teacher(s), appropriate Heads of Department, Literacy Coordinator and SENCO all involved in writing and supporting the whole-school spelling policy?
• Is there an agreed approach within every year group?
• Is there a coherent policy on progression in spelling from Y1-Y6?
• Is there a consistent policy on how many spelling errors are noted, and how they are discussed, corrected, and followed up?
• Is there an agreed policy on how personal spelling logs are used?
• Is there agreement on what ICT resources might best support the spelling policy
• Is there an agreed policy on where spelling fits in with overall writing development?
• Is there agreement on the role Learning Assistants and parents/carers might play in supporting the school's spelling policy?
• Is there a school policy for record-keeping on children's progress in spelling?

What kind of detail should go into a whole-school spelling policy? Here is a useful example, from Heathfield Primary School.

Spelling Policy

Spelling - a whole school policy

John Buchan Middle School

It should be recognised that whatever the subject, whoever is teaching, the basic principles apply to all.

The teacher's job is not to correct mistakes the pupils have already made, but to help them not to make that mistake next time. Equally parents, pupils and teachers should be aware that spelling is a secretarial skill and is not related to how clever a person is.

The school's marking policy requires spellings that are incorrect to be indicated by the insertion of 'sp' this however requires further explanation.

Marking spelling

• Don't mark every miscue or misspelling - Choose three or four at the most and pick the ones that most need correcting - that is, words that the learner ought to be able to spell out at this stage.
• The marker should always be sympathetic to what the writer is trying to communicate, the writer's errors (whilst important) should be second to the content.
• Do not insert letters into a misspelt word. It can confuse the writer. Instead you could
• Write the correct form in the margin
• Write the correct form into the writer's personal dictionary (in the school diary)

Teaching and correcting spelling

• Take it for granted that when you are introducing new words (photosynthesis, Eucharist or Macbeth) you will spend some time looking at the words and talking about their spelling.
• Recognise that there are different ways of learning to spell
• Encourage pupils to have a go for themselves in their jotter. Point out letter strings and words within words.

Spelling strategies

To continue learning, constructing and checking spellings, pupils should be able to:

• Recognise and record personal errors, corrections, investigations, conventions, exceptions and new vocabulary
• Sound out words phonemically and by syllables
• Draw on analogies to known words, roots, derivations, word families, morphology and familiar spelling patterns
• Identify words which pose a particular challenge and learn them by using mnemonics, multi-sensory re-inforcement and memorising critical features
• Use the quartiles of a dictionary and find words beyond the initial letter
• Make effective use of a spell checker, recognising where it might not be sufficient or appropriate