Support with Spelling
At Talbot Primary school, we teach synthetic phonics in EYRS and KS1. From January of Year 1 onwards, pupils are given weekly spelling lists to revise at home; it will be based on the phonics phase they are working on and will also contain some "tricky words".
As the children reach KS2, they will be given weekly spelling lists to learn at home. Research shows that to learn, retain and be able to use new spellings in one's own writing, one should be exposed to a new spelling at least 9x. We revise spellings every day at Talbot, so the children should practise a further 4x at home. This does not need to be for a long period of time, as retention is more closely linked to the frequency of revising spellings, rather than the duration one learns them for.
Specific Spelling Strategies for revising spellings
There are three categories of spelling error: Phonological, Orthographical and Morphological. Different approaches to learning spellings are proven to be more effective for different types of error. Please download our suggested strategies to help your children at home.
Additional support for spelling: IDL programme
Children in Key Stage 2, who continue to struggle with spelling, are offered free access to an online spelling programme to complete at home. IDL is a dyslexia friendly programme that teaches children to revise core words and spelling patterns in a multisensory manner (reading, typing, saying and listening). The focus is on the automatic recall of the basic building blocks of word to improve accuracy and fluency in general writing. It is suggested that pupils do up to 15 minutes per day at home. Please speak to your child's teacher if you think this would be helpful.
