A quick Google search will help you discover the ancient origins of our language. When introducing new vocabulary, pull words apart to show how older meanings have changed over time to form new words. And, it often doesn’t play by the rules you’ve taught students to follow. It tells the story of invasion and expansion. The English language is fascinating, rich, and varied. It’s not enough to teach phonics and expect children to learn to spell accurately. With this wider cultural knowledge, the spelling of submarine becomes the easier process of adding two known morphemes together. They learn through morphology that this prefix means below and they’ll recognise the word marine as something to do with water. Reading high-quality texts is essential to develop the broad vocabulary you want your children to use when writing.įor example, a child is more likely to spell the word submarine if they are familiar with other sub- words like submerge and substandard. Children need to hear stories read aloud regularly, daily, wherever possible. Students often avoid writing words they don’t know how to spell, but they’ll never use words they’ve not encountered before. Then build in time for self-correction, teaching of morphology, and the fascinating etymology of the English language. Allow children that vital free writing time, where they’re encouraged to be creative and adventurous with their word choices. Instead of keeping spelling separate, put it right back into the writing process. Teachers become frustrated when children score 10/10 for a test, then continue to mis-spell these words when writing. For far too long spelling has been removed from the process of writing, taught discretely with children learning (often random) long lists of words for weekly tests. Children can then learn the words which break these spelling patterns. This is useful for learning prefixes and suffixes and naturally leads on to a deeper understanding of tenses. Teach children to spot patterns and rules. Instead, try splitting words into morphemes, the smallest unit of meaning, to find words within words. Often as teachers, we break longer words down into syllables to chunk them for spelling, but that can awkwardly break them and lose the root words hidden within. These will be the vast majority of words that our young students write, and they can make phonemically plausible guesses at the rest. We expect children to know these on sight, without needing to decode. They need plenty of repetition to remember the phoneme (sound) and grapheme (letter shape), so the more fun the better.Īlongside phonics, children need to see and spell "sight words." These are words we use all the time (high frequency) and non-decodable words, like was. Young children can learn phonemes by tracing them, making them from dough, writing with different materials, and cutting and sticking activities. This should be a fun, fast-paced, and multi-sensory experience. Learning phonics is the essential starting point for our youngest students learning to write their first words. Learning the meaning behind words can help students remember to spell other words with the same etymology. This reflects its long history of conquest and invasion. The English language is complicated and often difficult to spell because so many words don’t follow common phonemic patterns. Etymology is the study of the origin of words (their "true" meanings). Through morphology, students can learn about different tenses and spot known words within larger ones. This includes understanding prefixes, suffixes, and compound words. Students learn to spot the smallest units of meaning (morphemes) within longer words. Morphologyįrom Greek, morpho means shape. Students with strong orthography can more easily spot misspelt words and make plausible guesses at new spellings. Students use orthography to apply common spelling rules and patterns used in English. Orthographyįrom Greek, orthos means correct and graphia means writing. As they grow older, children learn how to break words down into sounds (segmenting) and put them together (blending) to spell. Each sound ( phoneme) is represented by a letter (grapheme) or group of letters. We use phonology (also known as phonics) to teach young children the smallest units of sounds. Phonologyįrom Greek, phono means sound and logy means study. Students combine these to write familiar words and make plausible guesses at unfamiliar spellings. Learning to spell contains four key elements. 9: Support Students with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia.8: Give Spelling Quality Time in Your Curriculum.
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