Word Study

Good spellers have the ability to spell common words and can use their knowledge of letters and chunks to assist in spelling new words. They know how words are structured and make links to other words when attempting new words. By using visual memory they decide if the word looks right and use resources to check words. 

Research tells us that the measure of a successful speller can be seen in how they approach writing unknown words, rather than how many words they rote learn.

Encouraging children to segment a word is a really good way of helping them learn to spell a word. We take it for granted that children can hear different sounds in a word, however this is a complex skill.

When practising spelling it is important for children to write the words. This could be with pen and paper or on a device.

A Game to Play

• Person One segments a word by saying the different sounds separately:"f-i-sh".
• Person Two guesses what the word is.
• Person Two has a turn of segmenting the word and Person One guesses the answer. 

This is great practise for spelling and develops skills  that can be applied to attempting any word. Once a child can hear all the sounds in a word he or she can then go about ensuring they record a letter or group of letters to represent that sound when they're writing. Getting this bit right is also tricky - particularly with the peculiar English language.

Essential Word Lists 1-4

Essential Word Lists 5 & 6

Essential List 7 & Commonly Misspelt Words