Digging Deeper: About this Spelling Book

Your child has finished learning the Year One and Two government words. This spelling book is designed to increase your child’s vocabulary and to add further frequently used words to their bank of known spellings.

Each set contains five words. The majority are phonics-based and can be decoded. There are some spellings that draw on the spelling rules in Year Two. These rules will be reinforced over the year in class and will be seen in homework too. 

The Two-Week Practice Approach

Each spelling set is designed to be practised over two weeks. This timeframe is crucial for effective learning. When children encounter the same words multiple times across several days, they can develop automatic recognition and spelling ability. If your child is able to recall the words, please remember that the assessment perhaps demonstrated that words can ‘drop off.’ Please keep rehearsing to improve their chances of permanently recalling each spelling. Research shows that spacing out practice over time, rather than trying to learn in one session, is by far the most beneficial. Forgetting a spelling during a check-up or when applying it within writing is a natural part of the learning process.

Daily Practice Tips

Keep practice short and positive: just two to three minutes daily is far more effective than longer, infrequent sessions. Do return to previous spellings to ensure that these have been retained.

Supporting Your Child

! Celebrate recognition of mistakes and effort, not just correct spellings

! Encourage your child’s determination and help them to recognise errors as an inevitable part of the learning journey. “What was the difficult part?” “That’s the correct grapheme, but we need to look for a different spelling choice.” This will help to build eager determination.

! Make practice fun and varied to maintain interest. For ideas to motivate and to encourage positive conversations about inaccuracies, please click here.

! These words are only useful if they are used in writing. Remind your child to write them in sentences regularly.

Retaining and applying learning

! Remember: consistent practice over the two-week period will give your child the best chance to master these spellings and to build their confidence as a speller. Repeated practice is the key! ! It is great to build up strategies for trickier words, but remember that building words using phonics is often the most reliable approach. The buttons below will allow you to view the phonics chart that is so helpful in school as it shows spelling choices.

! Use the buttons below to also find handwriting and sentence practice for each set. 

Thank you for supporting your child to flourish