Top Tips in the Book

Although the primary way of learning spellings is through using phonics, there are tricky words that need a little more help. The tips in the book provide a range of ideas - mnemonics, silly stories, spotting the tricky part, trying physical ways to repeat each word...

The tips for words in this book are as follows: 

Write ‘has’ and ‘and’ on separate cards. Try making up sentences about this book with your child tapping the correct card as you say each  of the words:

“The fox has a bushy tail and brown paws.”

Pop ‘go’ and ‘no’ on two separate  cards (write the ‘g’ like you see here and in the LW reading books). When you show ‘go’ your child can run on the spot and when they see ‘no,’ they have to quickly stop! Your child can choose the exercise and you can have  a ‘hoot’ catching them out!

Is your child saying ‘of’ or ‘off?’  Be aware that children can muddle these up when they speak and this can lead to incorrect spellings. ‘Of’ is a difficult word to explain. To help, keep using ‘of’ in simple, familiar sentences.

If your child spells the tricky word 'they' with an 'ai' or 'a' ('thai' or 'thay'), this is because they have come across the /ay/ phoneme spelt in different ways (ai, ay and ey). At this stage, acknowledge this sensible mistake and say that ‘they’ needs the ‘ey’ grapheme. Use different colours to help if this happens: they, was and you.

When learning vowel digraphs like ‘ee,’ ask your child to say where the sound is in the word.

The middle? The end? Talking about this will help your child to learn the word and spell others with this digraph in the future.

Need more help?

There are further ways to help you with your spellings. For more ideas for children who are building the phonetic code, click here. Alternatively, try out a variety of activities, alongside the phonics mats to increase repetition over time and long-term retention. Please do not hesitate to discuss your child's progress with their teacher or our SENDCo.