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: 

Trust in the phonics knowledge that you have. Can you sound the word out and try to choose the correct graphemes?

Have a look at your mistakes. If you have accidentally written ‘durty,’ in Set 53, don’t worry. This is a sensible mistake. What other digraphs make an ‘ur’ sound? Remembering ‘dirty shirt’ could help.

If needed, ask your teacher to draw in sound buttons to help your child to break the words down into graphemes.

To help you with tricky words like ‘calm’, try drawing around the letters. This will help you to remember the taller ‘l’.

Are you finding ‘whispering’ tricky? Are you missing out the ‘h’? If so, try using some ‘wh’ questions. Practise writing them out.

“Who is whispering?”

“Why are you whispering?”

‘Chat’ is a word where we double the last letter before adding a suffix.

In school, the children learn that if there is just one consonant after one vowel, they double the consonant.

chat            chatting

They also learn that a short vowel sound means that the consonant is doubled.

   hop            hopping

Make silly stories to help with a word that catches you out. Try to use the word in the story.

“Franz and Freddie have gruff voices!”

Many of these words are great for writing descriptions. Imagine that you are digging and make an amazing discovery! Can you use some of these spellings in your detailed descriptions?

See if you can say each word using letter names and then using the sounds. Remember to practise without a capital letter unless needed.

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.