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: 

Accidentally adding two ‘s’s to ‘position’?         

Remember that, “Only Sammy is in first position in the race!”

Keep finding ways to overcome a problem that you’ve spotted.

Saying words in different ways is sometimes helpful. For example, “lib-ra-ry” and “sep-ar-ate.”

Other times, it is useful to find a word in a word, like ‘story’ in ‘history’ and ‘a rat’ in ‘separate’.

Many words have Latin or Greek roots. Their meaning can be helpful. 

‘tri-’ = three       ‘penta-’ = five    ‘octa-’ = eight      ‘-gon’ = shape

Knowing this will help with other words, like ‘triangle’ and ‘tripod’ and ‘pentagon’ and ‘pentathlon’.

Remembering words that are linked in meaning can help. ‘Medic’ helps you to remember the ‘c’ in medicine. It’s the same with ‘magic’ and ‘magician’.

Many words on these pages have double or single letters. Can you make up stories about one or two friends, or a silly idea using the single or double letters? An example is below.

On a special ‘occasion’, you can have two cakes as one surprise!

you + are = you’re

“You’re learning your spellings.”

‘Your’ shows possession (belonging). 

Have you spotted the split digraph in ‘quite’ (‘i-e’) to help  you to stop muddling up ‘quite and ‘quiet’? If it helps, say, “qui-et.”

Segment words, like ‘surprise’ and ‘business’.

               sur-prise        bus-i-ness

Please pop back through the book, checking that you can write even the trickiest words in sentences at a good speed.

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.