Spelling and writing

Video on Moodle

Spelling

We first looked at spelling techniques. There was a spelling test to do (8/10 - not bad). What was interesting then was to think about HOW I spelt those words. Much of mine was visual memory - writing it down and thinking 'does that look right?'.

She broke down R. Gentry's theory of how children learnt to spell (GNYS AT WRK).

1. Pre-literate - child knows that symbols mean something, but there is no sound-symbol connection, no awareness of finger spaces, etc.

2. Early Phonemic - Early sound-symbol connection, understanding what writing looks like on a page. May shorten words (even down to 1 letter!)

3. Phonemic - good sound-symbol connection, developing knowledge of prefixes and suffixes, common words being used.

4. Transitional - using visual strategies, may still use some phonics, uses vowels in each syllable.

5. Correct - knows spelling systems and rules, understand word structure, homonyms, double letters and silent letters. Visual knowledge is used and they have a large sight vocab.

In EYFS and Yr1 - phonics remains central to spelling. To segment and encode the words.

Writing

Some believe that cursive writing can support spelling due to the kinesthetic process. However, Dfe says that it is confusing for children to see words in books looking different to the words they write. (This is only guidance so some schools still teach cursive).

We were asked to close out eyes and write our address in cursive writing and amazingly, it looked ok! So maybe this is the kinesthetic process working!

I do wonder if it is crazy that we teach non-cursive and then get them to put the lead ins afterward. Sure muscle memory means that they have to retrain themselves to write?