Spelling
We aim for all our pupils to become fluent and effective writers and to develop a school of spellers. This journey begins in EYFS and Year 1, through our use of Little Wandle Letters and Sounds, where children learn all the phonemes of English words, the correct formation of all graphemes and how to segment for spelling. From Year 2 onwards we use Pathways to Spell, which covers the National Curriculum Objectives for teaching GPS by introducing patterns, conventions and continually practising those already introduced.
‘Pathways to Spell is an innovative and engaging programme to fascinate pupils about words. It is a research-based series of lessons following a Review, Explain, Practise, Apply and Reflect model. Through this programme, we aim to develop a school of spellers who use a series of strategies in lessons and in their independent writing. There is a cycle of reviewing objectives, covering the whole curriculum, to ensure gaps in learning are constantly revisited. ‘
Key elements of Pathways to Spell:
Covers the whole national curriculum
Pedagogically sound and evidence-based
Multi-sensory approach
Builds phonemic, orthographic and etymological knowledge
Develops a range of independent spelling strategies to apply beyond spelling lessons
Regular opportunities to edit and improve work are provided. The children are expected to proof read their work to improve spelling, punctuation and grammar. They add, omit and change words to improve the content.
Nessy
To further support children with their spelling, we have invested in Nessy as an intervention that children can access both at school and at home. The Nessy Spelling Program is designed to help students of all abilities learn to spell, especially those who learn differently.
The Nessy approach is:
fun
tailored to each child and their own specific needs.
multisensory
highly structured, sequential and systematic