In what year do you think that a pupil should be able to spell...

[rocketjam]

combine, communicate, co-operate, coincidence, anti-clockwise, antibiotic, antidote, antifreeze, antiseptic, non-stick, non-stop, nonsense, non-fiction, non-violent, non-smoking, co-star, co-writer.

DS gets a list of more or less 20 words a week, to learn to spell. He's not very good at spelling and we spend a lot of time on these. There's usually a few easy words and a few more difficult ones, but this week we are struggling. If they get less than 15 words correctly on their test, for two weeks in a row, they get to miss playtime.

Thoughts?

[Mashabell]

suffixes and use of double letters
is one part of English spelling which is actually quite regular.

At least 226 common one-syllable words
(bag, bat, can, cap, cat, chat, clam, clan, clap, crab, dab, dam, drab, drag, fad, fan, fat, flap, flat, gag, glad, grab, ham, hat, scrap, scan, sap, sag, sad, rat, rap, ram, plan, pat, pan , pad, nag, mat, map, mad, lap, lag, jam, jab, slam, slap, snap, span, stab, strap, tag, tan, tap, trap, wag, wrap, yap, zap,
bed, beg, bet, fret, get, hem, jet, leg, let, net, peg, pen, red, set, stem, step, trek, vet, web, wet,
bid, big, bin, bit, brim, chip, clip, crib, dig, dim, dip, drip, fit, flip, flit, grim, grin, grip, grit, hip, hit, jig, kid, lid, lip, pig, pin, pip, quit, quiz, rib, rid, rig, rim, rip, shin, ship, sin, sit, skid, skim, skin, skip, slim, slip, slit, snip, spin, spit, split, strip, swim, thin, tin, tip, trim, trip, twig, twin, whiz, win, wit, zip,
blot, bob, bog, chop, cop, crop, dog, don, dot, drop, flog, flop, fog, grog, hog, hop, hot, job, jog, jot, knot, lob, log, lop, mob, mop, nod, plod, plot, pod, pot, prod, prop, rob, rot, shop, slog, snob, sob, spot, stop, throb, top, tot, trot,
but, club, cub, cup, cut, drug, drum, fun, glum, grub, gun, hug, hum, jug, jut, lug, mud, mug, nut, plug, plum, run, scrub, shrub, shrug, shun, shut, slug, slum, strum, strut, stud, stun, sum, sun, thud, thug, tug, up)

double their final consonant when made longer with suffixes which begin with a vowel, like -ed, -ing, -ish, -er, -y.

But even they are not completely problem-free with verbs. Adding -ed to the 200 or so verbs among the above and doubling their last letter is easy enough, if u know that the verb is regular.

Unfortunately 171 common verbs are irregular in the past tenses (e.g. 'go - went, have done; write - wrote, have writtten', rather than 'bag - bagged, have bagged).

[mrz]

Support for Spelling

Year 2

Learning objectives

Spell with increasing accuracy and confidence, drawing on word recognition and knowledge of word structure, and spelling patterns, including common suffixes and use of double letters.
Read and spell less common alternative graphemes, including trigraphs.

[PastSellByDate]

St. Ambrose spelling pages for KS2 really push prefixes in Y5/ Y6 - although not specifically anti- or co-

Link here: www.saintambrosebarlow.wigan.sch.uk/spellingpage.htm

Certainly prefixes/ suffixes are something that seem to crop up from at least Year 4/5 at our school.

[Wait4nothing]

Unfortunately, this is another to thank Gove for. These words are from the new curriculum and by the end of year 4 (so taught in lower ks2) all children "should" be able to spell them - lovely differentiation!
We don't do spelling tests as research shows they don't improve spelling within writing. We do tests in other areas and try to be positive e.g. A merit for beating your personal best.
We have started sending spelling activity books home (and doing them as jobs in class) as we have to prove to ofsted we are teaching spelling (however spelling is taught in other areas more effectively in other areas e.g. Modelled or guided writing/phonics analysis in reading)

[Mashabell]

casperthefriendlyghost
I agree that making children miss playtime is horrible.
Besides, rewards are generally more effective than punishments as incentives to work harder.

There is also plenty of evidence that giving regular spelling tests does not enable children to spell any better than not doing so. So count yourself lucky to have your ds in a school that does not do them. Even children who do well in spelling tests misspell many of the words they learn for them when they are concentrating more on what they are trying to say than the accuracy of their spelling.

I never met a child who did not want to learn to spell. But with English spelling being as nutty as it is, a few lucky ones learn easily, but many find it very hard.

If it was up to me, i would make English spelling more sensible, so that learning to write the language became less of such a long and tedious ordeal. For children who find learning to spell difficult, English spelling irregularities make life much harder than it could be.

[Hellokittycat]

Ds is top set in yr 3 and he's had those spellings recently.
He's very good at spelling and remembers them easily but does still sometimes get them wrong. I'd be furious if they had a policy of taking away play time for wrong answers!!

[WeAllHaveWings]

ds(10) is in P5 (Y4?) and gets lists similar to this. He's good with spelling (better than me!) and would probably get most of them, but ask him to write a sentence with any of them and he would struggle.

[casperthefriendlyghost]

DS1 is in year 4 and currently in an international school where they don't 'do' spellings. This is because the deputy head believes they pick it up as they go along... I have to say we miss the weekly ritual of learning spellings and how they did things at his last school in the UK seemed to work really well. Firstly, they were given spellings that were appropriate to their ability level but still a little challenging. Secondly they were also related to the current topic and they were always taught what the words meant. Thirdly they were awarded merits for 10/10 (or however many they had as that to was dependent on ability) and not punished in any way for not getting them all correct. For me that is the really bad thing about your system - missing playtime. I don't believe that missing playtime should be used as punishment for anything - kids need fresh air and to run around above all else! If I were in your situation I would definitely be taking this up with the school.

[StealthPolarBear]

His speeling und grammer iz betta n mine

[StealthPolarBear]

Ds is 7, yr 2. I think hes a good readwr and speller tho I have no one to compare him to but he is way off that list. Im still impressed that he can spell crocodile.

[Lesleythegiraffe]

If they get less than 15 words correctly on their test, for two weeks in a row, they get to miss playtime.

What a horrible school! Sounds like something out of the dark ages. A child should never be punished for not being able to do their work. Maybe the teacher needs to consider if the words being given are appropriate to the child's ability.

[Thetimes123]

As I say teaching them to spell by phonic is different and you don't want the child to fail, so making up rhymes or stories to help remember how to spell may help. I remember an elaborate story made up in my head for me to remember 'manoeuvre'. Not that I ever write that word nowadays
And I have a crazy story of 6 knights, 3 shields, 1 dragon and 2 swords just so I can remember my PIN number. (No stealing my purse please....)

[Mashabell]

Freetrait

Most spelling mistakes which pupils commit are the result of pupils trying to spell phonically rather than 'correctly'.

If u look at my table which shows the various ways in which the 43 English sounds can be spelt, u see many with which phonics is of no help at all, especially:

1. air: care – hair, bear, aerial, their, there, questionnaire (31-are – 27 other)
   

1. au: sauce – caught, bought,always, tall, crawl (44 au – 76 other)
   

11. er: her – turn, bird, learn, word, journey (70er – 124 other)

26. oo (long): food– rude, shrewd, move, group, fruit, truth, tomb,
blue, do, shoe, through, manoeuvre (94 – 108)

27. oo (short): good– would, put, woman, courier (15 -21)


44. Unstressed, unclear vowel sound (or schwa),
occurring mainly in 8 endings and 2 prefixes:
-ary: ordinary– machinery, inventory, century, carpentry(37 – 55)
-en: fasten– abandon, truncheon, orphan, goblin, certain (73 – 132)
-ence: absence– balance (33 – 26)

Consonant doubling rule for showing short, stressed vowels:
merry (regular) – very(missing) – serrated(surplus)
(423 - 554 - 195)

[Thetimes123]

Why is there not a help/hint sentence with each word to help them? As you said with nonsense.
Putting words in context is very important. If you wanted to learn German and the teacher just give you really random German language words to learn then it wouldn't help.
You learn nouns, adjectives etc and sentences/words that are grouped.
But if it's learning to spell through phonics then that's different. However setting a kid up to fail isn't good.

[freetrait]

Hmmm, spelling is an emotive thing eh. There are plenty of Y7 at my school who can't spell, and that starts to look a bit poor. Not sure how it is best tackled though.... I guess some of them didn't get all the phonics teaching that aims to help...

[rocketjam]

Just checked this morning and on their list anti-clockwise is written with a hyphen... hmmm.

Very interesting responses, I am meeting with the teacher after school today. DS practiced his list this morning and we found lots of tricks to help him remember. Nonsense is the only word in the non- list not to have a hyphen - it's a nonsense word! And communicate is between two people so it has two MMs. Not strictly true but anything that could help him remember...

I just want the teacher to look at the list every week, try to group words in patterns, explain the meaning of the words, and if she chooses to have many difficult words then give them 15 words to learn, not 20. I think she is just taking this list from a guideline book and not really thinking about the ability of the children.

[iseenodust]

I can see how some are saying they are phonetically sound. I'm all for stretching vocabulary but I struggle with the idea of teaching a spelling when the child is unlikely to be able to use it appropriately say a month later. How many year 3/4 would use antidote in a big write?

[redskyatnight]

DS (Year 5) would struggle with those. He finds spelling difficult.

When he was in Y3 we had exactly the same problems it sounds like you are having - we went over and over the spellings but he just couldn't retain them. Thankfully his teacher moved him down to the lower spelling group (he was in the higher group on the basis of being a good reader and writer!) where he could at least spell some of the words. TBH if your DS is consistenly struggling it sounds like the words are not appropriate for him and he should also be given easier spellings!

I'll also say that towards the end of Y4 something clicked and DS went from not being able to spell anything but the simplest words to at least being able to have a good go. He's still not the world's greatest speller but doesn't seem to have the same mental block. Hopefully something may click for your DC soon :)

[Mashabell]

Children differ enormously in their ability to spell, depending on the quality of the visual memory they were born with. Roughly half will never become very proficient.

One of these days people will come to realise that making children learn so much illogical nonsense is insane, verging on child abuse, and decide to modernise English spelling. With 80 of the 91 main English spelling patterns having some or many exceptions, and at least 4,217 common English words containing unpredictable spelling quirks of some kind, there is no quick or easy way to learn them all.

I analysed the spellings of the 7,000 most used English words to establish exactly how regular / irregular English spelling is.

U can see the results below, with examples of the main patterns and all different spellings. - (The figures in brackets show how many of the 7,000 words which I analysed use each of the main patterns - and how many have different spellings. (0) means the spelling has no exceptions.)

1. a: cat – plait, meringue (466 a – 3 other)
   
2. a-e: plate – wait, weight, straight, great, table dahlia, fete (338 – 69)
   

-ain: rain – lane, vein, reign, champagne (39 – 19)
-ay: play – they, weigh,ballet, cafe, matinee (35 – 20)

1. air: care – hair, bear, aerial, their, there, questionnaire (31-are – 27 other)
   
2. ar: car – are + (Southern Engl. bath) (138 – 1)
   
3. au: sauce – caught, bought,always, tall, crawl (44 au – 76 other)
   

-aw: saw – (0)- but in UK 11-aw + 40 awe, or, four, sore, war

1. b: bed (0)
   
2. ca/o/u: cat, cot, cut – character, kangaroo, queue (1022 – 33)
   

cr/cl: crab/ clot – chrome, chlorine (192 – 10)
-c: lilac –stomach, anorak (89 – 9)
-ck: neck –cheque, rec (62 – 6)
k: kite/ kept – chemistry (124 – 7)
-k: seek –unique (36 – 5)
-sk: risk –disc, mosque (86 – 10)
qu: quick – acquire, choir (78 – 4)
x: fix – accept, except, exhibit (98 – 15)

1. ch: chest – cello (155 – 1)
   

-tch: clutch – much (24 – 7)
9 d: dad – add, blonde (1,010 – 3)

10. e: end– head, any, said, Wednesday, friend, leisure,
leopard, bury (301 – 67)
11. er: her – turn, bird, learn, word, journey (70er – 124 other)
12. ee: eat– eel, even, ceiling, field, police,people,
me, key,ski, debris, quay (152ea – 304 other)
--y: jolly– trolley, movie, corgi (475 – 39)

13. f: fish– photo, stuff, rough (580 - 44)
14. g: garden– ghastly, guard (171– 28)
15. h: house– who (237 – 4)

16. i: ink– mystery, pretty, sieve, women, busy, build (421 – 53)
17. i-e: bite – might, style, mild, kind, eider, height, climb
island indict sign (278 – 76)
-y: my – high,pie, rye, buy, I, eye (17 – 14)

18. j: jam/ jog/ jug (0)
jelly, jig – gentle, ginger (18 – 20)
-ge: gorge (0)
-dg: fidget– digit (29 – 11)

19. l: last– llama (1,945 – 1)
20: m: mum– dumb, autumn (1,128 – 19)
21. n: nose– knot, gone, gnome, mnemonic (2,312 – 34)
22. -ng: ring (0)
23. o: on– cough, sausage, gone(357 – 5)
want – wont (19 – 1)
24. o-e: mole – bowl, roll, soul; old – mould
boast, most, goes, mauve (171 – 100)
-o: no –toe, dough, sew, cocoa, pharaoh, oh, depot (106 – 59)
25. oi: oil– oyster (29 –1)
-oy: toy –buoy (12 – 1)
26. oo (long): food– rude, shrewd, move, group, fruit, truth, tomb,
blue, do, shoe, through, manoeuvre (94 – 108)

27. oo (short): good– would, put, woman, courier (15 -21)
28. or: order– board, court; wart, quart – [worn, quorn] (188 – 16)
-ore:more – soar, door, four, war, swore, abhor (23– 17)
+ (14 –aw/awe in UK)
29. ou: out– town (74 – 24);
-ow: now – plough (11 – 4)

30. p: pin (0)
31. r: rug– rhubarb, write (1,670 – 27)
32. s: sun – centre, scene (138 – 49)
-ce: face – case; fancy– fantasy (153 – 65)

33. sh: shop – chute, sure, moustache, liquorice (166 – 30)
-tion: ignition– mission, pension, suspicion, fashion (216 – 81)

34. t: tap, pet – pterodactyl, two, debt (1,398 – 4)
--te: delicate – democrat (52 – 3)

35. th (sharp): this (0)
36. th (soft): thing (0)

37. u: up– front, some, couple, blood (308 – 68)
38. u-e: cute – you, newt, neutral, suit, beauty, Tuesday, nuclear (137 – 21)
-ue: cue –few, view, menu (20– 22)

39. v: van (0)
-ve: have –spiv (116– 3) [80 with surplus –e]
-v-: river– chivvy (73 – 7) – v/vv after short vowel

40. w: window– which (216 – 31)
41. y: yak– use (31 – 11)
42. z: zip– xylophone (16 – 1)
-se: rose –froze (85– 33)
wise– size (UK 31 – 3, US 11 – 22)
43. zh: -si-/-su-: vision, measure – azure (20 – 3)


44. Unstressed, unclear vowel sound (or schwa),
occurring mainly in 8 endings and 2 prefixes:
-able: loveable– credible(33 – 17)
-ccle: bundle (2 consonants + -le for -l) (0)
-al: vertical– novel, anvil, petrol (200+ – 32)
-ary: ordinary– machinery, inventory, century, carpentry(37 – 55)
-en: fasten– abandon, truncheon, orphan, goblin, certain (73 – 132)
-ence: absence– balance (33 – 26)
-ent: absent – pleasant (176 – 58)
-er: father –author, armour, nectar, centre, injure,quota (UK 340, US 346 – 135/129)
butcher – picture (42 –ure)
de-: decide – divide (57 – 29)
in-: indulge – endure (73 – 30)

Consonant doubling rule for showing short, stressed vowels:
merry (regular) – very(missing) – serrated(surplus)
(423 - 554 - 195)
The use of doubled consonants for distinguishing between long and short a, i, o and u (e.g. mate - matted, diner - dinner) is further undermined by 200 surplus -e (gave - have, surprise - promise).

Masha Bell

[mrz]

anti is in the new Y3/4 spelling lists

[mammadiggingdeep]

Anti used to be a year 5 spelling objective so I'd say year 4/5 but obviously a high year 3 group...

He shouldn't be missing play for getting spellings wrong! Somebody should send the teacher back to the 70s!!!

[mrz]

anticlockwise doesn't have a hyphen if you look in the dictionary

[mrz]

prefix and suffix words are Y2 - rather than memorising whole words get him to break them into syllables and look at the parts he finds a problem - focusing in on the spelling bit by bit will help him

[Nocomet]

I couldn't spell those.

DD2 could have at about 9, if they were a word list to learn

[Purpleroxy]

Y3 or Y4