When I was an NQT teacher, I was faced with “sorting spellings out” for my Year 6 class. It was a time when there wasn’t much in the way of training and the internet was still at the early adopter stage.
How do you teach spelling? Well, I fell back onto what I thought they looked like from my schooling—a list of words to learn.
In the spirit of the Shawshank Redemption film, where one of the main actors, Morgan Freeman, wants to give advice to his younger self, I would love to do this as well. So…I will start offering some micro tips to my younger self and anyone else interested! Here is the first:
TOP TIPS
Give out two copies of the spelling list to each child. One copy can be kept for going home. The second copy can be used in a variety of ways:
- Children can split the copy up into chunks—a key memory strategy.
- Children could put other mnemonic aids like pictures or highlights to make it more visible.
- They could do morning work where they use it to write another list with some letters bolded.
- Create some words for a word wall at the end of an art session or as an extra task somewhere.
- They could do a combination of all three during any transition times
I will write some more tips in future blogs to you and my younger self that focus on learning rather than the things we think we are supposed to do. And… I will try hard not to make them too labour-intensive. The last thing any teacher needs is more work at present.
Written by: Ian Connors
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