Able Speller’s reasoning
A snapshot of an able speller’s reasoning about their spelling of unfamiliar words after a year of Decision Spelling
Whole Class case study
Struggling speller’s journey through Decision Spelling in Year 5 in a whole class setting
Elicitation task
We can see that this child has become increasingly accurate at spelling unfamiliar words
Warming up a word list with ‘sausage and beans’
Teaching: Creating mind maps with key information about ‘frequency’ to aid decision making
Noticing and creating hypotheses to aid decision making
Creating word lists with different word endings
Linking to grammar: which 'shun' ending do we add to each root word?
Exploring our phonetic code: how many ways can we phonetically plausibly spell ‘section’?
Planning a lesson for a younger child
Reviewing learning: what is NOW known about the 'shun' word ending?
Targeted intervention case study
Struggling speller’s journey through Decision Spelling in Year 6 in a targeted setting
Elicitation task
The child has reviewed their elicitation task, now with the knowledge to be able to independently identify and self-correct errors
Warning up the word list with ‘sausage and beans’
Creating a mind map to establish the ‘position’ and ‘frequency’ of each grapheme
Grapheme spotter challenge
A game of ‘Boggle’: a wonderful, and fun, way to generate word lists
Cloze challenge: which grapheme completes each word? How do you know?
Application task: generating sentences with focus words
Error correction challenge: what have I tried to spell? Which is the correct spelling? How do you know?
The Funnel Model: a brilliant way to elicit children’s knowledge, and reasoning skills, from children
Review: what do you NOW know?
