Our Approach to Spellings at St. Mary’s P.S.

• Spelling is a visual skill, so we really encourage using the ‘Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check’ method for learning spellings. Please encourage your child to write down their spellings instead of calling the spelling out. Also encourage them to check the spelling themselves.
• Prim-Ed ‘My Spelling Workbook’ series is used from 1st Class to 6th class. Teachers can differentiate spellings by giving easier lists, reducing the number of spellings, or supplementing with a different programme.
• We try to give the message that ‘I expect you to make mistakes’ and encourage ‘having a go’. It’s all a work in progress after all!

Interactive Resources Available

• We want children to enjoy learning spellings, so we encourage active learning through games. www.spellingcity.com is a great website where you can input your spelling list and it generates games around them. It also allows you to test yourself on your spellings. 
• There is a website dedicated to helping children to learn the spellings assigned in the ‘My Spelling Workbook’ programme. There are lots of fun games specifically relating to every unit of work for each level. To access this resource:
• Go to https://www.prim-ed.ie/series/my-spelling-workbook/
• Scroll down to SHOW MORE and click it to display Additional interactive spelling activities and games for the whiteboard, and click on ‘Interactive Spelling Activities – My Spelling Workbook – Book E’ (or whatever letter your book is)
• Activities/Games will be displayed on your computer/laptop. 
• Just click on the unit the child is doing and choose from 8 activities.

Assessment

Weekly spellings will be sent home to learn and will be checked each week in class. Teachers will feed back to the children through regular written or verbal comments and individual targets may be given when appropriate. The children are encouraged to improve their spelling in writing rather than an over emphasis on ‘the Friday spelling test’. Children are assessed by way of a spelling/dictation test each week. This will consist of a selection of words from their spelling list of that week and/or sentence dictation. This is combined with regular assessment of the child’s independent writing.

Correcting Spelling

• Teachers will correct the spelling/dictation tests and return them to the children. In older classes children may be asked to self-correct in order to see their own errors and learn from them.
• Teachers may not mark every incorrect spelling wrong, instead they may underline the part of the word that is incorrect. (or tick what they got right)
• The children should have their test signed periodically by parents/carers
• Friday: up to 30 minutes for Spelling/Dictation check or daily check for 5 minutes
• Spelling is taught with emphasis on the type of spelling errors rather than the number of errors.