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Spelling

Read Write Inc. Spelling Programme

From January 2022 we introduced the RWI Spelling Programme at Balfour Primary for Years 2 to 6. Our reasons for choosing the RWI Spelling Programme are:

  • To enable to allow us meet the spelling expectations of the National Curriculum 2014
  • To raise standards in spelling
  • To provide consistency and progression in the teaching of spelling from phonics
  • To help support children to enable them to be more confident at spelling.

How does this programme support your child in learning to spell?

RWInc Spelling is an interactive programme which teaches spellings in a fun and engaging way. Each unit is introduced with a short video. It helps children to learn spellings with common patterns and uses rules in order to help them recall spellings as well as teaching exceptions to these rules.

Individual workbooks allow children to practise their spellings and the teaching naturally follows on from the strategies used in RWI phonics. Therefore, the children are already proficient at using dots (for individual sounds) and dashes (for digraphs) and prefixes and suffixes can be added to root words to help them to spell with greater accuracy, understanding and confidence. Log books give children ownership of their spellings.

How the Log Books support your child to spell

All children have a log book and these are important in helping them to practise the spellings they need to learn from each unit. Each unit explains the rules and gives handy tips and rhymes for remembering these. During the week the children will log the spellings they found tricky. At the beginning of the next unit they will do speed spell which will assess their ability to spell words with the previous weeks spelling pattern correctly. Again they will log any words that were misspelt from this activity.

Building independence

With this new approach to the teaching of spellings we hope to support and encourage your child to become both more confident and independent spellers which will help them become better writers. Revisiting spelling patterns and rules regularly is key to them becoming successful spellers.

 

Home learning - Common Exception Words (CEW) and Spelling Rules 

All year groups send home CEW for the children to learn and practise at home. In school, these words are then put into dictated sentences for the children to accurately apply in their writing.