Learning Support - Reading & Spelling Precision Teaching

High frequency words are common words, that appear very often in written texts. They are a mixture of decodable words (words that can be sounded out) and tricky/exception words (words in which the English spelling code works in an unusual or uncommon way, which means the words have to be learned and recognised by sight).

Your child will have a list of high frequency words they still need to learn to read/spell. They will be practicing these in school and can also practice them at home. Below is a list of ways you can chose to help your child learn to spell/ read these words.

Some useful steps in learning to spell words:

1. Select a number of cards (not too many at a time). Say the word out loud

2. If the word can be split into its sounds, say the word in a ‘robot voice’

3. Look at the word trace over the letters with your finger

4. Copy the word and say the letters or sounds as you write it. Copy it again.

 5. Cover the word and try and write the word saying it as you write – peep if you need to!

6. Check the word you have written matches the word on the card and say it again as you check.

7. Keep writing the word until you can write it without having to peep.

8. For words that are tricky and that it is not as easy to learn take an imaginary picture of the word with your imaginary camera – imagine the word is big, coloured red, lit up by fireworks, has spiders crawling on it. Shut your eyes and try and picture the word. Try and write it down imagining the picture of the word you see in your head.

Game Ideas

Snap

Play the game in the same way that you would to help your child read the words but this time have a large piece of paper and a pen in the middle of the table. When the words match rather than saying the word to win the cards you have to grab the pen and write the word to win the cards.

Pairs

Play the game in the same way that you would to help your child read the words but this time have a large piece of paper and a pen in the middle of the table. If you find a pair you can only keep the pair if you can write the word. Give time to look at the word and talk through ways to remember it and then write the word to keep the pair. If they/you get it wrong (and sometimes it is a good idea if you get it wrong – they love correcting you) give another chance making sure you help as much as you can as they are trying to remember the word and as they write.

Silly sentence

Play the game in the same way that you would to help your child read the words but this time say the sentence and then you can write the silly sentence with gaps for the word card words which the child can fill in.

Hunt the word

Play the game in the same way that you would to help your child read the words but this time when they find a word they bring it to you, say the word and then write the word for you. Spell-a–ma-doodle Ask the child to draw a squiggle or doodle. Select a word that you are going to learn to spell. Write the word over and over again around the doodle.

Musical words

Ask the child to choose a favourite song. Give them a short list of words they are learning to spell. Spend some time looking at the words first and thinking of ways to remember how to spell them then put on the music. How many times can they write the list of words during the song? Can they improve on the number of times they have written the words the next day they do the same activity?

Minute words

This works in the same way as ‘Musical words’ but rather than a song the child has one minute to write one word as many times as they can.