Dodleston C of E Primary School

Spelling

We aim for all our pupils to become fluent and effective writers and to develop a school of spellers. This journey begins in EYFS and Year 1, through our use of Little Wandle Letters and Sounds, where children learn all the phonemes of English words, the correct formation of all graphemes and how to segment for spelling. From Year 2 onwards we use Pathways to Spell, which covers the National Curriculum Objectives for teaching GPS by introducing patterns, conventions and continually practising those already introduced.

‘Pathways to Spell is an innovative and engaging programme to fascinate pupils about words. It is a research-based series of lessons following a Review, Explain, Practise, Apply and Reflect model. Through this programme, we aim to develop a school of spellers who use a series of strategies in lessons and in their independent writing. There is a cycle of reviewing objectives, covering the whole curriculum, to ensure gaps in learning are constantly revisited. ‘

Key elements of Pathways to Spell:

• Covers the whole national curriculum
• Pedagogically sound and evidence-based
• Multi-sensory approach
• Builds phonemic, orthographic and etymological knowledge
• Develops a range of independent spelling strategies to apply beyond spelling lessons
• Regular opportunities to edit and improve work are provided. The children are expected to proof read their work to improve spelling, punctuation and grammar. They add, omit and change words to improve the content.