Did you know that most SSP (systematic synthetic phonics) programmes do not meet the National Curriculum statutory requirements for Key Stage 1?
Phonics schemes are designed to meet the National Curriculum objectives for word reading and often miss spelling objectives. Often objectives like those listed below are omitted from phonics schemes.
- -tch – This sound is usually spelled as ‘tch’ if it comes straight after a single vowel letter.
- The /v/ sound at the end of words.
- Adding –s and –es to words.
- Doubling consonants after a short vowel.
- Adding the endings -ing, -ed and -er to verbs where no change is needed to the root word.
- The prefix un-.
These objectives need to be covered in order to meet National Curriculum requirements; therefore, we recommend using a spelling programme alongside your phonics programme. This also enables children to draw upon a range of skills to spell words effectively. Phonics does not replace spelling. In order for spelling to be taught effectively, instruction should include phonics but also explore morphology and etymology and incorporate activities that support orthographic mapping. Rather than thinking of teaching these elements in stages, it is better to think of them as a whole approach to teaching spelling; therefore, one does not come after the other.
All National Curriculum Objectives for spelling (Appendix 1) are explicitly taught through Spelling Shed’s programme. We suggest that schools begin using Spelling Shed alongside your chosen phonics scheme in years 1 and 2. Each Year 1 Spelling Shed lesson is 30 minutes long but can be completed in two fifteen-minute episodes. Year 2 Spelling Shed lessons begin at 45 minutes and then increase to one hour later in the year, these can be completed in three twenty-minute episodes and could also be embedded into daily English lessons.
When ensuring good progression with your phonics scheme and Spelling Shed, it is important to remember:
– All the spelling skills are important, not just phonics.
– Phonics is the foundation.
– You cover more than one phoneme per week in phonics but often cover only one or two in spelling.
Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences (GPC) Differences
There are various of ways that GPCs can be taught. For example, some schemes teach ‘al’ as a digraph, whereas Spelling Shed teaches it as two letters because you can hear the two separate phonemes. There is no correct or incorrect way, they are just different ways.
When looking at Spelling Shed alongside your SSP programme, you will need to compare how the GPCs are taught. Below is Spelling Shed’s alphabetic code, which shows you how Spelling Shed teaches each GPC. You will need to compare this to your phonics scheme’s alphabetic code.
View and download Spelling Shed’s full alphabetic code chart here.
When you are looking at differences, it is important to consider the context of the situation. If the child/children are already secure in their phonics learning, then you do not need to tell them to change the way they are representing the GPC. You can tell them that it is another correct way.
For example, if your phonics scheme teaches ‘al’ as one phoneme, when looking at the slide below, you can explain, “You can group ‘al’ together as a phoneme too, so if you had one sound button under ‘al’, you are also correct.”
Matching Weeks
Rather than trying to match weeks, we recommend that GPCs are taught in phonics first and then in spelling. Revisiting the objective is not simply a recap but should build upon the initial learning in the phonics session.
Below is the completed spiral medium term plan for Phonics Shed and Spelling Shed. This is free to download and may help you.
Example – digraph ‘oa’ representing the ‘oa’ sound.
Phonics Shed objective- Chapter 4a Set 1 ‘oe’/oa/, ‘ay’/ai/, ‘ew’/oo/, ‘ew’/ue/ and comparing ‘ew’ phonemes. HFW: ‘day’
Spelling Shed objective – Words where the digraphs ‘oa’ and ‘oe’ make an /oa/ sound
National Curriculum statutory requirement – Teach the digraph oa
You can see in the medium term plan for Year 1 that this digraph is taught in Autumn 1 Week 3 and then revisited in a spelling session in Spring 2 Week 6.
If you decide to move any of the weeks around, you will need to check the words to make sure the GPCs in the words have already been taught. All Spelling Shed word lists can be edited.
Remember that everything in Spelling Shed is statutory, all of the objectives on Spelling Shed’s MTP objectives link directly to a statutory requirement from the National Curriculum.
Download the spiral medium-term plan for Spelling Shed and Phonics Shed here.
Download Spelling Shed’s medium term plan here.
Read our ‘Using Spelling Shed Alongside Read Write Inc. Phonics’ blog post here and our ‘Using Spelling Shed Alongside Little Wandle Letters and Sounds’ blog post here.