Spelling

Spelling shed is a fun and engaging way for children to confidently learn their spellings as they progress through the school from year 1 to year 6. 

Here at Hazel Leys, we use Spelling Shed to support children on their spelling journey and they progress through a range of games, levels and challenges. The spelling lists on Spelling Shed are grouped together, helping children to learn and apply different spelling rules effectively. Children are able to compete against their teachers and classmates in challenges, assignments and hive games. 

Each lesson has the following elements of the key areas below embedded in its core. 

Orthography 

“Orthography is how patterns of letters are used to make certain spoken sounds in a language.” 

Pupils will continue to build on the firm foundations built whilst studying phonics in their early years of education. They will continue to break down spellings into the smallest units of sound and cluster them into syllables in order to read and write words efficiently. 

Through adult-led discussion and investigation children will become more secure in their knowledge of English orthography based on the frequency and position of the sounds within words. 

 

Morphology 

“Morphology describes how words are structured into subcomponents to give meaning.” 

Children will study words; word parts; their meanings and how this affects spelling. 

There are lessons throughout the scheme that consolidate children’s knowledge of common morphemes such as root formations, prefixes and suffixes. 

  

Etymology 

 "Etymology describes the origins of words, which can lead to certain patterns of spelling.” 

Most lessons in the scheme include an etymology element that allows teachers to teach the children about the origin of the words that they are learning about. 

Children will be able to see how the English language has, over time, borrowed and integrated words and spellings from a range of source languages. For example, the latinate verbs which follow Latin prepositions in English words such as: -act (do), -pute (think) or -opt (choose).

 

Every week, teachers set an assignment linked to the pupil’s spelling words, helping them to practise their spellings in a fun and exciting way in preparation for our weekly spelling test. Children can also choose to practise past spellings to consolidate past learning.  

The game has been developed to be ‘dyslexia friendly’, using the ‘Open Dyslexic’ font and there are three levels of difficulty to support pupils of all abilities through the spelling lists with appropriate degrees of challenge. 

Pupils from Year 1 (Stage 1) to Year 6 (Stage 6) can access Spelling Shed using their personal logins, which are provided by teachers at the start of the academic year.