SCODE Spelling

At OLSA, from Years 2 to 6, we follow the SCODE Spelling Scheme. This is a programme that allows the children to decide upon which strategies, knowledge and skills they are more confident to use to ensure more accurate use of spellings. It is also a programme that we have selected as it focuses upon ensuring that the fundamentals of phonics based learning continue with the children into KS2. It also encompasses a wider range of strategies to help children understand the etymology of words - something we consider vital to the children's development and understanding of language.

The focus of the programme is on the teaching of spelling, which embraces knowledge of spelling conventions – patterns and rules; but integral to the teaching is the opportunity to promote the learning of spellings, including statutory words, common exceptions and personal spellings.

The Teaching Sequence:
 

Teaching of spelling follows the same pattern in each year group to ensure consistency and continuity of provision through the years. In each lesson, there is a heavy focus upon phonological awareness and their recognition of alternative phonemes to spell. The sequential approach follows the model below:

• Revision of previous year group expectations in spelling to activate their prior knowledge. This includes revising alternative phoneme/grapheme correspondences
• Teach and Introduce the new concept through Explain, Investigate, Model
• Practise learning through Individual/group work. There are opportunities to extend/explore the concept independently before they Investigate and Generalise
• Apply/Assess - Assess through independent application and transfer skills into other areas of learning 

Assessment:

• Testing – this is achieved by a baseline at the start of each half term and an end of unit assessment on words covered at the end of the half term

• Dictation

• Explaining their understanding

• Independent application in writing

• Frequent learning of statutory and curriculum words.

Tips to learn spellings at home:

Learning at home needs to be an extension of the practice in school. It may be useful to consider the following:

• limiting the number of words you learn in one go. Break down the words into manageable amounts, to ensure success and enable deeper learning

• making sure pupils and parents have access to the range of learning strategies which have been taught in school, to use in home learning (see help sheet below)

• assessing spellings in context, for example: learning spellings in a given sentence, generating sentences for each word, assessing through unseen dictated sentences

• keeping an ongoing record of words learnt and setting very high expectations of correct application in writing once a word has been learned.