Spelling Strategies
Year 9 Spelling Starters
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Extension activities
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Teacher’s notes included in the Notes Page
Accompanying worksheet
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Contents
Spelling strategies
Using a spelling journal
Common mistakes
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Spelling strategies
Spelling strategies
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Spelling strategies
How many strategies can you think of that help you
remember how to spell difficult words?
Look for and study words that catch you out. Use the
‘look, say, cover, write, check’ technique to practise
spelling difficult words. Some people also find
mnemonics helpful.
Identify the root of the word you are trying to spell.
Think about the word family the word belongs to. Other
words in the same word family may use the same letter
patterns.
Learn the meanings of different prefixes and suffixes,
so that you can break long words into more
manageable chunks.
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Spelling strategies
Splitting words into separate syllables and sounding
them out can help you to spell difficult words correctly.
Look for words within words – if you can spell each
part of a word you’ll be able to put the parts together
to spell the whole word correctly.
Don’t forget!
Use the dictionaries, thesauruses and spell checkers
available to check your work.
Record new words in your spelling journal.
Always proofread your work and correct any errors you
find.
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Spelling strategies – Using a spelling
journal
Using a spelling journal
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Using a spelling journal
You should use your spelling journal to record any words
you find difficult to spell, or which your teachers correct.
Look in your exercise books for other subjects, to see
which words you have misspelt in the past, and add these
to your spelling journal.
Use your spelling journal to look up words when writing.
What strategies can you use to remember how to spell
words you find particularly difficult? Record these
strategies, with the words they apply to, in your
spelling journal.
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Spelling analysis
Look at all the words Megan has misspelt. Can
you correctly spell each word and then suggest a
strategy for remembering the correct spelling?
Misspelt word
Correctly spelt word
Strategy to use
intrested
persuassion
ocassion
busness
Now complete a similar table with your own
spelling mistakes.
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Spelling strategies – Common
mistakes
Common mistakes
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Common mistakes
Look at the words you commonly misspell. Can you
identify any common errors? Common errors include:
putting vowels the wrong way round, e.g. freind
forgetting a vowel, e.g. defnite
forgetting a double consonant, e.g. comunicate
confusing homophones, e.g. their/there
misspelling plurals, e.g. matchs
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Spelling test
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Setting targets
Identifying mistakes you make often can help you set
targets for improving your spelling.
For example:
I often get homophones confused,
so to improve my spelling I’m
going to use a dictionary to check
the meanings of the words I
choose.
Write three spelling targets for yourself.
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