Spelling and Dictionary sessions for Year 4.
General Aims : The children will be able to use a dictionary quickly and efficiently. To
improve children’s vocabulary and spelling.
Session 1 Class oral say the alphabet. Volunteer to attempt backwards.
The letters of the alphabet are listed by the teacher on the board. Count the letters - how
many altogether? What are vowels - How many are there? What are consonants - How
many are there?
Class to write out alphabet on a long strip of LARGE SQUARED paper - check each other.
How many letters in half the alphabet? Identify that [ M N ] are the middle two letters. Cut
this pair out from the long strip:
ABCDEFGHIJKL
MN
OPQRSTUVWXYZ
How many letters in the first strip / second strip (12). Cut these in half:
ABCDEF
Row 1
GHIJKL
Row 2
MN
Middle
OPQRST
Row 3
UVWXYZ
Row 4
Quick questions with strips in front of children: Which letters in Row 3? Which Row is S?
Which letters come before / after J? Which letters are in the middle?
* Class say the letters in Row 1 - then turn this strip over and repeat. Further quick
questions with row 1 hidden.
Repeat above for Row 2 - - then Middle - - then Row 3 - - then Row 4.
Which letters are in middle? Which letters are in row 1? ..........
Cut the alphabet strips up into individual letters. Place into mixed up pile on desk - Race put
them back into alphabetical order with the Rows shown.
Mix up letters again - do it backwards race.
With alphabet assembled put in small number:
A1 B2 C3.......
Give out sheet with sentence in large type - The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.
Can anyone say why this sentence is special?
Number the letters according to position in alphabet. T20 H8 E5
Write a simple code using the numbers for the alphabet - crack each other code.
Session 2 Brief revision of previous session.
Arrange a simple list of words into alphabetical order with different first letters: dog : cat : ant
: emu : bat
Further lists of words with different first letter.
Set a list of words where some have same first letter - discuss with class what to do: apple :
peach : orange : banana : kiwi : plum
Further list of words with some same, some different first letter.
Class to arrange themselves in line with alphabetical order of SURNAMES. Consider what
to do if some children have the same name.
Session 3 Revision with lists of words with some same, some different first letter.
Extend the lists with words where all first letters and some second letters are the same:
book : bat : bull : blink : ball : bap
Can children suggest any words that begin with the letters P - O - S - T?
POST - POSTAL - POSTER - POSTING - POSTED - POSTMAN -.....
Now arrange these words into alphabetical order.
Similar lists with words beginning with groups of the same letter - e.g. black, blackbird,
blackboard.....
Session 4 Quick revision of alphabetical ordering of letters from sessions 1 / 2.
Give out dictionaries - look at words at top of page [HEADERS] what do these show? Quick
questions - what page is XXXXXX on with HEADER words found by teacher beforehand.
Utilise use of ROWS from sessions 1 / 2. e.g.. is the word DANDELION likely to come at the
start / towards the middle / towards the end of the dictionary? What about the word
WIZARD? I.e. there is no need to start looking for a word right from the start of the
dictionary, but to approximate its position to begin with, then go forwards or backwards
looking at the HEADERS.
Session 5 With dictionaries - revise use of HEADERS.
Use the headers to find an approximate position of a word on a page (or double page in
some dictionaries, e.g.. HEAD - HOME - ‘health’ is likely to be near to HEAD; ‘hold’ will be
before HOME; ‘hope’ will probably come on next page.
Display a page of dictionary with HEADERS and look at positions of words on the page(s).
Speed exercises in looking up words in dictionaries. Written work if required.
Session 6 Speed exercises in looking up words in dictionaries.
Refer to problem of some words with silent letters and similar sounds (homophones) - e.g..
sought / sort. Need to look at the definition of words
Exercise in finding the definitions of words.
Extension Look at alphabetical ordering in indexes for encyclopaedias, non-fiction books and
telephone directories.