Spelling

19 January 2024

This week, the children need to learn five tricky words and the remaining days of the week. Every day, we rehearse the spellings for the week and put them into full sentences. Try this at home.

• could
• would
• should
• who
• where
• Saturday
• Sunday

Phase 5 tricky words: Year 1

Information for parents and carers
‘Tricky words’ are words that cannot easily be decoded (‘sounded out’ and read). This is because some of the sounds in the words are spelled in an unusual way. It is important for children to be able to read these words as they are among the most common words in English.

Below, is a table that shows the tricky words that your child have been learning in Phase 5 in Year 1 and explains why each word is tricky.
Children will practise the tricky words in school until they can read them automatically. They will also practise reading the tricky words in the decodable books that they bring home.
Taught in Year 1 
Tricky word        Tricky part             Why is it tricky?
their                             eir                         The ‘eir’ makes the sound air.
people                         eo                          The ‘eo’ makes the sound ee.
oh                                 oh                          The ‘oh’ makes the sound oa.
your                            our                          The our makes the sound or.
could
would
should                        oul                          Your child has not yet learned the                                                                                         trigraph ‘oul’, which makes the sound                                                                               oo    (as in ‘book’).
our                               our                         The trigraph ‘our’ makes the sound ow                                                                             followed by the schwa sound.
house
mouse                         se                             Your child has not yet learned the                                                                                        digraph ‘se’. Here, it makes the sound s.
water                            a                              The ‘a’ makes the sound or. Learning so                                                                             far: For ‘a’, your child has learned the                                                                               sound a as in ‘cat’.
want                           a                                 The ‘a’ makes the sound o. Learning so                                                                             far: For ‘a’, your child has learned the                                                                               sound a as in ‘cat’.

Spellings for this half-term

12 January 2024

This week, the children need to learn to spell the following words.

• Monday
• Tuesday
• Wednesday
• Thursday
• Friday
• want
• water

The test will be on Friday 19th January.

Help at home

The children need to learn to spell all of the days of the week. Question your child about what day it is today, what it will be tomorrow and what it was yesterday. Can they write them in order using different colours?

15 December 2023

For the last week of the term, the children need to revise some of the tricky words taught previously. The spelling test will be on Thursday 21st  December 2023.

• have
• some
• come
• said
• like
• there

08.12.23

These are some of the tricky words that we learnt in Year 1 and revisited in Year 2. Please revisit and practise the spellings for a spelling quiz on Friday 15 December 2023.

08 December 2023

This week the children need to revise some of the words used in their phonic learning.

• pie
• most
• bird
• nine
• spider
• shake

Test will be on Friday 15^th December 2023.

01 December 2023

This week the spellings are words that link to our phonic learning.

• ay – day
• ou – cloud
• ie – pie
• ea – sea
• oy – boy
• ir – girl
• ue – clue

The children need to say the sound and word and then spell the word correctly. Our test will be on Friday 8th December 2023.

Take a look at the school website for some ideas of how to support your child with their spelling. https://50ba64cf42aa5ce33ed5ffd3ca44503c-11586.sites.k-hosting.co.uk/stjames/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Spelling-Guide.pdf

24.11.23

Please practise your spellings ready for a spelling quiz on Friday 08 December 2023.

• child
• children
• Christmas
• class
• climb
• clothes
• cold
• could
• door
• even

Challenge: Say the words in a sentence. Write the words in a sentence.

24.11.23

The first four words are tricky words. The others contain the split digraph a_e.

What is a split digraph

A split digraph also contains two letters (a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e and u-e) but they are split between a consonant. The split digraph works by using an ‘e’ after the initial vowel to change the sound of the vowel. With a split digraph, mad becomes made. Note the change in the sound of the first vowel from a hard sound to a longer softer sound, this is because of the ‘e’.

• called
• looked
• asked
• could
• made
• came

Below is an extra activity to try at home in homework books. Children write the word correctly and then put it into a sentence.

snake   The snake is green.

17.11.23

Please continue to practise your spellings for a spelling quiz on Thursday 23 November.

• after
• again
• any
• bath
• beautiful
• because
• behind
• both
• break
• busy

Challenge: Put the words into a sentence. Write the sentence.