Early Years Writing Block

1. Early Years Writing Block • Handwriting, Grammar and Spelling are still taught • Part of the teaching focuses on learning about different text types e.g. narrative, procedural, argumentative • Focus groups and small teaching groups change • Teaching is a point of learning and needs to be continually built on, revised and practised.

2. What do you do at home to help your children develop an interest in letters, words and spelling ? • How do you provide assistance when a child asks “How do you spell…? • The purpose for learning to spell words in the conventional form is to assist others to read our writing • In spelling, children will experiment and make mistakes as their skills gradually grow • Each child, being an individual learner, will develop their spelling capabilities at their own pace Spelling

3. Random placement of letters: a m m n l p a a h Recording dominant sounds: I w t f p a t s l (I went to the shops and got some lollies.) I wl cum to git vu cat. (I will come to get the cat.) Developing the ability to hear and record sounds in words

4. Recording ‘hard to hear’ sounds: • I went home with my bruther. • ESL • These early writing samples were written by children with extensive knowledge of oral English and English sound/letter patterns. They therefore have a strong basis for working out how English words are written. • A student learning English as a second language may not initially have this knowledge of English. • It may take time for them to build up enough of an English oral repertoire to be able to begin to make informed guesses about how words are written in English Developing the ability to hear and record sounds in words

5. What strategies do children use to spell unknown words? • Spelling Test • Think about other strategies used as an adult when attempting to spell ……….. • What did you do to help yourself attempt to spell these words? • What did you do once you had written the words? Strategies for Solving Words

6. vacuum cleaner • dahlia • obstetrician • chrysanthemum Strategies for Solving Words

7. All the strategies that you used are valuable and writers must learn to use them all, not just one strategy! • What is this word? • ghoti • fish • ‘gh’ as in enough, ‘o’ as in women and ‘ti’ as in station Strategies for Solving Words

8. By Sound • Think about the word and sound it out • By Look • Writing words by thinking about the way they look • Visual patterns e.g. oa as in boat, coat, loaf • By Meaning • Write some words by thinking about what they mean • e.g. two, twin, twice, between meaning 2 • By making connections • Use what you know about a word to figure our a new word • e.g. Tree, my > try • By Inquiry • Use reference materials to learn more about words • e.g. Lists, dictionaries, charts, ask someone……………. Strategies for Solving Words Fountas&Pinnell (2001) Guided Readers and Writers: Grades 3-6, Heinemann.

9. Spelling • Spelling is not a sign of intelligence. • Research shows that expert spellers visualise words. • Poor spellers do not seem to be able to store and retrieve the visual form of the word. • There is no evidence that this skill can be taught for e.g. some people can whistle and some people can not. • Expert spellers are born and not taught – those that are not strong spellers rely on the strategies. • Always praise every spelling effort from your child and encourage the use of all strategies.

10. What can you do. • Reading with your child and immersing them in stories provides them with a good foundation to build on. • How the word sounds may help • Say the word slowly so each sound can be articulated • Use sound/letter charts • Focus on letter identification • What the words look like may help • Recall how the word looks from memory • Try writing the word several ways and decide which looks best • Recognise and apply visual patterns, e.g. I know how to spell main, so I can spell strain, brain

11. What can you do. • What I know about the word may help • Apply analogies for why the word is spelt that way • Build on words already known to get unknown words, e.g. I can spell the compound word birthday because I know how to spell birth and day • I can spell dahlia because I know it was named after a botanist called Dahl • If I can spell jump I can spell jumps, jumped, jumping, jumper