Joy Allock - Switched On To Spelling

Another great session with Joy Allock was had today.  I enjoyed being reminded about the importance of teaching spelling explicitly and knowing that there are rules out there that we tend to take for granted as adults but our kids don't actually know.

I've used the Switched on to Spelling resource a lot when I was teaching year 5 and 6.  It's probably the most useful spelling resource I've ever come across if used correctly of course.  The detail in the way to teach it is fantastic especially if you're just starting out.  It's also a great way to refresh yourself if you've been teaching spelling for a little longer.

One of the interesting things I guess you could say about the statistics Joy introduced was the difficulty we have in getting children to catch up when they don't have the vocab they need from the start.  I know that it sometimes looks like a mountain but I do still believe that children can catch up and do catch up even when the task of getting them to have enough vocab seems impossible.  I'm not sure everyone shares my opinion on that one.   I don't however think it's something that just happens it definitely has to be taught in a way that allows children to pick up the vocab. 

I think the best thing I've heard from Joy is the need to realise that sending home lists of words doesn't work for every kid, in fact there are very few children who can learn new vocabulary in that way.  I also believe that we need to expose our children to different ways of introducing voacb not just by saying oh look here's a new word lets add it to our list but by truly inspiring them to find new words and experiment with them.  How you do that I'm no expert on but I'll try and post a few of my ideas soon.

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