I am a little later than usual publishing this week’s blog. I have had a busy couple of weeks trying to sort out a rather large (and it was getting larger) ‘to do’ tray! I don’t know about you, but when I have things starting to pile up all disorganised, my brain also goes into a muddled state until I get it all sorted in order (although, not necessarily completed!) Now I have got myself organised again, I am able to get everything done so much easier. It is sometimes a case of one step back before starting up again!

This week I saw a quote that said ‘Bad spelling does not mean you are stupid and good spelling does not mean you are a genius’. So true! Unfortunately, many learners have low self esteem if they are not able to do things as quickly or easily as their peers. This video from the Nessy You tube channel explains dyslexia and how anyone can be successful in whatever they decide to do by building on their strengths. I use many Nessy videos and the Nessy programme within my teaching to help children learn spelling rules and practise their reading and spelling.

There are various stages that a child has to go through in order to learn to read. Once they have learned the skills to decode, then they need to improve their prosody and fluency skills, which means that they still need to regulary read aloud to someone. Mark Seidenburg, a scientist who has studied reading, mentions “For those pupils who lack reading fluency, silent reading is less likely to be profitable”. He adds, “Children who struggle when reading texts aloud do not become good readers if left to read silently; their dysfluency merely becomes inaudible.”

Some children have difficulty blending sounds together to say a word when they start learning to read or orally blend. One of the difficulties they may encounter is remembering to use all the sounds when they try to blend them together. It is therefore useful to use the strategies on the ‘First Stages of Reading’ page on this site, especially using the arm method for blending. If learners miss out the last sound, then it is also useful to have a list of words that only change the final sound each time to work on, so they are especially listening out for the last phoneme. I have made a list of words that just have a different final sound, which is useful to use to help a learner strengthen their blending skills and remember to add the last phoneme. This sheet can also be used for early encoding skills, by having the learner use magnetic letters in an alphabet arc to spell the given word (see ‘Alphabet’ page for more details of using the alphabet arc). The individual can take the letters from the arc, changing one letter each time they hear a new word by being aware of the phonemes. On the sheets I have also used words containing the first digraphs the learner will encounter i.e. ss, ll, ff, zz, th, ck, sh and ch. Therefore, if using magnetic letters, these digraphs will also need to be available if you want to use those words. The sheet is below, available to download free.

Another good exercise to strengthen phonemic awareness skills is changing the first grapheme/phoneme in words. A sheet with an example of these words is available to download below.

Manipulating letters and sounds in words is really beneficial to help strengthen spelling skills and increase phonemic awareness. For older learners, word games such as the online game ‘Wordle’ is great for this. It is a fun, free game to work out the word of the day (and as they only produce one word a day, so it shouldn’t become addictive). You have to guess the 5 letter word in the 6 tries. After each guess, the colour of the tiles will change to show how close your guess was to the word. https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

Free Training

The University of Cambridge Primary School offer various, free online training courses for teaching assistants. Although I haven’t yet joined one of their training sessions, they look really interesting. Below are a couple of sessions that are coming up over the next couple of months. Go to Eventbrite to find more on http://www.eventbrite.co.uk.

Abigail Gray, author of The Effective Teaching Assistant: A Practical Guide to Supporting Achievement will be sharing her knowledge and classroom strategies with members of the UK TA Hub on Thursday 3rd February, 4:30pm-5:20pm Book via Eventbrite https://eventbrite.co.uk/e/discussion-with-abigail-gray-tickets-255991787327

Tips and Strategies to Support Learning Differences: This training from the University of Cambridge Primary School provides a tool kit of ideas that may benefit pupils who have additional needs. It will include a variety of communication strategies and techniques and videos will be used to illustrate how to use them within your setting. Sign up for the SEN Toolkit session will be via Eventbrite only https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sen-toolkit-tickets-249120414867?aff=erelpanelorgon This Toolkit session consists of two parts taking place on: 17th & 31st March 2022 4.30pm to 5.30pm and signing up will gain you access to both parts of this online event. You can access the Microsoft Teams link through your ticket once you have signed up and the same Teams link will be used for both sessions.

Finally, Barrington Stoke Young Editors (which I have mentioned previously) have released some new manuscripts for potential young editors to read and submit their reviews to receive a certificate. This is a really interesting task for youngsters and can encourage some reluctant readers. Go to www. youngeditors.barringtonstoke.co.uk for more details.

Have a good week everyone. 🙂

‘Mistakes are proof that you are trying’