SpellerBoost
has been devised to provide a research-informed route
to efficient spelling, for all children, whatever their
starting points.
Spelling is best thought of as a composite process, involving
a range of strategies for storing and retrieving how words
are spelt.
It is a process of construction, knowing how words work
and are put together, and the kind of exceptions that
arise in the English language. Learning to spell, since
it involves knowing how words are ‘built’,
actually improves reading and vice versa.
Like all BoosterBooks
programmes, SpellerBoost
does not depend on rote memory, characterized by asking
children to learn word lists by heart. Children are taught
to spell through recognizing a range of letter, sound
and visual-whole patterns in words drawn from their own
story-making, and by learning how to use self-checking
strategies, such as analogies.
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Here too, the curriculum starts with ideas for children
who are barely confident in their free writing. A rule
of thumb is to help children identify for themselves,
the patterns in words they wish to use in their own writing.
Like other BoosterBooks
programmes, SpellerBoost
aims to provide children with active strategies they can
draw on to become independent problem-solvers in spelling,
able to apply what they have learned confidently and successfully,
across the curriculum. |
