Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's spelling lesson.

I'm Mr. Moss, I'm really looking forward to teaching you.

With you today, you need to bring your looking eyes, your listening ears, and your thinking brains.

As well as that, something to write with and write on, and someone to talk to, or something to talk to will be excellent as well.

Let's get straight into our lesson then.

So in today's lesson, we're gonna be concentrating on silent letters, and in particular we're going to look at the WR spelling.

The outcome will be, I can spell words with WR, representing the R phoneme or the R sound.

Here are the key words for today's lesson.

Please keep an eye and an ear out for these in the learning.

My turn your turn, and I really need to hear you saying these, grapheme, phoneme, silent letter.

So, a grapheme is a written representation of a sound.

You may also hear graphemes referred to as spellings.

A phoneme is a sound.

It's the smallest unit of sound that words are broken up into.

So the phoneme we are concentrating on today is that R sound, that R sound.

And silent letter is a letter that is not pronounced when a word is spoken.

For instance, in the word thumb, there is a silent B.

The M and the B work as a diagraph to make an M sound, an mm sound, but you don't pronounce the B, so it's spelled T-H-U-M-B.

So here's the lesson outline today.

We are gonna be looking at silent letters, the WR spelling, we're gonna begin by looking at spelling some common exception words, then we're gonna concentrate on that WR spelling, and finally, we're gonna have a chance to apply spellings within a sentence.

Let's get looking at some common exception words.

Common exception words are those words which don't follow our regular phonics patterns.

You may heard them referred to as trickier or harder-to-spell or feed words, but I like to call them common exception words.

Let's read the following words together.

Ask, ask, says, says.

So there's two parts of these words that I think make them common exception words, in the way that I pronounce them.

In the word ask, it's that A there.

Now, this might not be a common exception word for all people.

Some people may pronounce the word ask and that will be absolutely fine.

There's two different ways of pronouncing this word, dependent on accent, I pronounce it ask, which makes it a common exception word for me.

If you pronounce it ask, it is not a common exception word, but it's still a high-frequency word that's useful to know the spelling of.

So some people might pronounce this with a short A sound, an A A sound, whereas others like myself might pronounce it R, with an AR sound.

That's what makes it a common exception word.

In the word, says, some people might pronounce this with an short E where the A spelling is.

So instead of saying says, you might pronounce it says, and that's how I would pronounce it.

Whereas others might pronounce it with that long a sound, you might say, says, be careful too because it sounds like it's zz zz at the end, but it's not, it's an S spelling.

So which of these are spelled correctly? Point to the correct spelling of the word ask now, pause the video.

Brilliant, be careful, remember, it sounds like it's R R in the way that I pronounce it, but it's just spelled with an A.

So the correct spelling is this one here.

Point to the correct spelling of the word says or says.

Pause the video now.

Brilliant, absolutely.

The correct spelling is this, says.

I pronounce it says, which is why it's a common exception word for me, 'cause it sounds like a eh eh, rather than an A Y.

So because these are common exception words for some, we just need to memorise them.

And a really good independent, repetitive strategy for doing this is the look, cover, write, check strategy.

This works by looking at the word, so look at the word ask.

Then you cover the word up and you would then have a go at writing it from memory.

And then you check, see how you did.

Even if you get it right first time, you do this more than once, it allows you to practise your handwriting and really embeds that spelling into your long-term memory.

So I'd like you please to have a go at writing out the words, ask and says, or ask and says a number of times using this strategy, pause the video, have a go at this now.

Fantastic everyone.

So I'm hoping that you've got some work that looks a bit like this.

Did you manage to spell them correctly? Make any corrections? Now pause the video and do that.

Brilliant job.

Onto the next learning cycle, the WR spelling.

There are several ways the R sound or the R sound or the R sound can be represented.

Let's look at these words, my turn your turn.

Rage, like you are filled with rage and anger.

Brown, carry, arrive, write and wrist.

Brilliant, I'm wondering if you heard that R sound there a number of times, here we can see that it's spelled with an R, with a double R and also with our WR spelling.

So whereas rage and brown have that single R in making that R sound, that R, in carry and arrive, we have that double R, and then the silent letter spellings, WR, we have our wrist and write, A representation of the R sound then is the WR.

The WR spelling can be known as having a silent letter.

And there's that key word.

Remember a letter that is not pronouncing the word is said because we can't hear that W can we? I don't say w-rist or w-rite, I just say wrist, write.

That R sound is all you can hear, that R sound.

Which of these words use WR to represent the R sound? Let's read them first.

Water, forward, wrong, arrow, pause the video and select which of these words use WR to represent the R sound, off you go.

Excellent work, so let's go through and think about this.

The first word is water, which is one of our common exception words.

Water, hmm, well it's just a W there and then an R.

And there's separate, aren't they? And I can hear the W W sound and then the R R sound at the end.

So that doesn't use the WR, there's no silent letter there.

Think about the word forward, for-ward.

Well I can hear my R and my W there can't I so again, they're the other way round and it's not using a silent letter, the word wrong, as in you have the wrong answer.

Yeah, there, I'm not saying w-rong, I'm saying wrong.

All I can hear is that R sound there, that R R sound, and I'm not pronouncing that W.

So that is a spelling that uses that WR to represent the R sound.

And then the word arrow, ah-rr-ow, arrow.

Or I've got my W, my double R there representing my R sound.

So not a WR representation.

So the only word there that had o silent W was the word wrong.

Let's read some words, my turn your turn.

Wrist, like your wrist bone, write, wreath, like the wreath that you might hang on a doorway around Christmas time, a Christmas wreath, wrap, wrong.

So what do you notice about this spelling, this WR spelling? Have a look at these words.

Have a try and read of them.

Where does the spelling like to come? Pause the video and have a think now.

Brilliant, so I can see here I've got the words wrestle, okay, like wrestling, wriggle, wrinkle, like the wrinkles that you might get in your face, wreck, like as in to destroy something, to make if there was a car wreck means the car was destroyed, write, and then wrote are past tense then of write.

I can see here that my WR spelling is usually found at the beginning of a word.

This is also really useful, if we know the present tense of a WR word or word with that silent W, we know the past tense will also contain WR, for instance, write and wrote, write, present tense, wrote, past tense, both contain that WR.

And that says there, thinking about our word consciousness, our word families, always keep an eye for those in your spelling.

So I'd like you to pause the video and tell me where is the WR spelling usually found in a word, A, B, C, or D? Pause the video, make your selection now! Fantastic, so which one is it, A, B, C, or D? Well it is A, absolutely, the beginning, likes to come at the start doesn't it? And these words prove this, wrist, wreck, wrong, wreath, all at the beginning.

And remember we don't pronounce that W, it is a silent letter.

So, been looking forward to this.

Let's have a go at putting into practise some of these spellings now.

I'm gonna say some words to you and I'd like you to just listen to them.

Before you write, you need to make sure that you stretch the word, sound it out, count the sounds in it, write it, and then look and check to make sure you've not missed any of those sounds and that you are happy with your spelling.

Let's really take our time with this.

So the first word you can see here, and I've got a picture here that helps us out is wrist.

I broke my wrist bone, wrist.

Number two, write, and number three, wrong.

I gave the wrong answer.

So let's go through these words one more time.

We have wrist, write, wrong, really take your time, stretch the words, sound 'em out.

Consider where that R sound, that R sound is in the word, and remember, we've been looking at the WR spelling today.

Pause the video, write the words now.

Brilliant job! Some amazing handwriting there.

Could see some magical mistakes as well, which is great because we're gonna get a chance to go through the answers now, and you can make any corrections.

Just such good effort.

So, number one is the word wrist.

I've seen it written in these ways, wr-is-t, wrist, hmm, r-is-t, wrist.

Wr-i-ss-ed, wrist.

Now this is an interesting one, particularly this last one because we often do pronounce that ED spelling like it sounds like a T.

So be careful, that one is not correct.

But watch out for those ED spellings 'cause they do sometimes sound like a T.

I'm looking for a T at the end, wristtt.

Now we've been looking at the WR spelling, haven't we, with that silent W, and we know it likes to come at the beginning of a word.

So the correct spelling is this one here.

R-i-s-t, rist is not a word at all.

Number two, this was the word write.

Okay, so we've got R-I-T-E, rite, write, write with our silent W, remember we don't say we're w-rite.

And then we've got right with our I-I-I-G-H spelling.

They all look like they could make phonetic sense to me.

Let's see if we can figure out which one is the correct one then.

This is where the context of the word that I've given you is really important.

You can see in our picture it's someone who's writing something on a piece of paper.

Interestingly, these are actually all spellings, but of homophones, the correct spelling I'm looking for is this one here.

The rite, the first one, R-I-T-E, okay, with our I split E there, that is as in a religious rite, a ceremony or a service that you might have to do.

Right, R-I-G-H-T, is as in the right answer.

As in to get something correct or to turn right, but I was looking for the word write as in to write on a piece of paper.

And that uses our silent W spelling.

And the final word was wrong and I've seen it written in these ways, r-o-ng, w-r-o-ng, if we use our sign W spelling, and then at the end we've got r-wong, rwong.

Hmm, my R and W seem to be the wrong around there.

So it's between the first two.

It's definitely gonna be this spelling, isn't it? R-O-N-G is not a word, so it uses our silent W.

And what you might notice about all of these words is, is wrist, write and wrong, they all contain that silent W at the beginning of the word.

Brilliant job, take the time now to make any corrections to your spellings.

Pause the video Onto our final learning cycle then, which is applying spellings within a sentence.

We are going to write a sentence containing some of our focus spellings and common exception words.

When we write the whole sentence, we need to do several things at once.

So let's really take our time with this, maybe even have a brain break before we start this activity.

We need to remember the whole sentence.

We need to form letters correctly.

We need to sound out each word.

We need to look out for common exception words.

So those words that don't follow our regular phonics patterns, and we need to remember sentence punctuation, capital letter, full stop.

So I'd like you to just begin by listening to me say the sentence, use those incredible ears you have.

Listening first, "She says if we have a wrestle it will wreck the house." So this is wrestled as in two people trying to pin each other to the floor, and wreck as into destroy.

I'll say it another time.

"She says if we have a wrestle it will wreck the house." So remember when you say it, you're gonna stand out each word.

Listen out for any of those common exception words and remember, sentence punctuation.

We're gonna use some useful strategies now to help us remember this sentence.

I'm gonna say it one more time.

"She says if we have a wrestle it will wreck the house." We're gonna tap it on our shoulders first of all, my turn then your turn.

"She says if we have a wrestle it will wreck the house." You have a go now, tap that out.

Pause the video, off you go.

Good job.

Next one, shouting it out! "She says if we have a wrestle it will wreck the house." You pause the video and shout it out now.

I really need to hear you, pause the video.

Wow, could really clearly hear all of you saying that sentence there, great job! And the final one, counting on our fingers so we make sure we don't miss any of those words.

"She says if we have a wrestle it will wreck the house." One more time.

"She says if we have a wrestle it will wreck the house." I made that 12.

You pause the video, count out sentence on your fingers now, off you go.

Brilliant, so you're gonna have a chance now to write the sentence.

Remember, sound out each word, think about these common exception words and don't forget your sentence punctuation, capital letters, full stops.

I'll say the sentence one more time.

"She says if we have a wrestle it will wreck the house." Pause the video, write that sentence for me now.

Exceptional work.

Let's check your work now and as we go along, make any corrections.

See how the spellings are spelled.

She, don't forget your capital letter, says, remember that's one of our common exception words, you might say says like I do or you might say says.

If I say says like I do, it's a common exception word, S-A-Y-S.

If we have, don't forget that naughty E at the end of have, a wrestle, and that's that word here that has that silent W, and then the LE for the L sound at the end so watch out for that one, it will wreck, or again, that silent W at the start, w-r-eck, wreck, okay, just making that R sound, that R sound okay, but we don't pronounce that W, the house, amazing, excellent work everyone.

And of course, don't forget our full stop at the end there too.

Brilliant, check how you did.

What did you learn? Have you made any magical mistakes? Do you need to make any corrections? How did you get on with the spelling, says, wrestle and wreck? Why don't you share that with those around you and make any corrections now.

Pause the video, off you go.

Excellent spelling today everybody, we've been looking at the WR spelling, and it's a less common representation of that R sound that the WR spelling's usually found at the beginning of a word, words like write, wrong, and wrist show us that.

Excellent spelling today everyone, keep up the great work and I'll see you again soon.