Lesson video

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Hello, and welcome to today's spelling lesson.

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

In today's lesson, you'll need to bring with you 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 would also be great.

Let's crack on with the learning.

In today's lesson, we're gonna be looking at the er spellings, including er spelled E-R, ir spelled I-R, and ur spelled U-R.

So we're gonna be looking at these three digraphs for that er phoneme.

"I can read and spell words containing "the three most common representations "of the er phoneme: er, ir, and ur." Our key words for today are as follows, and I'd like you to repeat these after me, and I really need to hear you saying them.

Digraph, digraph, mnemonic, mnemonic.

So a digraph is a two letter representation or grapheme of a sound.

So we're looking at three different digraphs today for that er sound.

This word mnemonic is such a cool word.

You might notice that it has sort of silent letter at the beginning.

You didn't say mnemonic, you just say mnemonic.

Can you say it one more time, mnemonic? Mnemonics are devices that we can use to help us memorise certain spellings or words.

My favourite mnemonic is BECAUSE big elephants can always use small exits.

So it's a short group of words or a little Midi poem that we're using to help memorise particular spellings.

It's really useful when we're memorising spellings that are common exception words or don't follow our usual phonics patterns.

Please keep an eye for these words in our learning today.

They're gonna be really important.

Here's our lesson outline.

We're looking at the er spellings: er, ir, and ur.

In the first part of today's lesson, we're gonna be spelling some common exception words, and then we're gonna continue looking at these er spellings.

Let's get on with looking at some of those common exception words.

Common exception words are often referred to as trickier to read or trickier to spell words and that's because they don't follow our usual phonetic patterns.

Let's read the following words.

My turn, your turn, come, some.

What do you notice about these spellings? Have a look at them again.

Say them again.

What can you see about their spelling? Pause the video, have a think now.

Oh my gosh, some incredible conversations going on there.

Some children really thinking about these spellings and what makes them difficult.

Here's what I've noticed is this letter here, which is a little bit difficult.

It sounds like it should be an a-a sound, doesn't it? Come, some, but it's got this sort of O, and then an eminent E.

This makes these words common exception words.

I can use a pneumonic device to help me remember this tricky spelling.

Here's one for come.

"Come on muddy elephants!" So it's got that C-O-M-E.

"Some old muddy elephants." So mnemonic devices are really helpful when it comes to memorising these common exception words.

I wonder if you can think of any.

I'd like you to have a good finding, the correct spelling of the common exception words we have just read.

Which is the correct spelling of the word come? Point it now.

Brilliant, if you pointed this one, you'd be correct.

A couple of those do make phonetic sense.

But remember, we can't apply our phonics because these are common exception words.

Point now the correct spelling of the word some.

Brilliant, I was looking for the common exception spelling, which was this one here.

However, the word below it S-U-M is also a homophone as in the sum.

Adding together the parts, you get the sum of those parts, the total.

Remember to look out for homophones.

They're words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings.

So because these are common exception words, we can use a number of other strategies to help us memorise them as well.

This is one of my favourites.

So look, cover, write, check strategy.

This works by looking at the word, covering it up, writing it, and then checking back.

It's a really good independent strategy.

I'd like you to pause the video now and have a go at using this strategy to write out the words come and sum a number of times to really embed them in your memory.

Pause the video now.

Excellent work, did you manage to spell them correctly? I wonder, did you use a pneumonic to help you remember them? Come on muddy elephants or some old muddy elephants.

Well done if you did.

Make any corrections now.

Onto the next learning cycle where we're gonna look at the er spellings, er, ir, and ur.

There are other ways of spelling the er sound.

We're gonna be looking at these three because they're the most common.

They're the spellings for this er sound which appear most often.

They are er spelled E-R, ur spelled U-R, and ir spelled I-R.

Perhaps you seen them in your reading before.

Let's read the following words.

My turn, your turn.

Her, over, under, teacher, letter.

Let's read some more words.

This time, with our ir (indistinct) for that ir sound.

First, girl, bird, third, shirt.

Can you see our ir digraph there? Those two letters making that ir sound? They seem to all be in the middle of a word.

And finally, our ur digraph.

My turn, your turn.

Turn, burn, hurt, purple, Thursday, brilliant.

Let's now use some sound buttoning.

Sound button is really useful 'cause it helps us to concentrate on where that er sound is coming in a word and the letters that are being used to spell it.

It's gonna help us spot some patterns.

I'll sound button first, and then you can have a go.

H-er, her, o-v-er, over.

I put some words up now.

I'd like you to have a go and sound button them.

Pause the video, off you go.

Excellent work, I'm hoping you've remembered that we have our dash underneath for our digraph.

See how you did, u-n-d-er, under.

T-e-acher, teacher, great.

Look, we have three digraphs in a row there.

L-e-tter, letter, brilliant.

Our er spelled E-R is often at the end of a word.

We can see that in the words her, over, under, teacher, and letter.

If you look here at the word letters, it's still at the end of our root word which is letter.

We've added that suffix S onto the end to make it a plural.

Let's sound button some words with that er digraph in.

Spell I-R, the first word here.

And then the second word I'm going to do.

And then I'm gonna give you some to do.

So watch how I do it.

F-ir-s-t, first.

That's as in first.

I came in first place.

G-ir-l, girl, gonna put some words up now, and then you sound button them.

Here they are, pause the video, off you go.

Brilliant job, everyone.

You can see some great pointing in the air, really great writing and sound buttoning as well.

B-ir-d, bird, th-ir-d, third.

And that's as in third as in the third one, the number three.

Sh-ir-t, shirt, brilliant job.

So you can see here, our ir spelling for this ir sound is often found in the middle of a word.

First, girl, bird, third, and shirt will show this.

And the final group of words that we're going to be sound buttoning contain our ur spelling for this er sound.

Watch what I do.

T-ur-n, turn, b-ur-n, burn, brilliant.

I'm gonna put some up onto the screen and I like you to have a good sound button them now.

Off you go.

Excellent work, everyone.

See how you got on.

H-ur-t, hurt, p-ur-p-le, purple, H-ur-t, hurt, p-ur-p-le, purple, Th-ur-s-d-ay, Thursday, brilliant.

Th-ur-s-d-ay, Thursday, brilliant.

Remember, Thursday needs a capital letter because it's a proper noun.

The ur sounds spelled U-R is often found in the middle of a word as well.

And similar to the ir, you have to be really careful with those two spellings to not confuse them.

Turn, burn, hurt, purple, and Thursday will show this.

Thursday, as I said, proper noun, so it needs to have a capital letter.

What I'd like you to do right now is I'd like you to match the spelling to where they're most often found in a word.

Our ur spelled U-R, ir spelled I-R, and er spelled E-R.

Pause the video and match them now.

Incredible work, I can see lots of people pointing to where each spelling should go.

So ur spelled U-R is often found in the middle, but ir spell I-R is also often found in the middle.

So we just have to be really careful to not confuse these.

And our er, E-R, is commonly found at the end of a word.

So remember, if you hear that er coming at the end of a word, it's most likely going to be our er.

It might not always be though.

There might be some exceptions.

For this task, you're going to sound button the letters that make the er sound and write them into the correct column.

You're only going to sound button the digraphs that are making that er sound.

In the word here letter, I can see lett-er.

Oh, it's at the end there.

So it's going to go into my er column here.

Pause the video and sound button the letters that are making that er sound now and add them in to the correct columns, off you go.

Excellent work, everybody.

So you should have some columns that are sorted like this.

In our er spelling column, we've got letter, corner, and hamster.

In our ir column, we've got bird, birth, and circle.

And in our ur column, we've got burn, church, and nurse.

Did these spellings follow our rules? Did you notice anything else? Pause the video and have a think now.

Incredible, I think they do, don't they? Our er spelling we know likes to go the end of words and I can see all of them there at the end of our words there.

Our I-R and our U-R spellings are found most commonly in the middle of words and they both seem to be in the middle of words here.

I wonder if you noticed anything else.

We are now going to have a go at spelling some words that contain this er sound.

I'd really like you to take your time whilst we do this activity.

You need to make sure you stretch the words, sound them out, count those sounds, write them, and read and check.

The first word A is, my turn, your turn, third, third.

I came third in the race.

B is church.

My friend goes to church on Sundays.

C is letter.

I posted a letter.

And D is bird, bird.

I saw a beautiful bird in my garden this morning, bird.

I'm gonna say these words one more time, and then I'll like you to pause the video and write them.

Consider where is that er sound coming in the word? Which spelling do you think is going to look right? Third, church, letter, bird.

Pause the video and write these now.

Fantastic work, everyone.

I've seen some brilliant handwriting, some excellent application of the rules that we've generated and I'm really impressed with everyone's effort.

Let's see how you got on.

I've seen third written in these three ways.

Th-ir-d, third, f-ir-d, fird, th-er-d, therd.

One of them is not phonetically plausible, the middle one, 'cause it's not f-f, it's a th-th sound I'm looking for.

So we can cancel that one out.

It must be either the first or the third one.

So I think it's going to be this one here.

Let's think about why this is.

It's our ir sound coming in the middle, isn't it? And we know it's either going to be ur, ur, or ir.

Our er sounds spelled E-R is most commonly come to the end of a word, doesn't it? And this is in the middle, so it's this one here.

Well done, I've seen church written in these three ways.

I think we can immediately discount the first one, can't we? Because we know our er spelling E-R really like to come at the end of a word.

Let's look at the next two, ch-ur-ch, church.

It could definitely be that second one, couldn't it? Ch-ur-ch, church, oh, I'm missing a sound there, aren't I? Yeah, I'm missing that ur to make my digraph for er.

Ch-ur-ch, church, so it's this one here, well done.

For letter, I've seen it written in these ways.

Lett-er, letter, could be that one.

Let-er, leter, and lett-ir, lettir.

I don't think it can be the last one, can it? Because we know our I-R spelling tends to come in the middle of a word.

It's between our first and our second.

I only think which one looks right here.

I've definitely seen letter written with two T's before, a double consonant before that er.

So it's this one here, not the second one.

That's not a word.

And D.

Bird, I've seen it written in these ways.

Let's have a look at the first one.

B-er-d, phonetic, plausible, but there's something wrong with that, isn't there? We know our E-R spelling for that er sound like to come at the end.

Here, it's coming in the middle.

Which ones like to come in the middle? Yeah, our I-R and our U-R spellings.

Let's look at the next two.

B-ir-d, bird, yeah, that looks right to me.

And let's look at the last one though, b-u-d, bud.

Ah, again, I'm missing a letter there, aren't I, for that ir sound? I need to have a ir, ir, ir.

I've just got a ah, ah.

So it's this one here.

Okay, fantastic everyone.

Make any corrections now.

Brilliant work today, everyone.

Today, we've looked at the er phoneme and we've looked at three common ways in which it can be spelled: er, ir, and ur.

Er is most often found at the end of a word, as in her, over, under, letter, and teacher.

Ir and ur are both commonly found in the middle of words.

So we have to be careful with these ones.

Ir spellings include first, girl, bird, third, and shirt.

And ur spellings include turn, burn, hurt, purple, and that proper noun Thursday.

Fantastic work today, everyone.

Keep up your great spelling.

I've finished the video