Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's spelling lesson.

I'm Mr. Moss, I love spelling and 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 or something to talk to would be great as well.

Well, let's get on with today's spelling lesson then.

In today's lesson we're going to be spelling the "ay" sound with "ei" and "ea".

The outcome will be, I can spell words with the "ay" sound using "ei" or "ea".

Here are the key words for today's learning.

My turn, your turn.

Make sure I can hear you saying these back to me.

Phoneme, grapheme, rare, homophone.

Fantastic, keep an eye and ear out for these as they really are the key words in today's learning, and you're gonna see them appear it a lot.

So let's have a chat about what they mean then.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word, a grapheme is a letter or group of letters that represent a sound or phoneme.

You might sometimes hear graphemes referred to as spellings.

Rare spellings are spellings which appear less frequently, and so the two spellings of that "ay" sound that we are looking at today are rarer representations of that sound.

And finally, homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings.

There are no rules when spelling homophones, so we just have to learn by sight the different spellings in the different contexts to understand how to use them.

So here's the outline for today's lesson.

We're gonna be spelling the "ay" sound with those rarer spellings, "ei" and "ea", we're gonna look at some words that include those "ay" phonemes, we're gonna then look at those rare spellings, "ei" and "ea", and we're gonna finally use some strategies to practise.

So let's have a look at the different "ay" spellings for this "ay" phoneme.

We know that "ay" can be spelled in lots of different ways, and here are some of the ways that you should know already.

We can have "ay", "ai", "a-e" that split diagraph, the letter "a" itself, "eigh" and "ey".

Both "a", "eigh" and "ey" are slightly less common representations.

The more common representations are "ay", "ai" and "ae", and they appear a lot in our reading and writing.

What do you notice about these words? Have a go at saying them.

What do you notice about where the different "ay" graphemes come? Pause the video, read those words, see what you can spot.

Off you go.

Brilliant.

Well, I've noticed with my "ay" spelling, it seems to be coming at the end of my words.

My "ai" spelling seems to be coming in the middle, my "a-e" is a split diagraph so it's coming last but one separated by a consonant.

My just "a" spelling can be found, tending to be in the middle or at the beginning, and my "eigh" spelling I think can be found anywhere in a word, and it's not a particularly common spelling.

And my "ey" spelling for that "ay" sound, grey, they and prey, tends to come at the end.

So "ay", "ai" and "a-e" are the most common representations or the most common spellings of that "ay" phoneme.

Let's have a look at some words that contain them.

Pay, display, stay, play and playing.

Notice here that it is at the end of the words, and if it's not at the end of the words it's at the end of the root word onto which our suffix has been added.

For instance, playing, for instance, it's at the end of the root word play and I've added my "ing" suffix.

So the "ay" spelling most often goes at the end of a word or the root word.

My "ai" spelling, trails, snails, tails, rain and trained, most commonly found in the middle of a word.

And, again, also in the middle of that root word before we then add a suffix, as in the word trained where we've added that "ed" suffix, it's in the middle of the root word train.

So that "ai" spelling most often goes in the middle of a word.

And our "a-e" is a split diagraph, which will have a letter coming between that A and the E, cake, snake, plane, pancake and plate.

We can see here, most often goes as the last but one phoneme 'cause our split diagraph will be split by a consonant.

So have a look here for me.

I've got four words down below.

Remember, look for the root words as well as just the actual suffix ending, 'cause that will help you to know which spelling is being used.

Which spelling pattern is being used in laying, waited, plate and trays? Is it "ay" at the end or the end of the root word, "ai" in the middle of the word or "a-e", often found last but one.

Pause the video and match these words now.

Off you go.

Brilliant.

Laying, my root word there is lay, lay, L-ay, and I can hear that at the end of the word and I've added my "ing" suffix, so it's my "ay".

Waited.

Wait is my root word and it's in the middle of that root word, W-ait.

And then I've added "ed", waited, so it's that "ai".

And we've added the "ed" suffix, previously in laying we've added our "ing" suffix.

Root word plate.

Plate, oh, that's our "a-e" there with the T splitting our digraph.

And we have trays, trays.

We've made that plural by adding the S suffix.

So the "ay" sound there is coming at the end of the root word tray, T-R-ay, tray, you can hear it at the end.

Brilliant.

So other rare spellings of the "ay" sound include a, just an a, "eigh" and "ey".

So these are less common than those common spellings we looked at previously, they are rarer spellings, we see them less often.

We can see here in stable, April, table and acorn.

Eight, eighty and eighteen, and grey, they and prey.

Have a look at these for me.

Just have a good at saying the words that contain these different graphemes, these different representations of the "ay" sound.

What can you remember about where these spellings can be found in words? Pause the video, have a read of those words and have a think now.

Brilliant, some lovely conversations and lovely thinking going on there.

So with "a" in stable, April, table and acorn, I can see it coming both in the middle and at the start.

With "eigh" here in eight, eighty and eighteen, if I know that "eigh" spelling for a word linked to that number eight, I then know how to spell more words, eighty and eighteen, and in this instance it's coming at the beginning.

And my "ey" spelling for that "ay" sound grey, they and prey, is E coming at the end.

Let's have a look at these in a bit more detail then.

As these are rare spellings, when spelling always think about the most common spellings first, so our "ay", "ai" and our "a-e", and then follow these rules.

"a", just an "a", is often found at the beginning or the middle of a word, "eigh" can be found anywhere in a word, and "ey" is often found at the end of a word.

So words that have a just "a" spelling in that show that it comes in the middle or at the beginning, apron and apricot, an apron is something you might wear if you're doing some cooking, to protect your clothes.

An apricot is the type of fruit you might eat, a fable is a story and a stable is a place in which a horse will stay.

"eigh", you have weight, eight, and then a sleigh, okay, that might be pulled along.

And eighteen, the number 18.

If you know the spelling of the number eight, you know the spelling of the number eight, 80, 18.

And our "ey" words, they, prey, as in what's hunted by a predator, the colour grey, and obey as in follow the rules, you must obey, coming at the end of the words.

So have a look at these (mumbles).

We have they, eight, stable, apron and sleigh.

Hmm, which spelling patterns do they follow? Just an "a", "eigh" or "ey"? Pause the video and match them now.

Off you go.

Great, good job team.

They, "ey", that "ay" sound coming at the end is "ey", eight can come anywhere in a word, "eigh", and, remember, if you know the spelling of eight you know the spelling of 80 and 18.

Stable, that's our "a" there coming either in the beginning or the middle, it's in the middle in this instance.

Apron that you might wear when cooking coming at the beginning, and sleigh, S-L-E-I-G-H, there coming at the end.

Remember that "eigh" can be found anywhere in a word.

Think carefully now about all of those representations for the "ay" phoneme that we've looked at.

We've looked at six so far.

Three more common, three less common.

Which of them come at the beginning of a word, which come in the middle, which come at the end of a word and which come last but one? Pause the video and add in those different graphemes, those different representations for that phoneme now.

Off you go.

Brilliant.

So I sorted them like this.

Our "a", just an "a", and our "eigh" can be found at the beginning of a word as an "ay" sound, in the middle of the word we have our "ai", our common representation, and our "eigh", which is our less common representation.

At the end of a word we know we have our "ay" and our "ey" for sure, but also our "eigh".

Remember, that can be found anywhere in a word.

And of course last but one our split diagraph, "a-e".

We start with the most common spelling when we are thinking about the rules, and then we think about those rarer spellings.

Remember, the most common spellings we've looked at so far are "ay", "ai" and "a-e", and the rarer ones we've looked at so far are "eigh" just an "a" and "ey".

So through your practise task right now, you can see that I've got some words below that contain an "ay" phoneme.

I'd like you to put these, each of these words, into the correct place in the table, thinking about where that "ay" sound is coming, beginning of the word, middle of the word, the last one or the end of the word, and which grapheme they use to represent that a phoneme.

Pause the video, put these words into the correct columns now, off you go.

Brilliant.

Let's see how you've done then team.

So I'm hoping you've managed to sort 'em like this.

Apron had that "a" at the beginning, eight had the "eigh" at the beginning, train had "ai" in the middle, weight had "eigh" in the middle, (clears throat) plate was that split diagraph, "a-e" separated by a "t", coming last but one.

And then we had all of those words with that "ay" sound at the end of the word, play, sleigh, "eigh" and they, T-H-E-Y.

Great job.

Check and see how you did, make any corrections now.

Pause the video.

Onto then our next learning cycle where we're gonna be looking at even more rare "ay" spellings now, "ei" and "ea".

So let's have a read of these words and see if you can hear that "ay" sound in these words.

Vein.

This is like the veins in your body that pump blood around.

Great, that was a great answer.

Reign, like a king or queen's reign this is.

Break, like break time or break something in half.

Steak, like the steak you might eat.

Veil, like a veil you might wear to cover your face.

And beige, that bland colour, beige.

Did you hear the "ay" sounds in all of these words? Do you see the letters that are representing those "ay" sounds, the graphemes representing them? Pause the video, have a go at saying these words again and see if you can figure out which graphemes are now representing our "ay" sounds.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

So within these spellings I've noticed that they all contain an "ay" sound, and our representations for this "ay" sounds, this "ay" phoneme, are far rarer spellings than we've seen before.

You may have learned many of these as common exception words, so words that don't follow our regular phonics patterns because the spellings are quite tricky or odd.

Here we have two new rare representations of that a phoneme.

Our graphemes are "ei" and "ea".

So what do you notice about the "ei" spelling of the "ay" phoneme? And maybe give consideration to where it's coming in a word.

We have it in vein, like the veins in your body that pump blood around.

Reign, like the reign of a king or queen, how long they reign for, how long they're in power for.

Veil that you might put over you to cover your face, and a beige, that bland colour.

so what do you notice about it? Where's it coming in words? Pause the video and have a think.

Brilliant.

Absolutely, the "ei" spelling is coming in the middle of words, isn't it, and it likes to come before an "n", an "gn", and a "gn" in particular.

So you can see here in vein and reign, it is very commonly found before an "n" or a "gn" sound, an "n", vein, reign.

And that "gn" has that silent "g", doesn't it, so watch out for that word.

The "ei" spelling likes words also beginning with "v", you can see here we have vein and veil.

So it likes words beginning with "v".

The "ei" spelling likes to go in the middle of words as well, that's our most common rule there is it likes to go in the middle of words.

Remember it's not very common, it's quite rare, it likes to come before an "n" and a "gn" that silent "g", it likes to come after a "v" and it most commonly comes in the middle of a word.

Let's have a look at our "ea" grapheme for this "ay" phoneme then.

Let's have a read of these words.

Great, break, steak.

And this is great as in something that's large or big in stature, or great, I had a great time.

It could be break as in in break time and a steak as in the steak that you would eat, meat.

So what do you notice about these spellings? Well I've noticed that the "ea" spelling likes to come before a "t" in words like great, or a "k" in words like break and steak.

I've also noticed that the "ea" spelling likes words beginning with two consonants, so I have "gr" great, "br" break, "st" steak.

Remember, consonants are those sounds that are made by the blocking of the air in the mouth of the teeth, tongue lips or palettes.

The "ea" spelling also likes to go in the middle of words and is often the last but one.

So we have great, break, steak.

So last but one sound there as well, which means we have to be really careful not to confuse some of them with some of their homophones, which we're gonna talk about next.

So I'd like you now to have a go at sorting the graphemes that made that "ay" sound below, and you can see I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight graphemes there.

Okay, I'd like you to sort them into the correct columns to say whether they are rare, so we don't see them very often, or they appear less often, or they are common which means they do appear most often.

Pause the video and sort these graphemes now.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

So I've sorted like this, our three common spellings or graphemes for that "ay" sound are "ay", "ai" and "a-e", our rarer representations for that "ay" sound are "a", "eigh", "ey", "ei" and "ea", and the ones we're concentrating on now are "ei" and "ea".

We've read lots of words containing the "ay" phoneme, and actually interestingly lots of the words that we've been looking at, as well, are homophones.

This is one of our keywords, remember, homophones are words that sound the same but have different spellings and different meanings.

So here we have vein, reign, great, break and steak.

And, interestingly, they have a variety of different spellings, as well, and different meanings.

So we have vein, like V-E-I-N, that rarer "ay" representation "ei" which is like the vein in your body pumping blood.

We have vain, as in someone who thinks they look fantastic.

And then we have vane like a weather vane, a noun, V-A-N-E.

We have reign with that "eign" spelling, which is as in a king or queen's reign, rain, that "ai" spelling in the middle there like the rain falling from the sky, and rein, R-E-I-N, that "ei" representation there, that rarer spelling, which is like the rein you would use to control the horse.

We're gonna have great, "ea", which is like great or great in size, and then grate like "a-e", "ate", which is like to grate cheese, okay? And then we have break, like break time or I need to take a break, and then brake, B-R-A-K-E, like the brake on a car or the brake on a bike.

And finally we have steak.

Steak, S-T-E-A-K, steak you would eat made out of meat or a stake that you might hammer into the ground, S-T-A-K-E, or use to get an vampire, stake.

So watch out for these homophones, they sound the same but have different spellings and they all contain different "ay" spellings as well, 'cause they all contain that "ay" phoneme 'cause they sound the same.

So to know the spellings of these homophones, we must put them into context.

"I had a great time at the party." "I had to grate cheese for my pasta." So great there is like, "Oh, I've had a very good time." G-R-E-A-T, so I know that's how to spell it.

I had to grate cheese is that action of grating, okay, there.

So, I had to grate cheese for my pasta.

Again, have a look here at the context, "My friend ate a steak with chips and vegetables." "He put a stake in the ground to help the plant grow upwards." So steak, S-T-E-A-K, is that steak that you would eat, and we can tell that from the context 'cause you're having it with chips and vegetables, and then stake is that long thin thing you've gotta drive into the ground to then help something grow upwards.

We can tell that from the context here because it's been put into the ground, and it's helping something grow.

The context will help us to know which spelling to use of the homophones.

So homophone alerts, let's have a look at a few.

I'm gonna recognise some and work out what they mean, and then you're going to have a go.

So her vein was blue.

And that is the vein in your body, okay, not someone's vanity, them thinking they look good.

So it's V-E-I-N, which would be my correct spelling.

So I'd like you to select the correct spelling for each sentence here, okay? So the king's reign lasted a long time.

The horse was held by its reins.

And we also have, it started to rain.

Which spelling is the correct one for each sentence? Pause the video and select the correct homophone now.

Off you go.

Brilliant.

The king's reign is our R-E-I-G-N spelling, that one there.

You hold the horse's reins, it's our rare "ei" spelling, R-E-I-N-S, plural there with the "s" at the end 'cause you're holding onto both of them to control the horse.

And it started to rain is our "ai" spelling, that far more common representation of that "ay" sound.

So listen to me carefully now, I am going to say some words to you.

Listen to the full sentences and choose the correct homophone to fill each gap.

So I'm gonna say the homophone, okay, and you need to figure out which spelling it is that you're going to use.

So did you have a great day? I needed a break from my learning.

The vein in my arm pumps the blood around my body.

How long will the king's reign last? So listen again, did you have a great day? I needed a break from my learning.

The vein in my arm pumps the blood around my body.

How long will the king's reign last? So number one is great, put it in that context, number two is break, number three is vein and number four is reign, like a king or queen's reign.

Pause the video and have a go at writing the correct spelling to fill to fill the gaps.

Off you go.

Brilliant job team.

Really careful considerations for the correct spellings there.

Don't worry if you've made any mistakes, we can just make the corrections now.

This is quite tricky activity because you're listening out for the sound and then selecting from a variety of spellings.

So did you have a great day is G-R-E-A-T, our "ea" representation for that "ay" sound there.

I need a break, okay, is that "br" again "ea" representation for that "ay" sound, that rarer spelling we're looking at.

The vein is that "ei" representation, the veins in your body.

And how long will the king's reign last, that's that "eig" representation, "ei" and then our silent "g" and then our "n", reign.

Watch out for that one 'cause that has that silent "g".

Make any corrections now.

Onto then our final learning cycle, which is strategies to practise.

So spelling rules can really help us when we're learning words, but we also need to practise.

When we practise we remember words more easily, we get better at noting about how they're spelled and also what's tricky about them, and we also become more confident when using them, particularly in our writing.

There are loads of strategies that we can use.

We will use the big letters strategy, we're going to use the big letters strategy.

The big letters strategy helps in several ways.

Through visualisation we have to first carefully look and play close attention to the spelling and any tricky parts.

Then through repeat copying we copy out the word, starting really small and then getting larger each time.

So we write out the word, cover up the word we're looking at, write out small, then check, and then write out bigger, and then write out even bigger after that.

And then, finally, if you use our cursive handwriting, it can help us to remember the spelling even better, and this is working on our motor memory, that link between our hand and our brain.

So what's the order for the big letters strategy? What's the first thing we have to do, then the second, then third, then fourth? Put these in the correct order now, off you go.

Great job.

The first thing we always have to do in any spelling strategy and when we're doing spelling, really, is always look.

So A, we need to look.

The next is then to write it small, then we have to write it bigger, and finally we write it the biggest.

So look, write small, write bigger, write biggest.

We always have to look carefully at spellings before we practise them.

So I'd like you now to choose three words to practise using the big letters strategy.

Choose the three words that you found most difficult so far in this lesson.

I've picked one, for instance, the word beige, which I find difficult, that colour, that bland colour, beige, which is that "ei" spelling there, and then a "ge" at the end.

So I'm gonna have a go at using this strategy now.

I look at the word, think what's difficult about it.

Well, "bei" it's that "ei" representation for that "ay" sound, and then "ge" at the end.

I then cover it up and have a go at writing it's small, B-E-I-G-E.

Check back, oh, I got it correct.

And now I can cover this one up and then write it bigger, write it bigger again, and then write it the biggest.

So I'd like you to have a go at using the big letters strategy, so pick three words and have a go at using that strategy.

Pause the video now, three words, have a go at the big letters strategy.

Off you go.

Great job team.

So let's see how you've done then.

I'm hoping that you've managed to write out three words, small, big, bigger, biggest, and have looked carefully at the spellings as well.

I've done that with beige and I managed to get 'em all right.

Did you manage to spell the words correctly? And, more importantly, did you have fun? Why don't you show me your favourite string of words from smallest to biggest? Hold it up and show me now.

Amazing.

Double check now, did you manage to spelling them correctly? Do you have any corrections to make? Pause the video and make those corrections now.

Off you go.

Great spelling today, everyone.

Today we've been looking at those rarer spellings for that "ay" phoneme, that "ay" sound.

We've looked at the graphemes, "ei" and "ea".

The most common ways of spelling that "ay" phoneme are "ay", "ai" and "ae".

Rarer spellings for that "ay" sound include "a", "eigh", "ey", "ei" and also "ea".

Some words including the "ay" phoneme are homophones, remember, so you must use them in context to know which spelling to use.

Remember, homophones are those words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings, so watch out for them.

Keep up the great spelling practise, and I'll see you again soon.