Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to today's spelling lesson.

I'm Mr. Moss.

I love spelling, and I can't wait to teach you.

Ready today, you need to bring your looking eyes, your listening ears, and your thinking brains, as well as that thing to write with and write on and someone or something to talk to would also be really helpful.

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

In this spelling lesson, we'll be spelling polysyllabic words with unstressed vowels.

I can spell a range of polysyllabic words with unstressed vowels.

Here are the key words for today's learning.

My turn, your turn.

Polysyllabic, vowel letter, unstressed.

So, polysyllabic describes words that have more than one syllable, so more than one beat.

Vowel letters often make those beats in the words.

They are the letters, A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y, that represent our vowel sounds.

And an unstressed sound is not emphasised or pronounced with much force.

It's not particularly clear.

We may not hear it clearly.

So today, in those words that have more than one syllable, those polysyllabic words, we're going to be watching out for those vowel sounds that are not stressed and therefore make those vowel letters trickier to spot and spell in those words.

So we're spelling more polysyllabic words of with unstressed vowels.

We're gonna begin by looking at some words that contain these unstressed vowels.

Then we're going to use strategies to practise.

And finally, we're going to spell some curriculum words.

Let's get on with looking at polysyllabic words then that contain some unstressed vowels.

Read these words.

Description.

Catholic.

So a denomination of the Christian church there.

Original.

He had an original idea.

Ordinary.

Poisonous.

Deafening.

The loud noises were deafening.

Wednesday, that day of the week, so it has a capital letter 'cause it's a proper noun.

Business, we have much business to discuss.

So you may have noticed something when saying these words.

They are all polysyllabic.

Catholic, three syllables.

Original, ordinary, poisonous.

This means they are words with more than one syllable, so they have more than one of those vowel beats in them.

In polysyllabic words, some of our vowels can be unstressed and hard to hear, and therefore, hard to spell.

That's why we're looking at these words today, to really help us with these trickier-to-spell words.

You may have noticed that you don't clearly hear some of the vowels.

Read the words aloud again.

Which vowels are harder to hear? Off you go, team.

Brilliant, I loved hearing you say those words.

Also, I noticed that some of you are clapping as well the syllables and listening out for which syllables were harder to hear.

So, description.

I didn't say description.

I didn't clearly hear that E.

It sounds a little bit like an eh, description.

So it's an unstressed vowel.

Catholic, oh, I didn't say Catholic, or Catholic.

I say Catholic.

You can't clearly hear that O.

Original.

I didn't say original, so I clearly hear that A.

Ordinary.

Oh, that A-R there just sounds like an R-Y, doesn't it? Notice my Y there making a vowel sound at the end as well, ordinary.

Poisonous.

Again, I didn't say poisonous.

I say poisonous.

It is an unstressed vowel, which is tricky to hear, and therefore making that word tricky to spell.

Deafening.

I didn't say deafening.

I say deafening.

Very difficult to hear the E with the N there, isn't it? Wednesday.

I didn't say Wednesday, although using a strategy like that is really helpful, saying it as it's spelt, Wednesday.

That E is very difficult to hear.

And in business, very strange spelling for this word, because the U sounds like an eh, eh, biz, and the S sounds like a zz, and I don't hear that I at all.

I don't say bussiness, do I? Again, saying the word as it is spelt can help us here.

It's a really useful strategy.

So, many of these words contain vowels which are harder to hear.

Which vowels are unstressed in these words? Read them and decide which are the unstressed vowels.

Perhaps clap out the syllables and keep an ear out for those syllables that you don't hear so clearly.

Off you go.

Brilliant.

Generally, hmm.

I don't say generally, do I? What's difficult here is my E before my R, and this is really common.

In E-R words, you often don't hear that E, it's an unstressed vowel, but also my A before my double L-Y suffix.

I didn't say generally.

I say generally.

In flattery, again, flattery.

I don't clearly hear the E there, depending on pronunciation.

And in interested, here, my first E before my R, just like in generally, the E-R there, the E before the R is unstressed.

The E-R can be hard to hear.

Often, you only hear the R sound.

Watch out for this sound and spelling.

Here are more examples of polysyllabic words with unstressed vowels.

Let's read them aloud and then identify any unstressed vowels.

My turn, your turn, predict.

He was able to predict the future.

Doctor, family, freedom, hospital, stationary, stationery.

Watch out for those words, they're homophones.

Company, prosperous.

Something that's prosperous is doing very well and is wealthy.

Secretary, a person who aids communication and keeps records for an organisation.

Frightening, heaven.

Jewellery, like a bracelet or a necklace.

Carpet.

The floor was carpeted.

Read these words one more time for me.

Can you identify the unstressed vowels in them? Do you notice anything else tricky about the words? Particularly look at those homophones.

Hmm, pause the video.

Off you go.

Great.

Well, in the first row here, I've noticed a few tricky vowels.

Predict, I didn't say pre or predict.

That pre, it sounds like a eh, eh.

Doctor, again, unstressed.

Family, just sounds like fam and lee, doesn't it? With my Y there making a vowel sound.

The I is not stressed.

Freedom.

I didn't say freedom, with that oh, oh, so it's really clear there's an O there.

Hospital, again, the al at the end, but it's an A-L spelling.

Now, these two words, stationary and stationery, A-R-Y, E-R-Y, very difficult to hear the difference there, isn't it? Stationary with our A-R-Y is an adjective, meaning not moving, and stationery, E-R-Y, are nouns.

They are materials such as paper, pens, and ink that we can use for writing.

Company, again, I didn't say company or company.

Prosperous, E-R there, classic, the E before the R that you don't clearly hear.

Secretary is that A-R-Y, but it just sounds like an R, doesn't it? Frightening, don't hear the E really at all, do you? So you hear fright and ning.

Heaven, again, I didn't say heaven.

Jewellery, just an R-Y, that's our E-R-Y.

And carpet.

Again, it sounds like an eh.

I don't necessarily say carpet, do I? Be really careful with these unstressed vowels.

We have to look carefully.

We're going to need to learn these words as they're going to appear very often.

It can be very hard to spell them by sounding them out.

So can you spot any connections or links between any of these words? Take your time now.

Think carefully about those homophones.

Think carefully about any words that are linked in meaning.

Are there any patterns here with our unstressed vowel sounds? Pause the video and have a think.

Great.

Stationary and stationery are homophones.

They're words that sound the same but are spelled differently.

A-R-Y, as I've said, is an adjective, which means something that's not moving.

The car was stationary.

And E-R-Y are those nouns, those objects that can be used for helping with writing, such as pens, paper, ink.

I've noticed as well that both of these words, frightening and heaven, both have E-N in them.

Perhaps like E-R words, E-N often in words means we have an unstressed E there.

Our vowel is unstressed.

This mnemonic can help us to remember.

The stationer sells stationery.

Stationer is our E-R there, very clear.

The stationer sells stationery.

Stationery, then, E-R-Y refers to writing materials and office supplies like paper, pencils, and ink.

The train was stationary, A-R-Y.

It was standing still at the station, with our A sound there.

So our A-R-Y is stationary, that adjective, which means to not be moving or to be fixed in one place, whereas our linked word stationer, E-R there, stationer is our stationery, E-R-Y are nouns, are things used for writing.

Have a look at these sentences for me.

Read them and choose the correct spelling of the highlighted words.

Watch out for those unstressed vowels and those homophones.

Off you go, team.

Great.

I went to the stationery shop to buy a pen.

Well, that's going to be that stationer selling you those pens, so it's our E-R-Y.

The other word, the homophone there would not make sense.

The ordinary soap works just as well as the new one.

Hmm, ordinary.

Now, what's my unstressed vowel here? Ordinary.

Now I know there's a vowel sound there in middle.

Ordinary.

Exactly, it's our A-R-Y.

Perhaps saying the word as it's spelled there can help.

Ordinary.

Is this film frightening? Now our root word here is frighten, isn't it? Fright with an E-N and an I-N-G.

We don't necessarily hear it very clearly, but it's frightening.

Frightening.

Read these words.

Which vowels are unstressed? Perhaps clap out the syllables and listen out carefully for where those vowels are unstressed.

Off you go, team.

Brilliant.

I loved hearing you clap out the syllables there and saying the words out carefully.

So, widening, that process of something getting wider.

The gap was widening.

Again, here our root word is wide, but we don't hear the E here before we add our N-I-N-G suffix.

Widening.

Flattened, flattened.

Even though B sounds like flattened, I know it has the verb suffix E-N in it and the past tense suffix, E-D.

So it's flat.

I've doubled the T and added E-N, flatten, and from my verb and then added my E-D suffix to change its tense.

So I've got flattened, E-N-E-D.

This helps me spell it.

And reference.

Both are Es here.

Refer.

We do clearly hear it there, don't we? Refer, our E-R.

But when I add my E-N-C-E suffix, reference, I don't clearly hear my Es there.

Be careful.

So for our practise task now, we're going to underline the correct spelling of these polysyllabic words.

So these words with more than one syllable.

Well, watch out for those unstressed vowels in these polysyllabic words.

Let's read the words first.

Wednesday, business, deafening, that loud noise.

Description.

She added great description to her piece of writing through the use of adjectives and adverbs.

Ordinary, family, company, frightening, jewellery, secretary, carpet, predict, where you say what you think is going to happen.

Hospital, and temperature.

The temperature outside today is very warm.

Use the ideas we have covered to help you.

Does the word have E-R or E-N in it? Then watch out for those unstressed vowels.

Do you recognise any suffixes? You may need to choose what looks right, which is a really useful strategy.

Pause the video now and underline the correct spellings of these polysyllabic words.

Off you go.

Great job, team.

Really careful consideration of where those unstressed vowels were.

You were really careful.

I saw children clapping out and I heard children saying the words carefully, saying them as they're spelled, looking at which ones they thought were correct, and remembering those rules of our E-R and our E-N.

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

Wednesday, it can be difficult to hear that E, can't it? Say it like it's spelled, Wednesday, to remember that one.

And of course a capital letter.

Business.

Again, business or business.

Be careful, that I is not clearly heard.

Business.

Deafening.

Deafen here, we've added our E-N for that verb ending there, deafen, and then our I-N-G suffix.

Description.

Be careful.

The E there, it sounds like an eh, but it's D-E, description.

Ordinary, again, our A-R-Y there.

Family.

We don't always hear that I.

Company, again, we don't hear the A before our N-Y.

Sometimes saying it like it's spelled.

Company, and our Y there's making that E sound at the end.

Frightening.

Again, we don't hear that E-N do we, but we know frighten.

We've added our verb ending E-N and then our I-N-G suffix.

Jewellery.

Be careful with this one.

Jewel is our root word here.

It's that E-L-L-E-R-Y, jewellery.

Secretary.

Watch out for that one, the A-R-Y.

Carpet, sounds like it, but it's E-T.

Predict, that sounds like an I, but it's an E, pre, P-R-E.

Hospital, that al at the end, but it's A-L.

And temperature.

Don't forget that E-R.

Often words that have the E-R in the E is unstressed.

Be careful.

Temperature, be careful as well with this word.

It's a cha cha T-U-R-E at the end.

Which spellings did you know and which were more difficult? Some of the spellings had other difficult elements to them other than the unstressed vowels.

Make a note of these words.

Make any corrections, but do make a note of those words that you found more difficult.

You have an opportunity to practise these in the next learning cycle.

Make any corrections now.

Off you go.

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

We are going to practise spelling these polysyllabic words that we've been looking at today.

When practising spellings, it's helpful to focus on the words that you find difficult, and this will be unique to you.

You could choose words that you didn't know from practise task A.

There are some practise strategies that may be particularly helpful for learning words with unstressed vowels, and I'm gonna go through some of these with you now.

What strategies can you think of, though, that you've used to practise your spellings already? Pause the video and have a think.

First, you need to choose the words to practise.

Think carefully about these.

Remember, they're unique to you.

Choose those words now.

I'd like to think of five words that you would like to practise.

Make sure that they're words that we've looked at so far today that contain an unstressed vowel and are polysyllabic.

Perhaps they're the words from Practise Task A.

Off you go.

Great.

Now that we've got those words, we can now describe our strategy that we'll use to practise.

Here are some strategies that you could use.

I heard you name some of these earlier.

Spotting a word in a word is really useful.

Saying it how it is spelt is particularly useful for these unstressed vowels in polysyllabic words.

Naughty letters is another great strategy given that our unstressed vowels will often be the naughty letter.

Look, cover, write, check is a really great independent strategy.

The strategy may depend on the spellings you've chosen and what makes them difficult.

Now let's practise our spellings.

And finally, of course we have to check against the correctly spelled words to make sure we've written them correctly.

You can take some independence and responsibility for checking your own spellings.

So I'm going to try and use the spotting a word in a word strategy to help me remember the E in frightening.

You may spot the word, for instance, fright, but there could be other words that you can spot.

You can copy out the spelling again with the word in bigger letters underlined or highlighted in colour.

For instance, I've noticed the words ten and fright in frightening.

And you can see I've highlighted ten and fright and also written then frightening with that ten larger and underlined.

You try using the spotting a word in a word strategy now to practise one of your chosen spellings.

Off you go.

Brilliant.

This helps us break down the words into smaller chunks, make links between words, and also spot patterns.

I'm now going to use the saying it how it is spelled to practise the word secretary, which has that tricky A-R-Y at the end there.

Remember to say the word slowly and in sections, pronouncing it how it is spelt.

It may sound very strange.

Sec-re-ta-ry.

Sec-re-ta-ry.

Sec-re-ta-ry.

Sec-re-ta.

You could do re or rye perhaps as well depending on what vowel sound you want that Y to make, whichever one helps you remember it.

I'd like you now to pick one of your key words, one of the words that you've chosen to practise, and say it how it is spelled.

Make sure I can hear you.

Off you go.

Amazing.

I loved hearing some of these words said how they are spelled.

It sounded very strange, but it's going to help you remember how to spell them.

Remember this helps us to remember the spelling when we come to write.

It helps us in particular to remember those unstressed letters because we hear them very clearly now.

So, I want you now to practise the spellings using the strategy you find most helpful for each one.

Choose your five words that you found most difficult from the lesson so far.

You should have a bank of these already from earlier.

Pause the video now.

Practise those spellings using some strategies.

Off you go.

Great job.

I'm really impressed, team.

Let's look at some examples.

So I've used the word in a word strategy to help me correctly spell frightening.

I noticed there was a ten in there as well.

You may also have noticed the word fright in there.

I used say it as it is spelled for secretary, sec-re-ta-ry, or sec-re-ta-ri, and I managed to spell it correctly, remembering that A there.

Did you manage to spell your words correctly, and what strategy did you use? Share your strategy with me now, but also make any corrections if you need to by checking your words against the spellings.

Off you go, team.

Onto our final learning cycle then, which is spelling curriculum words.

Curriculum words are those words which are going to appear at great regularity in our reading and writing, and they may have slightly tricky elements to them, so it's important we learn how to spell them.

Let's read the following words.

Favourite.

That is my favourite colour.

Persuade.

He was able to persuade me to give him my sweets.

If someone's persuasive, they're good at convincing you to do something.

Read the words again.

Do you notice anything interesting about the way that these words are spelled compared to how they sound? Is there anything tricky about them? Pause the video and have a think.

Brilliant, some really great thinking there.

Well, I've noticed in favourite, it kind of sounds like favourite, doesn't it? Favourite.

The O-U-R spelling there doesn't make an our sound.

I didn't say fave-our-ite.

It represents an er sound, and you cannot clearly hear that I-T-E at the end, either.

Saying the word how it's spelled can help.

Favourite.

That really useful strategy with tricky words.

In persuade, the U is making a double U sound, persuade.

Be careful, and it also has that E at the end.

Which of the words that we've just read then is spelled correctly here? Quick fire round, point to the correct spelling of favourite.

That is my favourite colour.

Brilliant.

I loved hearing lots of children there go fav-ourite.

Remember, say it as it's spelled, F-A-V-O-U-R-I-T-E.

Quite tricky word there.

Persuade, another tricky word.

How do I spell persuade? What's tricky about this word? Point to the correct answer now.

Brilliant.

So is that per, P-E-R, and then S, persuade.

And there's something strange going on here.

There's a W sound, but it's that U-A-D-E, persuade.

This is the correct spelling per-sa-ade.

Persuade.

Really good job, team.

Let's read some more curriculum words.

My turn.

Your turn.

Queue.

There was a long queue at the bank.

Queue, where you all stand in line.

What do you notice about this spelling? It's a very strange spelling, isn't it? Have a think.

Brilliant.

Well, I've noticed there's this very strange U-E-U-E.

There are four vowel letters in a row here, which is very strange in English.

The spelling string U-E is repeated twice, U-E-U-E.

Select the correct spelling of the word queue then.

Point to it now.

Brilliant.

Remember what was strange about this? It has the same letter string twice, Q-U-E-U-E.

Try and put that one in your memory.

It's a very strange spelling.

So we're gonna practise these words now using the look, cover, write, check strategy.

A really good independent spelling strategy.

This is where you look carefully at a word.

So we know favourite has this strange O-U-R-I-T-E, doesn't it? Favourite.

I then cover it up and from memory in my neatest handwriting to make really good links through my hand and my brain, my muscle memory, write it out.

I then check back, 'cause we always have to do, and I got it right, but I don't just do it once.

I do it a number of times to really embed this spelling into my long-term memory.

Pause the video now.

Use this strategy of look, cover, right, check to practise the words favourite, persuade, and queue.

Off you go, team.

Brilliant job, really great handwriting, really careful consideration in looking at what was difficult about the spelling.

And really good self-checking as well.

Did you manage to check to spell them correctly? Pause the video now.

Make any corrections.

Off you go.

Really great job in spelling today, team.

Remember, in polysyllabic words, so words with more than one syllable with those vowel beats, some vowels can be unstressed and hard to hear and spell.

Here are some really helpful approaches.

Think of any root words.

Look out for any prefixes and suffixes.

You could always use some mnemonic devices like with stationary and stationery.

Saying the word is it is spelled can help.

And looking for words inside a word can also help.

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