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Year 3

Spelling the 'ay' sound with 'a', 'eigh' or 'ey'

I can spell words with the 'ay' sound using 'a', 'eigh' or 'ey'.

New
New
Year 3

Spelling the 'ay' sound with 'a', 'eigh' or 'ey'

I can spell words with the 'ay' sound using 'a', 'eigh' or 'ey'.

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. Common spellings for the 'ay' phoneme are 'ay', 'a-e' and 'ai'.
  2. Alternative and rare spellings for the 'ay' phoneme are 'a', 'eigh' and 'ey'.
  3. Suffixes that have been added may change the spelling of a word, so finding the root word can be a useful strategy.
  4. Finding rhyming words helps to find the correct spelling, such as 'weigh' and 'sleigh' and 'able' and 'stable'.
  5. Words in word families often have similar spellings.

Keywords

  • Phoneme - the smallest unit of sound

  • Grapheme - the letter or group of letters that represent a sound

  • Rare - rare spellings are spellings which appear less frequently

  • Word family - a group of words common in feature, pattern or meaning

  • Root word - the base word from which other words are formed often by adding prefixes or suffixes

Common misconception

Pupils may start using these spellings in place of the most common spellings.

Emphasise that 'ay', 'ai' and 'a-e' are the most common spellings and tell pupils to try those out first.

Supplement this lesson with visuals based on your school's phonics scheme to retrieve prior learning and support new learning.
Teacher tip

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2024), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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6 Questions

Q1.
Choose the words that contain the 'ay' phoneme.
Correct answer: pancake
Correct answer: play
treat
most
Correct answer: grey
Q2.
Choose the words that rhyme with the word 'cake'.
lakes
Correct answer: lake
joke
plate
Correct answer: make
Q3.
Choose the words that contain the root word 'train'.
rain
Correct answer: training
Correct answer: trained
pain
Correct answer: trains
Q4.
Match the graphemes to where they commonly appear in a word.
Correct Answer:'ay',the end

the end

Correct Answer:'a-e',the last but one phoneme

the last but one phoneme

Correct Answer:'ai',the middle

the middle

Q5.
Correct the spelling in bold in the following sentence: 'I ate a delicious pancayk'.
Correct Answer: pancake
Q6.
What is the root word in the word 'maker'?
Correct Answer: make

6 Questions

Q1.
Choose the words which contain an 'ay' phoneme.
Correct answer: eight
wasp
Correct answer: stable
money
Correct answer: prey
Q2.
Match the grapheme that make the 'ay' sound to where they most commonly appear in a word.
Correct Answer:'eigh',anywhere

anywhere

Correct Answer:'ey',at the end

at the end

Correct Answer:'a',at the beginning or the middle

at the beginning or the middle

Q3.
Choose the correct spelling of the word in bold in the following sentence: 'There was a slai pulled by reindeer in the sky.'
Correct answer: sleigh
slay
sliegh
Q4.
Match the key words to their definitions.
Correct Answer:phoneme,the smallest unit of sound in a word

the smallest unit of sound in a word

Correct Answer:grapheme,the written representation of a phoneme

the written representation of a phoneme

Correct Answer:word family,a group of words common in pattern or meaning

a group of words common in pattern or meaning

Q5.
Select the words that are part of the same word family.
Correct answer: eight
Correct answer: eighteen
weight
Correct answer: eighty
seventeen
Q6.
Correct the spelling in bold in the following sentence: 'He was wearing an aipron whilst cooking.'
aypron
eighpron
Correct answer: apron
eypron

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