SPELLING, PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR

SPaG

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar

AIMS*Present an overview of the new test requirements for the end of key stage 2

*Become familiar with the proposals relating to SPAG in the DRAFT English National Curriculum document

*Begin to develop a systematic programme to teach vocabulary, grammar and punctuation throughout the school

*Begin to review present practise in teaching spelling and handwriting throughout the school

Contexts

Ofsted: • Standards in English are not high enough and,

since 2008, there has been no overall improvement in primary pupil’s learning….Above all this means being passionate about high standards of literacy for every single pupil, and creating a no-excuses culture both for pupils and staff.

• Among the ten steps to raise literacy is the recommendation that government consider whether the target of level 4 is sufficiently high to provide an adequate foundation for success.

Michael Wilshaw March 2012

Why Test SPAG?

Government believes that pupils should have mastered these important aspects of English by the time they leave primary school, and that recognition should be given to good use of English. It is also suggested that this will help “close the gap” between pupils giving everyone access to the language (Standard English) of the ruling group.

The DRAFT curriculum for KS1 and KS2 English has a strong emphasis on SPaG .

DfE says: The SPaG test will assess children’s abilities in the following technical aspects of English:

grammar punctuation spelling vocabulary The SPaG test will assess level 3-5 of the current English curriculum. A separate level 6 test will be available for schools that wish to enter children who are

expected to be working above level 5 at the time of the test.

Test format• The current English writing test assesses technical English skills through writing

composition. • In contrast, the new “English grammar, punctuation and spelling” test will use

closed response and short response questions to assess these elements of the programme of study. 

• The level 6 test will include an extended response task.

Tests for KS2 in 2013What Changes?• Writing will be assessed by teacher assessment. • Assessment will be of a range of Year 6 writing done as part of the

normal sequence of lessons.• Writing will be internally moderated. LA moderators will sample 15-

25% of schools.• There will no longer be a writing test or writing sample. This is

replaced by a test of English spelling, punctuation, vocabulary and grammar.

• The SPAG test will take place on Tuesday 14th May a.m. • A level 6 SPAG test is available and will take place on 14th May p.m.What Stays the Same?• Maths tests as now; Reading test as now. • Schools will submit teacher assessments by 28th June, i.e. before test

papers are returned. What Don’t We Know?• How the SPAG test results will fit in with the writing level or overall English

level given to the pupils• THE TEST!

“Moving English Forward” Recommendations:

The Department for Education should: publish research on the teaching of writing, drawing on national and international

publications, to include the effective teaching of spelling and handwriting, and how boys can be helped to become successful writers

provide support in order to increase the number of specialist English teachers in primary schools and to improve the subject knowledge of existing English coordinators in primary schools.

All schools should: develop policies to promote reading for enjoyment throughout the school ensure that preparation for national tests and examinations is appropriate, does

not begin too early, and does not limit the range of the curriculum or pupils’ opportunities for creativity in English

improve transition and continuity in curriculum and assessment in English between Key Stages 2 and 3

simplify lesson plans in English to concentrate on the key learning objectives and encourage teachers to be more flexible in responding to pupils’ progress as lessons develop.

Nursery and primary schools should also: develop a structured programme for improving children’s communication skills in

the Early Years Foundation Stage secure pupils’ early reading skills by the end of Key Stage 1.

HANDWRITING AND SPELLING

What do we do now?Do we need to make any changes?

“Moving English Forward” and Spelling

• The close link between handwriting and spelling has been well established- pupils with a fluent cursive script are more likely to become good spellers.

• Inspectors observed that spelling was rarely taught explicitly and there was little consistency within schools, with no general agreement on which spelling mistakes to correct and how.

• Marking did not make it clear how pupils were expected to respond to any spelling mistakes- teachers’ comments on spelling too rarely led to action by pupils.

• Pupils with particular special needs related to spelling, and less regularly handwriting, often received good, targeted support-this support did not stretch to include that broader group of pupils who lacked confidence in their spelling or handwriting.

Good practice Identified In “Moving English Forward”

There is expected to be one weekly teacher-taught session for all Key Stage 2 classes.

Handwriting sessions should be linked to the spellings taught that week.

A long-term plan for spelling identifies what is to be taught each year.

Teachers are advised on the different strategies to be used such as analogy, mnemonics, word banks, displays and interactive games.

Pupils all have a spelling book and are encouraged to ‘have a go’ before seeking advice. Pupils are taught how to proofread and to correct their own errors.

Spelling is tested on a weekly basis and differentiated for groups of pupils.

Teachers are expected to identify mistakes in spelling in pupils’ work and pupils copy the words out a number of times, using the ‘look, cover, write, check’ approach.

Teach strategies not spellings Marking should lead to action on the pupils’ part – put word in own

spelling log, find others with the same pattern, look-cover-say-write-check, devise a way to remember, add the word to the working wall…

Marking Literacy Across The Curriculum

The most effective schools often have a whole-school marking policy which emphasises the importance of literacy and is applied consistently. However, in many primary schools, teachers’ marking in other subjects is less detailed than in English and rarely focuses on key basic errors. This can be most obvious in subjects like science where pupils often write one-sentence answers to questions or short paragraphs evaluating experiments. In humanities, pupils often write extended pieces in diary, news report or letter forms. All of these lend themselves well to marking for literacy but often this is not the case.

Ofsted Distance Learning for Inspectors

What Good Spellers Need• Knowledge of word structures and meanings. An

increasing linguistic knowledge of word structures and meanings is essential and is evident in attention to:

o Prefixeso Tenses o Words made up of smaller words (e.g football, birthday)o Word rootso Word origins ( e.g. photograph, photosynthesis) • Growing independence. Knowing how and where to get

help, how to proof read and check their own and others work is essential. In addition to self-monitoring children need to have effective ways of consciously learning new spellings 

• To make analogies and deduce rules. These are fundamental processes that help children make use of the spelling system. Much learning is implicit initially but as knowledge grows children need to become more reflective and able to make more explicit generalisations and deduce rules.

 From: “Understanding Spelling” by Olivia O’Sullivan and Anne Thomas

What Good Spellers Need

• Extensive experience of written language gained through engagement with a variety of texts of all kinds (read and written). Explicit teacher demonstration, drawing attention to the features of written language is especially helpful in developing awareness.

• Phonological awareness. (syllabification, onset, rime, phonemic awareness) children learn to attend more closely to increasingly detailed aspects of sound-letter relationships and to detect patterns of sound associated with patterns of letter.·       

• Letter names and alphabetical knowledge – knowing and using the names, sounds and forms is essential·       

• Known words. Children need to develop a lexicon of familiar words which are spelled correctly and are a basis for analogy making·       

• Visual awareness, spellers need to know that spelling is as much to do with how words look as with how they sound. Visual awareness includes a growing sense of the likely patterns of letters that occur in English and the habit of looking at words within words and noting how words are made up·       

• Awareness of common letter strings and word patterns. Children need to become familiar with common letter patterns ( e.g. –at, -ad, -ee, -ing, -one, -ough) including patterns in words which look alike but don’t sound alike.

How To Spell: Strategies

• Break it into sounds ( d-i-a-r-y)

• Break it into syllables (re-mem-ber)

• Break it into affixes (dis + satisfy)

• Use a mnemonic (necessary has one collar and two sleeves)

• Refer to a word in the same family (muscle – muscular)

• Say it as it sounds (Wed-nes-day)

• Find words within words (I am in Parliament)

• Refer to etymology (bi+cycle = two + wheels)

• Use analogy (bright, light, night…)

• Use a key word (horrible/drinkable for able and ible)

• Apply spelling rules (writing, written)

• Learn by sight (look-cover-say-write-check)

• Create visual memory (look-cover-say-write-check)

Spelling Test

accelerator immacolete propeler

rasberry sherriff sieve

gaurdian effervescent perspiration

necessary because begining

tonsilitis libary cuboard

peeple misspell modelled

innocuous wierd seperate

surprizing leisure center

Which are correct? How could you help someone learn to spell the others?

What words are commonly misspelled within our school? What words do you often have to think about?

All Correct?

accelerator immaculate propeller

raspberry sheriff sieve

guardian effervescent perspiration

necessary because beginning

tonsillitis library cupboard

people misspell modelled

innocuous weird separate

surprising leisure centre

Punctuation

Draft NC for English – Punctuation …

Year 1Pupils should be taught to:understand how spoken language can be represented in writing by: • a. leaving spaces between words • b. beginning to punctuate sentences using a capital letter and a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark • c. using a capital letter for names of people, places, the days of the week, and the personal pronoun ‘ I ‘Terminology: capital letter, full stop, question mark, exclamation mark, punctuation

Year 2Pupils should be taught to:understand how spoken language can be represented in writing by: • a. learning how to use both familiar and new punctuation correctly, including full stops, capital letters, exclamation marks, question marks, commas

for lists and apostrophes for contracted forms Terminology: apostrophe, comma

Years 3 / 4Pupils should be taught to: indicate grammatical and other features by: • a. using commas after fronted adverbials • b. indicating possession by using the possessive apostrophe with singular and plural nouns • c. using and punctuating direct speech Terminology: inverted commas (or speech marks)

Years 5 / 6Pupils should be taught to:indicate grammatical and other features by: • a. using commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity in writing • b. using hyphens to avoid ambiguity • c. using brackets, dashes or commas to indicate parenthesis • d. using semi-colons, colons or dashes to indicate a stronger sub-division of a sentence than a comma • e. punctuating bullet points consistentlyTerminology: parenthesis, bracket, dash, hyphen, colon, semicolon, bullet point

Grammar and Vocabulary

We all need to know and be able to use:

· Co-ordination and the compound sentence

· Subordination and the complex sentence

· Cohesive devices such as pronouns, consistent tense, appropriate connectives and adverbials

· Modification

· The active and passive voice

These can be taught at stages appropriate to the child, the purpose of the writing and the intended audience. Punctuation will also need to be taught at the same time so that getting to grips with the grammar doesn’t get in the way of clear communication.

Key texts: Grammar for Writing. Developing Early Writing.

Grammar

Grammatical Terminology

Year 1word, sentence, letter, singular, pluralYear 2verb, tense (past, present), adjective, noun, suffixYears 3 word family, conjunction, adverb, preposition (shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence eg during, for, from, in, inside, into, on, out); direct speech, prefix, consonant, vowel, clause, subordinate clause Year 4Pronoun (eg me, you, him, her, it, us, them), possessive pronoun (eg mine, yours, his, hers, its , ours, theirs), adverbial Year 5relative clause ( clause that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase and is introduced by a relative pronoun (which, that, who, whom, whose) or a relative adverb (where, when, why); modal verb, relative pronoun, parenthesis, determiner (a word before noun / noun group that shows which thing we mean/ are talking about eg my, the ,a ) cohesion, ambiguityYear 6 active and passive voice (passive voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is not

important or not known, however, who or what is performing the action eg My bike was stolen); subject and object, synonym (a word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word)

How should we teach grammar?

• Embed it in lessons on writing or reading so that it is meaningful

• Encourage discussion, experimentation, choice and decision making rather than correctness

• Be explicit about it• Consider whether you need a metalanguage and at what level

• See grammar as a creative tool• Enjoy difference and divergence