Spelling Made Fun with Visual Patterns is an innovative, fun multi-sensory comprehensive spelling programme for Primary school children. It has been extensively reviewed by practising teachers in Ireland.
There are three books in the series. Book 1 is suggested for ages 5-7, Book 2 for 7-10 and Book 3 for ages 10-12. However, each book can also be used and adapted for children with SEN at both Primary and Secondary school levels.
- The words in the spelling lists are high frequency words relevant to children’s writing , with corresponding dictation sentences
- There is a gradual structured progression with lots of opportunities for functional writing and application of spelling
- The visual patterns greatly reduce the memory load required to retain spelling thus making learning spelling easier and fun
Spelling Made Fun with Visual Patterns:
- 32 weekly units of work with 16 spellings in each unit. Each unit has 2 pages of fun activities to reinforce the spelling
- The words in the spelling lists are words relevant to the pupils writing and are presented with words visually similar grouped together to make it easier for pupils to memorise the words
- The wordlists include words beginning with sw, shr and thr , ph says f words, ch says k words, words with silent l combination, the suffixes –tion, -ect, -ity, -ic,- cial, -our, -sion, -ible, -tive, -ment, -el, -al,-ate, -gue, -ious, -ous, -ant . prefix dis and countries
- Many of the activities focus on the visual letter patterns in the words and additional words to those in the lists with similar patterns are included in the activities
- The activities include crosswords, close procedure exercises , phonic activities , spelling rules – e.g. ‘i before e except after c’, plural rules , rules when adding suffixes , spelling tips , word searches, homophones, mnemonics, finding little words in the bigger words , putting words into sentences, unjumbling sentences, matching phrases to make sentences, segmenting words into syllables, matching words to their definitions, synonyms, antonyms and alphabetical order, activities on collective and proper nouns, adverbs and adjectives
- Lots of opportunities are provided to apply the spelling in different contexts to ensure understanding of the words the pupils are learning to spell
- Spelling lists with practice sheets for each unit to be completed at home each night using the Look, Say, Cover, Write Check technique
- Self-evaluation weekly record sheets
- An overall record grid to record scores for each unit for both teachers and pupils to monitor and track progress
- Dictation is an essential element of the programme