Wodensfield Primary School
'Aim to be The Best You Can'
Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG)
Spelling, punctuation and grammar (abbreviated to SPaG) is an essential part of the National Curriculum and is assessed at the end of Year 2 and Year 6 as part of the Statutory Assessment Tests (SATs).
At Wodensfield, we teach punctuation and grammar as an integral part of our English (writing) lessons. This enables children to become familiar with the different punctuation and grammatical terms and how they can be applied within the current unit of writing. Children can then endeavour to use those concepts independently in their current writing but also across the curriculum.
Pupils are taught the grammatical knowledge they need from an early age and it is progressively developed throughout their education. This progression enables children to understand punctuation and grammar, which supports their reading comprehension, but also enables them to become more proficient writers.
Spelling
At Wodensfield, children are taught to spell through the Read Write Inc. (RWI) Spelling programme. The scheme is used from Year 2 to Year 6 and involves the teaching of the statutory spelling words from the National Curriculum (2014). Although the teaching of phoneme-grapheme correspondence underpins this programme, it also develops children’s knowledge of word families, how suffixes impact upon root words, and provides mnemonics to remember the trickiest spellings.
The teaching revolves around instruction (with the help of online alien characters), partner and group practice, and competitive group challenges that help children commit new words to memory.
The website below provides an overview of the scheme. The three documents below also show how the National Curriculum spelling rules map across to the RWI Spelling programme for each teaching phase: Year 2, Years 3-4 and Years 5-6.
https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/programmes/spelling/