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Hello everybody, my name is Mrs. Richards and welcome to today's lesson.

Today, we are going to practise curriculum words.

I love this lesson.

We've got so many fun practise strategies to do together.

So let's get started.

In today's lesson, we are going to use practise strategies to explore and learn curriculum words.

And then we're going to set some spelling words.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, a pencil and definitely your brain.

Pause the video now and get any resources that you might need.

Okay, let's get started.

Practise strategies.

First thing.

What do these words have in common? I read them aloud now and put them into a sentence to help you understand their meaning.

Embarrass.

It can be easy to embarrass someone else.

Aggressive.

The lion was very aggressive.

Necessary, Necessary.

It is necessary to look carefully at these words.

Communicate.

We can communicate face to face or down the telephone.

Okay, I want you to pause the video and work out what these words might have in common.

Off you go.

Okay, this might have been tricky.

There's no right or wrong answer.

But here's what we're going to focus on today.

All of these words contained double letters, a double R, a double S, a double G, and sometimes that can trip us up in our spellings.

It can be hard to remember which letters to double and which letters not to.

Embarrass has a double R and a double S at the end.

That's one that I always find hard.

Aggressive has a double G and a double S.

Necessary has one C, but to S's.

And communicate to has a double M.

So, let's look at some strategies that we can use to help us learn these challenging spellings.

The first one we're going to explore is naughty letters.

I love this one.

Our job is to write the tricky letters in the word, the letters that we often miss spell, larger than the others.

We then draw a picture around the tricky letters to represent the meaning of the word, or use colour to make the letter stand out.

So you can see my examples on the board.

I had to go with the word embarrass.

I wrote the word out, making the letters R and S larger than the rest of the letters.

And then I thought about a little picture that I could do to represent the meaning of the word embarrass.

I thought that if you felt embarrassed, then you'd probably feel a bit awkward or shy or a bit sad.

And so I tried to draw little faces, looking sad.

I'm sure that your drawings are going to be much better than mine.

The important thing is that you use the drawings to help you understand the meaning of the word.

This isn't a drawing activity.

It's a spelling activity.

Why is this a useful strategy? It causes us to interact with the word.

We have to look closely at these words, the workout, which are the challenging letters for us? And the letters that I think are difficult, the double letters might not be the things that are most challenging for you.

And that's absolutely fine.

This is going to be slightly different for everybody.

The strategy highlights the tricky letters within these words and it consolidates word meaning.

So now's your turn to try.

On the board, I have six words that I'd like you to explore.

Some of these we've looked at already.

Let me read them aloud to you.

Number one, embarrass, number two, necessary.

Number three, accommodate.

To accommodate means to make space or make room for somebody.

Think about the link to the word accommodation.

We might stay in accommodation on holiday.

Number four is aggressive.

Number five, appreciate.

I appreciate my family and my friends.

Number six, communicate.

So your job is to explore the strategy of naughty letters with these words, which are the naughty letters for you? Which are the most challenging bits to spell? Can you highlight those letters by making them bigger and colouring them or drawing a picture around them to represent the meaning of the word? Have a go now, pause the video.

Okay, well done for giving that a try.

I hope that you found that fun and useful.

Let's have a look at another strategy.

Mnemonics.

Now this is a strategy that I sometimes see overused to help us stand spellings.

Mnemonics is when we make up a rhyme or a silly story where each letter in the spelling word is the first letter of each word in your own.

This can be overused.

It can be really hard to make up a silly story or a rhyme for our spellings and it could be even harder to remember it.

But for some words, this can be a useful strategy.

We can't remember a large number of rhymes or silly stories, but we can remember a few.

So we have to be selective about the words that you choose to use this strategy with.

Here's one that really works for me.

Necessary.

For years, I struggled to write the word necessary.

I wasn't sure if it was double C or double S or which one was a single letter.

And then a friend taught me this short story to help.

Necessary has one collar and two sleeves.

Think about a shirt.

A shirt has one collar and two sleeves, the same in necessary there's one C, collar and there's two sleeves, two SS's.

Necessary, one collar, two sleeves.

Why is this a useful strategy? It forces us again, to interact with that word and it gives us a fun, memorable tool to learn our spellings.

Now it's your turn.

Be really selective about the words which you use this strategy for.

You can't remember a mnemonic for all six of these words, but you might be able to for one or two.

You can steal my mnemonic for necessary, if you'd like.

One collar and two sleeves.

Have a go yourself, pause the video.

Okay, well done.

Next strategy we're going to look at is called colour blocking.

Colour blocking is when we look closely at the word and we decide which letters we would group together.

We colour each group of letters a different colour.

This is about splitting a word into chunks and can be really useful for longer words.

Like the words we have in front of us today.

I had a go at using this strategy to learn the word accommodate.

Even as I was writing this word down, I had to double check that I had spelled it correctly.

Accommodate has two C's and two M's.

So I decided that I'd highlight the letter C's and the letter M's by putting them in pink.

And then I noticed that around those, I had vowels, A and O.

A-C-C-O-M-M-O and then I use the last four letters as a chunk, date, because that was a word in itself.

I tried then to do it a different way.

I wondered whether it would help me remember if I perhaps put A-C-C into one colour chunk together and O-M-M into one colour chunk together.

There's no right or wrong answer.

It's about what makes sense for you.

You might see particular letters as coming together in a chunk and you might see them as being represented by a different, a particular colour.

And that's okay.

Your colour blocking might be different from anyone else's.

It's good to try this more than once and think about what combination of letters and colours works best for you.

Why is this a useful strategy? It forces us to interact with the words, the strategy breaks the word into smaller chunks.

That's why it's particularly useful with longer words.

And the colour helps to trigger our memory.

Have a go now.

The instructions are on the board and the six words that I'd like you to practise.

Off you go.

Brilliant.

Well done for giving that such a good try.

Amazing.

Okay, let's look at another group of words.

Which letters inside these words make them hard to spell? Within these words, we don't have double letters, but there's something else which can be challenging.

Let me read the words to you now.

Definite.

If I'm definite, I'm very certain.

Desperate.

I'm desperate to spell this word correctly.

Restaurant.

I like going to a restaurant.

Parliament.

Decisions are made in parliament, through debate.

Have your four words, pause the video now and see if you can identify in each word, which letters can make these words hard to spell.

Off you go.

Okay, well done.

I look forward to seeing how you got on with this.

Here are the letters that for me, are the most challenging.

Now these might not be the same letters as you find challenging, and that's okay, but we can think of these letters as silent letters.

Letters which are difficult for us to hear when we pronounce the word.

Definite.

Def in it, ite.

Hear, at the end, I-T-E, there are two I's in definite.

Definite.

And I can almost, I think I can hear the first one, And I don't think I can hear the second.

Desperate.

Actually, it's spelled des per ate.

I can't hear all of those letters.

It's the vowels that I just can't pick up.

The E and the A.

Restaurant.

Here it's the A and the U, which I can't hear.

And parliament.

Yes, it's actually spelled par li ament.

And I can't hear that letter I.

Here's a strategy to help us.

And we've hinted at this already.

This strategy is called, say it as it looks.

We mispronounce the word, emphasising the tricky letters, especially when these are making an unusual sound in the word, or where we can't normally hear them.

So in desperate from now on, when I'm writing, I'm going to say the word des per rate to help me remember.

I don't have to say out loud.

It's okay to say it in my head.

And I'm only going to use this when I'm writing, but it's a really useful tool.

I use this tool already and you might too.

I use it to help me spell the word Wednesday.

Wed nas day, whenever I'm writing that word, I always say wed nes day in my head.

The same with the month February.

Whenever I write this word, I always say in my head Feb ru rary to help me remember the spelling.

So here's my example.

Desperate, des per ate.

Des per ate.

I want you to have a go now.

There are four new words on the board, the words which we just laid out together.

With these silent letters.

Definite, desperate, restaurant and parliament.

Give it a try.

Well done.

It might feel a bit silly at first, but that's okay because when we're writing, we don't have to say out loud, we can just say it in our head.

Here's one that you might've tried.

Parliament.

I still remember how to spell this word by saying it as it looks par, lie, a, meant.

Parliament.

Whenever I'm writing, I always use that trick and it might be helpful for you too.

Why is this a useful strategy? It causes us to interact with the word, the strategy highlights the tricky letters, and it helps us to remember the correct spelling.

Okay, let's have a look then at our spelling words.

These are words which have come up today through our lesson.

I'll read the words aloud now and put them into a sentence for you.

Then you need to pause the video and copy them down really carefully.

Remember, these are challenging words with double letters and sometimes silent letters.

And so you need to be really attentive when you're copying.

You don't want to be copying down the wrong word and learning the wrong spelling.

So pause the video whenever you need to and give yourself as much time as you need.

Number one, embarrass.

Embarrass.

It can be easy to embarrass other people.

A double R and a double S, pause and write it down.

Number two, necessary.

Necessary.

It is necessary to look carefully at these spellings.

Remember our trick, one collar, two sleeves.

One C, two S.

Pause and write it down.

Number three, accommodate.

Accommodate.

Do you remember our trick from colour blocking? There was a vowel before each of these double letters.

A-C-C-O-M-M, double C, double M.

Pause and write it down.

Number four, aggressive.

Aggressive.

The dog was very aggressive.

This word has a double G and a double S.

Pause and write it down.

Number five, Appreciate.

Appreciate.

I appreciate that these spellings are difficult.

Appreciate has a double P.

Pause and write it down.

Number six, communicate.

Communicate.

It is important to communicate clearly.

Communicate has a double M.

Pause and write it down.

Number seven, definite.

Definite.

Definite has two I's.

Def fin ite, def fin ite.

Fin, try to think of a shark's fin in that middle of the word and ite at the end.

Pause and write it down.

Number eight, desperate.

Desperate.

I am desperate to spell this word correctly.

Des per ate.

Watch out for the vowels here.

Pause and write it down.

Number nine, restaurant.

Restaurant.

I enjoy eating in a restaurant.

Rest A-U, rest au rant, rest au rant.

Pause and write it down.

Last one, number 10, parliament.

Parliament.

The government sits in parliament.

Parl i ament.

Pause and write it down.

Well done for today's lesson.

I hope you found today's session, really fun and engaging.

I love using these strategies and I hope you will too.

See you next time.

I've finished the video