Lesson video

Hello, my name's Ms Chamberlain Webber.

And I'm going to take you through a series of spelling lessons.

Have you noticed that English isn't actually the easiest language to master or to spell? I definitely have.

I feel like it can be unexpected.

It can be tricky at times, but this is what makes English so fascinating.

We can look at rules, we can look at spelling patterns, and this can really help us.

So I'm going to be teaching you about some of these things in more detail over the course of the following lessons.

This first one we're going to focus on the letter C and how it can make both soft sounds and hard sounds.

Great, let's get started.

Today's agenda we're starting with investigating and generating rules, and then I'm going to set you some spelling words.

To get started you'll need paper and a pencil.

Ideally, you'll be in a nice quiet space, and have your brain ready and switched on.

If you haven't got a pencil or paper, please pause the video now and go and get it.

So, what is a vowel? I've got four options here.

Option A, an animal like an owl.

Option B, a doing or a being word.

Option C, a sound with your mouth open made by the letters A, E, I, O, U, or Y.

Or option D words beginning with V.

Point at the option which is the definition of a vowel.

Option C! A vowel is a sound with your mouth open made by the letters A, E, I, O, U, or Y.

Time to investigate.

Let's get started.

I'm going to say a word and then I want you to repeat.

Calendar, category, complete, consider, current, difficult.

Okay, good job.

Now, what do you notice about these words? Well, yes, they all have the letter C in them.

But I want us to take a closer look.

Can you spot any patterns? That's right.

They have a hard C sound.

This is the sound that you make with your mouth, like so.

Can you practise making that sound now? Okay, great.

Let's have a look at what the rule is then for the hard C sound.

Calendar.

This is something we use to see what the date is.

Calendars always remind me of Christmas, Christmas calendars, and the countdown to Christmas.

Now, there's a vowel in this word, but where in the word is it? It's after the C.

So, if an a is after the C, then there's a hard C sound.

Let's look at the next word, complete.

Complete as a verb means to finish something.

So, at the end of the lesson we will complete the spelling lesson.

Have you noticed that there's a vowel in this word too? Let's look at our third word, current.

Something current means that it's happening now.

And this word, as you might have noticed, also has a vowel after the C.

So let's think about what our rule could be.

I want you to pause the video and try and use the word vowel in your explanation.

If the vowels A, O, U follow the C, that means come after the C, then it is pronounced as a hard C.

Good work so far, let's look at some more words.

Repeat, city, cinema, ceiling, celebrate, cylinder, fancy.

These words also have Cs in them, but can you tell me what's different about the Cs in this word? Pause the video if you need more thinking time.

These all have a soft C sound.

That means they actually sound more like an S when we say it.

Can you show me that sound? Excellent.

Let's have a look at these words in more detail.

City.

A city is a large town.

In fact, right now I'm in London City.

What do you notice about the vowels in this word? You've noticed the I.

And where is the I in that word? It's also following the C.

Okay.

Let's look at our next word and see if it follows the same pattern.

Ceiling.

I want you to look straight up above you.

Great.

That is a ceiling.

Well, as long as you're inside anyway.

This also has a vowel following the C.

Can you tell me what vowel that is? An E, great.

Cylinder.

A cylinder is a 3D shape.

We often find it in our kitchen cupboards, because tins and cans are the shape of a cylinder.

For example, baked beans.

Cylinder is a bit more tricky.

It has got a vowel following the C.

What vowel is that? It's a Y.

Now, a Y sometimes sounds like an I, and in this word it does.

Cylinder.

But we must remember that it's spelt with a Y.

Okay, it's that time to generate the rule for this then.

We've got our soft C rule.

I want you to pause the video here, and think about how you can include the word vowel in your rule.

If the vowels I, E, Y follow the C then it is pronounced as a soft C.

We're going to remember this by thinking about a nice soft pillow that we might lie our heads on.

The soft C sound, C is in a word if the vowels I, E, Y follow the C.

Okay, time to test what you've just learnt.

Here I'm going to show you two pictures.

There's a picture of a hard rock here for our hard C sound.

Can you tell me what a hard C sound sounds like? Well done.

Can you point at the vowels that follow the C, to make a hard C sound? A, O, U.

Fantastic.

Time to think about a soft C sound.

A sound that sounds like.

Can you point at the vowels that follow the C in a word, and are pronounced as a soft? That's I, E, and Y.

Okay, I think you're ready.

I'm going to put a word up on the screen.

I want you to read it to yourself, and then point to either the hard rock or the soft pillow for hard or soft C.

I'll do the first one with you.

Decimal.

Where is the vowel following the C here? Ah, it's there.

It's an I, so that means it's a soft C sound.

Your turn, read the next word to me.

Cupboard.

Can you point at whether it's going to be a hard or a soft C? It's a hard C sound, because of the vowel U.

Word number three, read it to me please.

This is a soft C sound, cereal.

Something you might have eaten for breakfast this morning.

And our fourth word.

This word is made with a hard C sound, castle.

Excellent.

I can see you're really getting it now.

There is a challenge I wanted to ask you about.

These four words, one of these four words is a homophone.

Has anyone spotted it? Point at the word that is a homophone if you have managed to.

It is in fact cereal.

Cereal we eat is spelt this way, but there's another spelling of cereal, which actually means something in a series.

For example, the series of Harry Potter books.

Time for some true, with your thumbs up, or false, with thumbs down.

I'm going to show you the rules that we've thought about today, for our hard and soft C.

I want you to show me thumbs up, if you think it's correct, or thumbs down, if it's false.

Here, it is.

Read it to yourself.

And then have a bit of thinking time to tell me whether it's true or false.

False! In fact, it is the vowels I, E, U when they follow the C, then it is pronounced as a soft C.

Rule number two.

True or false? True! This one is true.

The vowels A, O, U follow the C, then it is pronounced as a hard C.

It's time to set you some spelling words.

Now, it's best that you have your pencil and paper ready for this.

I'm going to show you 10 spelling words on the screen now, but don't worry about rushing and writing them down.

We're going to go through each word individually in detail.

So, I'll start with the first one, consider.

And if at any point you need more time to write down this word, please pause the video, and then play again when you're ready.

Number one, consider.

Now, has this got a hard or a soft C? Let's search for that vowel.

There it is.

O.

That follows the C, must mean it's a.

hard C sound Fantastic.

To consider something is to think about it quite deeply, and take your time.

Let's move on to number two.

Decimal is a number that's smaller than 10.

You've probably seen this in your numeracy lessons quite a lot.

But where is the vowel in this word? There's one following the C, which means it's an I, a soft C sound.

It's important to think about the suffix in this word, which is the two letters at the very end, A L.

A L.

Now, to make sure I'll remember that it's spelled with an A, I actually say the word with a over pronounced A, like this, decimal.

That means I remember to spell it with an A.

Number three, cemetery.

Cemetery is another soft C sound, because it has an E vowel.

Cemetery also has an interesting suffix, E R Y.

And you can't hear the E very well.

So maybe you can come up with a way of remembering that there are one, two, three Es in this word.

Number four.

Category.

Category, you can probably tell me straight away has what sound? That's right.

A hard C sound, because of an A vowel.

A category is something that's part of a group, because of shared characteristics.

So you might say a category of films are comedy films, funny films. Number five.

This is a tricky one, receive.

I know many adults that find this word hard.

So actually its got its own little rhyme to help remember the vowel that follows the C.

It's a soft C sound, because of the E, but usually an I and E together means that an I comes before the E.

But the little rhyme goes, I before E except after C.

So remember, because there is a C in the word receive the E must come before the I.

Number six, cylinder.

Our 3D shape, with a soft C sound we talked about earlier.

Just remember that it's a Y not an I in this spelling.

Number seven, difficulty.

What is difficult about this word? In fact, it has two consonants next to each other.

That's two Fs together.

It's very easy to forget this.

So remember, the difficulty in spelling difficulty is remembering those two Fs and a hard C sound.

Number eight, century.

Century is a period of 100 years.

A very long time.

Now, what C sound is in century? That's right, it's a soft C sound.

Century has a suffix at the end too, U R Y.

You can hear it quite clearly, century.

Just remember to add it on the end of your word, and check it over once you've copied it.

Now, this word is a little bit tricky, circulate.

To circulate means to go round in a circle, very much like the magnifying glass we can see on our screen.

Now, we can see there's a soft C sound at the beginning, because of the I, but have you spotted there's actually another C in this word? Point at the other C in this word please now.

And tell me what C sound is this second C? That's right.

It's a hard C sound, because of the U.

So this word circulate has both a soft and a hard C sound.

Make sure you've copied that one down correctly before moving on.

Finally, number 10, accident.

This also has two Cs in it.

Now, what do you notice about the first C in pink here? You might have noticed that it is a hard C, although it's a bit confusing, because there's no vowel that follows this C.

That's okay.

In fact when there's two Cs together it's very often the first C makes a hard C sound.

So when you're spelling this word, remember it's two Cs together, and that the second is a soft C and the first a hard C.

I hope you haven't made an accident whilst you've been writing down these words.

Please double check them, and take the time to pause now.

Congratulations! You've finished your first spelling lesson of this unit.

You've investigated and generated rules for the letter C, and the two different sounds it makes within words.

You've also got your 10 spelling words, which I'd like you to go away and practise saying, and writing.

Next lesson we're going to be looking at different methods we can use to make sure we're remembering these rules, and different ways we can practise words so that those rules become embedded in our memory.