As part of the new whole school spelling programme, 1-2 students are given a weekly list of words and short passage with the same spelling focus. We are sending the passage home, to practise reading and writing - to build familiarity and confidence when reading and using the passage at school. There is a new spelling rule each week.

In class students write the list daily, separating each word into its separate phonemes. (A 'phoneme' is the smallest unit of spoken language - e.g. 'm' and 'o' and 'th'. Together these three phonemes make up the word 'moth'.) Also, each day they do a different activity to support their spelling focus:

• Mon: draw something from the list,
• Tues: 'rainbow write' the whole list,
• Wed: write a sentence using some of the words, and
• Thurs: word hunt - find words with the weekly spelling rule in a story book.

We may also use the passage for reading, copying and dictation and/or we may play games and read books with our weekly spelling focus.

Here are some photos showing 1-2 carrying out some of these activities.