Spelling (orthography)

Question 1

Stages of orthography

Answer 1

1) Pre-phonemic: Imitate writing - mainly scribbling and pretend writing, some letter shapes
2) Semi-phonetic: link letters, shapes and sounds to write words
3) Phonetic: Understanding all phonemes can be represented by graphemes - words become more complete
3) Transitional: Combine phonic knowledge with visual memory, aware of letter patterns and combinations of letters, understands the magic ‘e’
4) Conventional: spell most correctly

Question 2

Spelling challenges

Answer 2

• 44 phonic symbolised by only 26 graphemes
• Magic e lengthens the preceding short vowel of often diphthongises it e.g. rid->ride
• Homophones: words that sound the same but are not spelt the same
  Inflections: affect phonology of a word e.g. changing /s/ to /z/ through inflections i.e. houses pronounced like housiz

Question 3

Diphthongisation

Answer 3

Where a single vowel sound (monophthong) shift is a 2-vowel vocalisation (diphthong)
e.g. long monophthong: book
short monophthong: hot

Question 4

Spelling errors

Answer 4

Insertion: adding extra letters
Omission: leaving out letters
Substitution: substituting one letter for another
Transposition: reversing order of letters e.g. becuase
Phonetic spelling: using sound awareness to guess spellings (sounding out)
Over-generalisation of spelling rules: applying rule where its not appropriate
Under-generalisation: only applying a spelling rule to one situation
Salient (key) sounds: writing only the key/main sounds

Question 5

Punctuation marks

Answer 5

Express different tones in sentences and can change structure and meaning of what you’re trying to say
- it marks boundaries between units of language: word phrases, clauses, sentences and paragraphs
- makes meanings clearer

Question 6

Functions of punctuation

Answer 6

Phonetic: easier to read aloud by signalling pauses and intonation effects
Semantic: systematic aid

Question 7

Analysing texts for punctuation

Answer 7

Spaces between words
Full stops
Capital letters
Question marks
Apostrophes (for possession and contraction/elision)
Ellipsis (…)
Commas to demarcate complex sentences/lists
Optional punctuation for effect e.g. exclamation marks
Awareness of punctuation as a stylistic choice (not simply as demarcation o sentences)