Letters and Sounds 1

Letters and Sounds: Phase Six
Independent work
1. Provide more word cards for the children to sort, working in pairs or groups of three.
2. The children use the same categories as before and take it in turns to place a
word in one of the columns. The other group members must agree.
3. Words that they cannot place can go into a ‘problem’ pile.
4. The group compose a label for each column that explains what the words have in
common.
Plenary
1. Look back at the rules that were suggested earlier and ask the children whether
they were able to apply them when they sorted their own words.
2. Look at the ‘problem’ words and help the children to categorise them. Talk about
exceptions to the general rules and ways to remember these spellings.
Add race
Purpose
■ To practise adding -ing
Use this activity to revisit the rules for: adding -ing, adding -ed, adding -s and
adding suffixes -er, -est, -ful, -ly and -y. (see pages 189–190)
(The activity is described as if the focus were adding -ing. Modify appropriately for
-ed, -er, -est, -y, -s.)
Prerequisite
■ The children must have investigated and learned the appropriate spelling rules and be
able to distinguish long and short vowel phonemes (e.g. /a/ and /ai/, /o/ and /oa/).
Resources
For whole-class work
■ 18 cards: three sets of six cards – each set gives six verbs that fit one of the
three rules of what we have to do to the verb when adding -ing: 1. Nothing,
2. Double the final consonant, 3. Drop the e (see ‘Practice examples’ on page 191)
For independent work
■ Set of verb cards, three for each rule as described above
■ Large sheet of paper with the three columns labelled as above, one per pair or
group of three
■ Whiteboards and pens, one per child
Letters and Sounds: Principles and Practice of High Quality Phonics
Primary National Strategy
00281-2007BKT-EN
© Crown copyright 2007