Teaching spelling generalisations: Eat bread slide outlines

1. Teaching spelling generalisations: ‘Eat bread’ – multiple sounds of ea

Extract from a Literacy Hub professional learning webinar.

2. Literacy Hub phonics progression

[Image: Screenshot of Phase 13 of the Literacy Hub phonics progression: Phonic knowledge and word recognition level 5/6. The table shows four columns within the phase. The first column is labelled Letter–sound correspondences and the four rows beneath the heading show ea* (which is circled); ew*, ue, oo*. The asterisk denotes the letter combination makes more than one sound. The second column is labelled Letter-sound skills, and the text reads: Introduce homophones, for example, meat and meet, blue and blew. Phase 13 example words: speak, steam, head, threw, glue, tooth, boost, chook, good. The third column is labelled Morphology, and the text within this column reads: Suffix -ed/-ing added to silent e. The fourth column is labelled Irregular words, and the words listed are: work, word, any, many.]

3. Eat bread

[Image: Whiteboard example for exploring Eat bread rule, showing heading and blank lines to add ea digraph words for reading and writing. Words added include ‘heat’, ‘thread’, ‘treat’, ‘team’, ‘leaf’, ‘sweat’.]

4. Eat bread

[Image: Again, whiteboard example for exploring Eat bread rule, showing heading and blank lines to add ea digraph words for reading and writing, but different words explored. Words added include ‘beat’, ‘peas’, ‘read’, ‘cheap’, ‘head’, ‘beach’.]

5. Other spelling patterns that can be taught in the same way

  • Food is good – oo (Phase 13)
  • Her bird is hurt – er/ir/ur (Phase 15)
  • Pie piece – ie (Phase 18)
  • Grey monkey – ey (Phase 18)
  • Hear the early bear – ear (Phase 21)

6. Long vowel chart

[Image: Long vowel chart table shows five rows, one for each of the five vowels, and four columns showing long vowel sounds for each vowel. ‘A’ row shows split digraph a-e, ai and ay. ‘E’ row shows split digraph e-e, ee, ea, y. ‘I’ row shows split digraph i-e, igh, y. ‘O’ row shows split digraph o-e, oa, ow. ‘U’ row shows split digraph u-e, ew, ue. Presenter demonstrates how students can use a wall chart like this to deduce spellings of given words knowing rules and sounding out.]