An Explanation on the Year 2 Transition from Phonics to Spelling

The transition from phonics to spelling in Year 2 is a significant step in a child's literacy journey. At this stage, children have developed a foundational understanding of phonics, enabling them to decode words and read with confidence. As they progress, the focus shifts towards spelling, where phonics knowledge is applied to write words correctly.

This change is vital as it introduces pupils to spelling patterns, prefixes, and suffixes, enhancing their vocabulary and writing skills. By mastering spelling, children become more proficient in their reading, as they better understand word formation and can tackle unfamiliar terms.

Ultimately, effective spelling not only aids in written expression but also supports reading comprehension, setting the groundwork for continued academic success. This transition is crucial for fostering a lifelong love of reading and writing.

Above is our Year 2 Phonics Sound Mat and Tricky word list. This is a resource we use in class to help support the continue use of phonics in spelling. Page one is a dual-coded visual aid with pictures linked to the phonemes and graphemes to help support acquisition of the correct sound. Page two is the phoneme sound with the associated grapheme families. The last page are tricky words that cannot be sounded out by using phonics therefore need to be learned by sight. Please find a downloadable resource below.

Home Spelling Strategies:

With the transition to spellings and weekly spelling home work, please find some useful strategies that can be used at home to support your child's home learning.

Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check

This is probably the most common strategy used to learn spellings.
Look: first look at the whole word carefully and if there is one part of the word that is difficult, look at that part in more detail.
Say: say the word as you look at it, using different ways of pronouncing it if that will make it more memorable.
Cover: cover the word.
Write: write the word from memory, saying the word as you do so.
Check: Have you got it right? If yes, try writing it again and again! If not, start again – look, say, cover, write, check.

Segmentation strategy

The splitting of a word into its constituent phonemes in the correct order to support spelling.

Drawing around the word to show the shape

Draw around the words making a clear distinction in size where there are ascenders and descenders. Look carefully at the shape of the word and the letters in each box. Now try to write the word making sure that you get the same shape.

Drawing an image around the word

This strategy is all about making the word memorable. It links to the meaning of the word to try and make the spelling noticeable.

Words without the vowels or an missing key phoneme

This strategy is useful when the vowel or phoneme choice is difficult or there are multiple graphemes for the word. Write the words without the vowels and your child will have to choose the correct grapheme to put in its place, For example

                team - t       m

                cake - c   k   

Pyramid Words

This method of learning words forces you to think of each letter separately. You can then reverse the process to make a diamond.

Other Strategies

• Rainbow writing. Using coloured pencils in different ways can help to make parts of words memorable. You could highlight the tricky parts of the word or write the tricky part in a different colour. You could also write each letter in a different colour, or write the word in red, then overlay in orange, yellow and so on.
• Making up memorable ‘silly sentences’ containing the word
• Saying the word in a funny way – for example, pronouncing the ‘silent’ letters in a word
• Clapping and counting to identify the syllables in a word.