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When you hear ‘syllables’, do you think about how a word appears in a dictionary? Or split across the lines in a book? Or do you think of ‘6 types of syllables’? In That Reading Thing we usually go with the descriptive syllable method with a slight tweak in favour of suffixes … Read More

I was working with a severely dyslexic 27-year-old whose huge sight vocabulary put him beyond That Reading Thing lessons for reading but not for spelling. He struggled with the idea of words as collections of sounds because he had spent years developing his own strategies for reading and spelling – often applying … Read More

If you love etymonline.com for exploring the history of words, here’s another rich resource, a dictionary of British English spelling (one dialect only) arranged by phonemes with their corresponding graphemes (for spelling) and graphemes with their corresponding phonemes (for reading). It’s not a lightweight book and, like etymonline, contains more information than … Read More

This is going to be a short post but it’s accompanied by a four page pdf to get you started. It’s another chance to stress three important things about teaching spelling. 1. You can avoid potentially confusing rules if you have consistent spelling conversations about syllables sounds graphemes endings suffixes 2. Don’t … Read More

This is the second post looking at spelling lists generated by teachers.* This one, know as the ‘Dirty Thirty’ came from an academy chain which had noted these as the most frequently misspelt at GCSE and includes many words that come up in our spelling workshops. The first step to conquering these … Read More

This is a guest post by Georgina Mavor, an experienced literacy tutor who works with children, young people and adults who often come with significant barriers to learning, particularly dyslexia. When people ask if TRT and TST work for dyslexics, my answer is, ‘Yes but more slowly than for those without’. This … Read More

Whenever I get talking to a teacher about spelling, I offer them my brilliant idea that every school should, in the first couple of weeks of the first term, have a “-tion Day” when each first year student and teacher will adopt a useful word ending in -tion. By the end of … Read More

This post is based on a long twitter post @spelling_thing. If your child has a teacher who is sending home illogical or overwhelming spelling lists, please point them here. I’m happy to answer their questions and yours! ***************** A parent has asked me for some advice on what to do with a … Read More