The Sounds in Spelling

This year our class is using the Sound Waves program for Spelling. This program allows us to learn and recognise the different sounds that letters make when reading out words. Last term, we began by discussing what phoneme’s and grapheme’s are.

Phoneme

 the smallest unit of sound in a word. When we say or hear the sound it is a phoneme.

 

Grapheme

the letter or letter combination used to represent a phoneme in written form. When we write the sound it is called a grapheme.

None of us knew what these two words meant which was great because by learning about these words our brain grew with new knowledge that we can now use when trying to spell difficult words!

We each have a chart with all the consonant and vowel sounds. Each phoneme is represented by a ‘sound box’. The sound for the sound box is worked out by saying the icon name, then saying the sound represented by the first letter(s) in the box when we say the word. We also discovered that some graphemes have more than 1 sound. For example  the grapheme ‘er’ in the word ladder is not the same sound as in the word her.

After discussing the different graphemes we practiced the sounds by playing many different games.

Each week we focus on a new sound using list words that all have the same phoneme. By learning the different sounds correctly this will help us spell more challenging words and to sound out words when reading.

Can you choose 3 words and write them down. Then count how many sounds are in each word. Record your answers in your comment.

Why do you think its important to know what sound graphemes make?

What do you enjoy the most or find challenging when doing your spelling contract?

17 thoughts on “The Sounds in Spelling

    1. Dear Jonathan,
      Thanks for your reply. I hope Year 5 is going well for you this year. Feel free to continue to comment on our blog.
      Mrs Baldwin

  1. Dear Mrs. Baldwin,
    1. My three words are blob, amazing and reply
    Reply – 4
    Blob -4
    Amazing -5

    2. I think we are learning the sounds of letters because it is important to know all your sounds especially because it’ll be easier to spell words. In sophisticated the ‘ o ’ makes a
    ‘ u ’ sound or the ‘ ph ’ makes a ‘ f ’ sound now do you think you would know that if you didn’t learn your sounds? I think thats a no.

    3. The most fun and challenging part of spelling for me is probably alphabetical order a-z and z-a also my challenge on the contract is another one thats fun and challenging.
    From Anastasia

  2. Dear Mrs Baldwin
    Green – 4
    Games -4
    Grown – 4
    It is important to know the sounds because if you did not now a word you need to be able to sound it out but if you don’t no sounds then you will not be able to sound it out.
    The most callenging part of spelling is the challange at the bottom of the contract because you relly have to read cearfuly and then have finger out what you have to do.
    From Maia

  3. Dear mrs Baldwin
    Girl-3 mummy-4 where-3
    The most challenging thing in spelling is getting it all done by Friday. I think knowing graphemes is good because when you get older you will know more than all the other kids. It will help you spell by knowing how to sound it out from Chloe 😀

  4. Dear mrs Baldwin ,

    Difficult – 8
    Draw – 3
    Games – 4

    It is important to know the sounds because then you know the sound and the letter then you know how to spell.

    The part that i enjoy the most in spelling is dictionary meanings because you have to write down the page number and the meanings and the word .

    From Luca b 👌👌

  5. Dear Mrs Baldwin
    1.
    Again 4
    Draw 3
    Great 4

    2. It is important to know the sounds because you can spell out words easier and you can write difficult words.

    3. The most challenging part of spelling is spelling is challenging because there is some difficult words.
    From Rhys

  6. Dear mrs Baldwin
    Sheep 4
    Cow 1
    Donkey 3
    It is in portant to know the sounds because it helps you when you don’t know how to spell that word and you can go use the sound
    The most challenging part of spelling is when you have to figure out the sound
    FROM KOBE

  7. Dear Mrs Baldwin,
    Grow 3
    Ugly 4
    Guide 3
    It’s important to know the sounds because then it will be easier to spell words out because sounds make up the word, you also need them because they make more sounds.
    The most challenging thing in spelling is the challenge because it has lot’s of different parts which are quiet different to each other.
    From Scarlett 😀

  8. Dear mrs Baldwin
    Bird 3
    Need3
    Fishing 5

    It is important to know the sounds because it might help you spell words because you can brake the words into sounds then you now how to spell the letters

    The most challenging part of spelling is the sentences because I want them to be interesting and get every thing Wright

    From Sophie

  9. Dear Mrs Baldwin,
    The words I choose are
    Wriggle – wr i gg le = 4
    Together – t o g e th er = 6
    Octagon – o c t a g o n = 7

    I think it’s important to know the sounds because it is easier to learn the words. And when you get stuck on a word you can sound it out so you will know the letter in the word.

    The most challenging part in spelling is the sentences because I don’t really spell the words correctly or sometimes it doesn’t make sense.

    Sincerely Agok .

  10. Dear Mrs Baldwin

    The words I choose:
    wriggle =wr i gg le – 4
    Together = t o g e th er- 6
    Octagon = o c t a g o n – 7

    I think it’s important to know the sounds because it’s easier to learn words. And if you get stuck on a word you can sound it out because you know the letters.

    The most challenging part of spelling is spelling sentences because you have to have a spelling word and a conjunction.

    From Julia🐾

  11. Dear mis Baldwin
    1.sport has 4 graphemes
    beginning has 8 graphemes
    hexagon has 7 graphemes.
    2. It is important to know the sounds because if you don’t know graphemes because you want know how to spell the word you want to right because you need to know graphemes to spell letters to make one sound.
    3. The sheets because of the challenges that we do because sometimes they are hard and outher times it is easy which makes it really fun from Matthew.

  12. Dear Mrs Baldwin
    Fish-4
    Soccer-4
    Football-6

    I think it helps me to write the sounds in the word.I find it challenging to do my sentences because I cannot think of a sentence to write.

  13. Dear mrs Baldwin

    Difficult-8
    Cool-3
    Cast-4

    Why do think it’s important to know what sound graphemes make?

    It’s important because you know letters and the sounds of graphemes and it helps me spell because the sounds. For example- s p e ll I ng is spelling- it helps you with putting letters together

    What do you enjoy the most or find challenging when doing your spelling contract?

    I enjoy mostly about my contract is unjumbling letters and figuring out puzzles

    From Ned

  14. Dear mrs baldwin
    Begin 5
    Great 4
    Again 4
    It’s important to know the sounds because it helps you learn different sounds that you know but in a different ways for example f ff ph there the same sound but spelt diffrently and if you now the sound you know the letters then you know how to spell.
    I find the most challenging part of my contract sheets the challeng and the the counting the sounds at the edge of the conract sheet because it gets confusing because there are some words that have a sound but you don’t know so the sounds help me from the back of spelling book. From filipa

  15. Dear mrs Baldwin

    1. Soccer-4
    Scooter-5
    Hockey-4
    1. It is important to know the sound because it helps you with your graphemes. It helps us to learn how to prontshen to learn the world.

    2. The most challenging part of spelling. It is spelling test because we do it every Friday

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