Year 2

By the time pupils enter Year 2 they will know most of the common grapheme – phoneme correspondences (GPCs). They should be able to read hundreds of words, doing this in three ways: reading the words automatically if they are very familiar; decoding them quickly and silently because their sounding and blending routine is now well established; decoding words aloud.

Spelling should be phonemically accurate, but still unconventional at times. Spelling may still be phonetically plausible. Pupils will have become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers.

Pupils will have completed their Jolly Phonics Synthetic Phonic programme. However, they will still continue to apply their phonic skills both within and outside of their daily Phonics lesson. The focus will now move towards learning different spelling patterns.

Reading

In Year 2 pupils will read longer and less familiar texts independently and with increasing fluency. The shift from learning to read to reading to learn takes place and children read for information and for pleasure. Pupils will be able to decode High Frequency words quickly and independently. Increasing the pace of reading is an important objective, so pupils will be encouraged to read aloud as well as silently. Pupils will understand what they read. They will learn a range of comprehension strategies and will be encouraged to reflect upon their own understanding and learning. They will be taught to go beyond literal interpretation and recall, to explore the greater complexities of texts through inference and deduction. Over time, pupils will develop self-regulated comprehension strategies: activating prior knowledge; clarifying meanings – with a focus on vocabulary work; generating questions, interrogating the text; constructing mental images during reading and summarising.

Spelling

Pupils will be taught past tense e.g. I looked, not continuous past tense, e.g. I was looking. For this to be done successfully it is important that children understand the term ‘tense’. Since many common verbs have irregular past tenses (e.g. go – went, come – came, say – said) it is often easier to teach the concept of past tense separately from the spelling of past tense forms.

Pupils will also continue to investigate and learn how to add suffixes. The progression is as follow: application of the -ed suffix for the past tense; rules for adding -ing, -ed, -er, -est, -ful, -ly and -y, plurals; teaching spelling long words by investigating how to add suffixes and prefixes changes words.

Spelling Strategies and Explanations

Syllables To learn my word I can listen to how many syllables there are so I can break it into smaller bits to remember (e.g. Sep-tem-ber, ba-by)

Base words To learn my word I can find its base word (e.g. Smiling – base smile +ing, e.g. women = wo + men)

Analogy To learn my word I can use words that I already know to help me (e.g. could: would, should)

Mnemonics To learn my word I can make up a sentence to help me remember it (e.g. could – O U Lucky Duck; people – people eat orange peel like elephants)

Application of spelling in writing In Year 2 pupils will be given the opportunity to apply their knowledge of spelling patterns in their writing. They will spell an ever-increasing number of words accurately and to check and correct their own work. This process is supported through: shared writing: the teacher demonstrates how to apply spelling strategies while writing and teaches proofreading skills; guided and independent writing: pupils apply what they have been taught. This is the opportunity to think about the whole writing process: composition as well as spelling, handwriting and punctuation;

Knowledge of the spelling system Pupils in Year 2 will acquire more word-specific knowledge. They will segment words into phonemes to spell them, but they also learn that good spelling involves not only doing this and representing all the phonemes plausibly but also, where necessary, choosing the right grapheme from several possibilities. In some cases, word-specific spellings (e.g. sea/see; goal/pole/bowl/soul; zoo/ clue/flew/you) simply have to be learned. It is important to devote time in this phase to learning common words with rare or irregular spellings (e.g. they, there, said) as the quantity pupils write increases and without correction they may practise incorrect spellings that are later difficult to put right.

Key Stage 2

Pupils entering Key Stage 2, who have not yet secured their phonic knowledge will have been identified via termly teacher assessment and small group intervention will be provided.