Progression Document for Writing (Development Matters, Early Learning Goals, National Curriculum) Skills
Year R Spell words by identifying the sounds and then writing the sound with letter/s
Year 1 spell words containing each of the 40+ phonemes taught
Year 2 segment spoken words into phonemes and represent these by graphemes, spelling many correctly
spell common exception words Listen to and hear the sounds in CVC, CVCC and CCVC words. (LIT)
Phonic & Whole word spelling children should:
Recall &/identify the taught GPCs (the letters that represent the sounds including some digraphs) on a grapheme mat and use this when writing. (LIT)
spell the days of the week name the letters of the alphabet in order use letter names to distinguish between alternative spellings of the same sound
learn new ways of spelling phonemes for which 1 or more spellings are already known, and learn some words with each spelling, including a few common homophones distinguish between homophones and near-homophones learn to spell common exception words
Spell some taught common exception/ high frequency and familiar words. (LIT)
spell words with simple phoneme/grapheme correspondence accurately e.g. cat, dog, red make phonetically plausible attempts at writing longer words using dominant phonemes and common grapheme representations
door, floor, poor, because, find, kind, mind, behind, child, children*, wild, climb, most, only, both, old, cold, gold, hold, told, every, everybody, even, great, break, steak, pretty, beautiful, after, fast, last, past, father, class, grass, pass, plant, path, bath, hour, move, prove, improve, sure, sugar, eye, could, should, would, who, whole, any, many, clothes, busy, people, water, again, half, money, Mr, Mrs, parents, Christmas
Year 3 spell further homophones (brake/break, grate/great, eight/ ate, weight/wait, son/sun/ heel/heal/he’ll, plain/ plane, groan/grown and rain/rein/reign) spell words that are often misspelt (Appendix 1) actual (ly) address, answer, appear, build, busy, calendar, century, circle, consider, continue, describe, different, difficult, early, earth, eight, eighth, extreme, favourite, February, forward(s), group, heart, height, history, imagine, island, length, material, minute, naughty, often, opposite, perhaps, popular, possible, promise, purpose, quarter, question, recent, remember, sentence, separate, surprise, thought, through, woman, women
Year 4 spell further homophones (peace/piece, main/ mane, fair/fare scene/seen, mail/male, bawl/ball) spell words that are often misspelt (Appendix 1) accident(ally), arrive, bicycle, breath(e), caught, centre, century, certain, decide, disappear, enough, exercise, experiment, extreme, experience, famous, fruit, grammar, guard, guide, heard, important, increase, interest, knowledge, library, learn, medicine, mention, natural, naughty, occasion(ally), often, opposite, ordinary, particular, peculiar, position, possess(ion), possible, pressure, probably, regular, reign, remember, special, straight, strange, strength, suppose, therefore, thought, through, weight.
learn to spell common exception words the, a, do, to, today, of, said, says, are, were, was, is, his, has, I, you, your, they, be, he, me, she, we, no, go, so, by, my, here, there, where, love, come, some, one, once, ask, friend, school, put, push, pull, full, house, our
Other word building spelling children should:
Other word building spelling-use the spelling rule for adding –s or –es as the plural marker for nouns and the third person singular marker for verbs
learning the possessive apostrophe (singular)
use the prefix un–
add suffixes to spell longer words, including –ment, –ness, –ful, –less, –ly
use –ing, –ed, –er and –est where no change is needed in the spelling of root words apply simple spelling rules and guidance from Appendix 1
Transcription children should:
Handwriting children should:
Develop their fine motor skills so that they can use a range of tools competently, safely and confidently (PD) Develop the foundations of a handwriting style which is fast, accurate and efficient (PD)
learn to spell more words with contracted forms
use –le ending as the most common spelling for this sound at the end of words
use further prefixes (dis-,mis-, re-, sub-, tele-, super- and auto-) revise year 2 suffixes and understand how to add them place the possessive apostrophe accurately in words with regular plurals use the first 2 or 3 letters of a word to check its spelling in a dictionary
spell some words with ‘silent’ letters (for example, knight, psalm, solemn) continue to distinguish between homophones and other words which are often confused (isle/aisle, aloud/allowed, affect/ effect, herd/heard, past/passed, led/lead,steel/steal, alter/altar,cereal/ serial, father/farther, guessed/guest, morning/mourning, who’s/whose) use knowledge of morphology and etymology in spelling and understand that the spelling of some words needs to be learnt specifically, as listed in Appendix 1 accompany, achieve, aggressive, ancient, appreciate, attached, available, average, bargain, communicate, community, competition, correspond, criticise, definite, develop, disastrous, dictionary, equipment, especially, excellent, familiar, forty, frequently, government, harass, identity, individual, language, lightning, marvellous, muscle, neighbour, occur, opportunity, parliament, persuade, prejudice, profession, programme, queue, recognise, recommend, relevant, rhyme, rhythm, restaurant, sacrifice, shoulder, signature, sincerely, soldier, stomach, suggest, symbol, system, temperature, thorough, twelfth, variety, vegetable, yacht.
Year 6 continue to distinguish between homophones and other words which are often confused (ce/se, draught/draft, dissent/descent, precede/proceed, wary/weary) use knowledge of morphology and etymology in spelling and understand that the spelling of some words needs to be learnt specifically, as listed in Appendix 1 according, amateur, apparent, attached, awkward, bruise, category, cemetery, committee, conscience, conscious, controversy, convenience , curiosity, desperate, determined, embarrass, environment, exaggerate, existence, explanation, foreign, guarantee, harass, immediate(ly), interfere, interrupt, leisure, mischievous, necessary, nuisance, occupy, opportunity ,parliament, persuade, physical, privilege, profession, programme, pronunciation, secretary.
use further prefixes (in-, il-, im-, ir-, anti- and inter-) and suffixes (-ous, -cian, -sion, -tion and ssion) and understand how to add them
use further prefixes (co-,re-) and suffixes (-ible, -able) and understand the guidance for adding them
use further prefixes (bi, aqua, trans, pro, extra, circum, aero) and suffixes (-fer) and understand the guidance for adding them
place the possessive apostrophe accurately in words with regular plurals and in words with irregular plurals
use dictionaries to check the spelling and meaning of words
use dictionaries to check the spelling and meaning of words
use the first 3 or 4 letters of a word to check spelling, meaning or both of these in a dictionary
use the first 3 or 4 letters of a word to check spelling, meaning or both of these in a dictionary
use the first 2 or 3 letters of a word to check its spelling in a dictionary
apply spelling rules and guidelines from Appendix 1
Year 5
write from memory simple sentences dictated by the teacher that include words using the GPCs and common exception words taught so far
write from memory simple sentences dictated by the teacher that include words using the GPCs, common exception words and punctuation taught so far.
write from memory simple sentences, dictated by the teacher, that include words and punctuation taught so far.
write from memory simple sentences, dictated by the teacher, that include words and punctuation taught so far.
write from memory simple sentences, dictated by the teacher, that include words and punctuation taught so far.
write from memory simple sentences, dictated by the teacher, that include words and punctuation taught so far.
sit correctly at a table, holding a pencil comfortably and correctly
form lower-case letters of the correct size relative to one another form lower-case letters in the correct direction, starting and finishing in the right place
use the diagonal and horizontal strokes that are needed to join letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left unjoined
choose which shape of a letter to use when given choices and deciding whether or not to join specific letters
begin to form lower-case letters in the correct direction, starting and finishing in the right place
use the diagonal and horizontal strokes that are needed to join letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left unjoined
choose which shape of a letter to use when given choices and deciding whether or not to join specific letters
increase the legibility, consistency and quality of their handwriting
increase the legibility, consistency and quality of their handwriting
form capital letters
choose the writing implement that is best suited for a task
choose the writing implement that is best suited for a task