Skill Areas

Students are assessed at spelling words in different contexts including:

• Dictation
• Proofreading
• Applying rules and conventions.

Content

The words assessed range from frequently-used/ common words with simple spelling patterns to less frequently-used/less common and technical words with difficult or unusual spelling patterns.

These words can be organised under four types of spelling knowledge:

• Visual: using memory of the visual features of a word
• Phonological: using sound-letter relationships
• Morphological: using parts of words to build word families
• Etymological: using word origins and derivations.