Spelling Activities for Australian Primary Schools

Why Spelling Still Matters

Spelling instruction in Australian primary schools has changed dramatically in the past decade. The old routine — hand out a list on Monday, practise through the week, test on Friday, repeat — has been replaced by a growing understanding that effective spelling is built on knowledge, not memorisation.

The shift toward evidence-based literacy instruction, driven by the science of reading, has reshaped how we think about spelling. We now know that spelling is not a separate skill bolted onto reading — it is the reverse process. Reading is decoding (turning letters into sounds); spelling is encoding (turning sounds into letters). When students understand how English works at the level of sounds, letter patterns, and meaningful word parts, they become better spellers and better readers.

The Australian Curriculum v9 reflects this shift. Spelling sits within the Literacy strand under "Phonic and word knowledge" (Foundation–Year 2), with spelling-specific content descriptors continuing across the Literacy and Language strands in the upper years. Across all year levels, the emphasis is on understanding the system of English spelling — its phonology, orthography, and morphology — rather than rote learning of word lists.

This page brings together evidence-based approaches, practical classroom activities, and teacher-created resources to help you teach spelling effectively from Foundation to Year 6.

Effective spelling instruction draws on multiple knowledge sources. The best programs don't rely on any single strategy — they teach students to use phonology, orthography, morphology, and etymology together. Here are the key approaches supported by research.

Phonics-Based Spelling (Sound-to-Letter Mapping)

Phonics-based spelling — sometimes called encoding — teaches students to map the sounds they hear in words to the letters and letter patterns that represent them. This is the foundation of spelling instruction from Foundation through Year 2.

Students learn that the sound /sh/ can be spelled sh (ship), ti (nation), ci (special), or si (mansion). They learn that the long /ae/ sound can be represented by a-e (cake), ai (rain), ay (play), or eigh (eight). Rather than memorising each word individually, students learn the patterns and apply them to new words.

This approach works because English spelling is far more predictable than most people think. Research shows that roughly 84% of English words can be spelled correctly using sound-to-letter correspondences and common spelling rules.

Morphology (Prefixes, Suffixes, and Root Words)

Morphology — the study of meaningful word parts — is one of the most powerful tools for spelling, particularly from Year 3 onwards. When students understand that unhappiness is built from three meaningful parts (un + happy + ness), they can spell it accurately and understand its meaning.

Key morphological concepts for primary spelling include:

• Prefixes: un-, re-, dis-, mis-, pre-, over-, under-
• Suffixes: -ing, -ed, -er, -est, -ly, -ful, -less, -ment, -ness, -tion
• Base words and root words: the core meaning unit that prefixes and suffixes attach to
• Spelling rules for adding suffixes: doubling (run → running), dropping silent e (make → making), changing y to i (happy → happiness)

Teaching morphology improves spelling accuracy, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension simultaneously. It is especially effective for students in Years 3–6 who have moved beyond basic phonics.

Orthographic Mapping

Orthographic mapping is the mental process by which words become stored permanently in long-term memory so they can be read and spelled automatically. It's what happens when a student moves from slowly sounding out a word to recognising and spelling it instantly.

For orthographic mapping to work, students need:

1. Phonemic awareness: the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in words
2. Letter-sound knowledge: understanding which letters represent which sounds
3. Repeated successful encounters: reading and spelling the word correctly multiple times in context

This is why rote memorisation of word lists without understanding is less effective — students may pass the Friday test but forget the words by Monday. Orthographic mapping, by contrast, creates durable, automatic word knowledge.

Etymology (Word Origins)

Etymology — where words come from — helps explain spelling patterns that seem irregular. Many "tricky" spellings make sense when you know the word's history:

• Words with ph for /f/ (phone, photo, graph) come from Greek
• Words with silent k before n (know, knee, knight) come from Old English, where the k was once pronounced
• Words ending in -tion and -sion often came through French from Latin

Etymology is most useful in Years 5–6 and beyond, but even younger students enjoy learning why words are spelled the way they are. It builds curiosity about language and makes "weird" spellings logical.

The Australian Curriculum v9 for English addresses spelling primarily through the Literacy strand, under "Phonic and word knowledge" in the early years and through spelling-specific content descriptors in later years. Here is what students are expected to learn at each level.

Foundation

Students learn to recognise and write all upper- and lower-case letters of the alphabet. They begin to understand that letters represent sounds and use this knowledge to write familiar words such as their name and simple CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. Spelling at this stage is closely tied to phonics — students write words by segmenting them into sounds and representing each sound with a letter.

Key focus: Letter formation, letter-sound correspondences, segmenting spoken words into sounds, writing CVC words.

Year 1

Students spell words with common letter patterns including consonant digraphs (sh, ch, th), consonant blends (bl, st, tr), and short and long vowel patterns. They learn common spelling rules such as adding -s and -ing to base words. Students are expected to use their phonics knowledge to attempt unknown words — "have-a-go" spelling — and to check their attempts using word walls and other references.

Key focus: Consonant digraphs and blends, short and long vowel spellings, common suffixes (-s, -ing, -ed), high-frequency word spelling.

Year 2

Students consolidate their knowledge of vowel digraphs and learn to spell words with more complex letter patterns including r-controlled vowels, vowel teams, and less common digraphs. They begin learning about syllable types and use syllabification to spell longer words. Morphological awareness begins to develop as students learn about common prefixes and suffixes.

Key focus: Complex vowel patterns, r-controlled vowels, syllabification, introduction to prefixes and suffixes, proofreading.

Year 3

Students learn more sophisticated spelling patterns and begin to use morphological knowledge explicitly. They spell words with common prefixes (un-, re-, dis-) and suffixes (-ly, -ful, -less, -ment) and learn the spelling rules that apply when adding them. Homophones (their/there/they're, to/too/two) are a key focus.

Key focus: Prefixes and suffixes, spelling rules for adding suffixes, homophones, apostrophes for contractions and possession.

Year 4

Students extend their morphological knowledge to include more complex prefixes and suffixes and learn about how base words change when suffixes are added (e.g., doubling consonants, dropping silent e, changing y to i). They begin to understand that words with related meanings often share spelling patterns (sign → signal, muscle → muscular).

Key focus: Complex suffix rules, word families and etymology, multisyllabic words, subject-specific vocabulary.

Year 5

Students develop understanding of Greek and Latin roots and how they influence spelling patterns in English. They learn to use etymological knowledge to spell unfamiliar words and understand the connections between word meaning and spelling. Students are expected to apply a range of strategies including phonological, visual, morphemic, and etymological knowledge.

Key focus: Greek and Latin roots, etymology, complex morphology, independent proofreading and editing.

Year 6

Students consolidate and extend their spelling knowledge across all domains — phonological, orthographic, morphological, and etymological. They are expected to spell most words accurately and independently, using a range of strategies and resources to check uncertain spellings. The focus shifts to precision, self-editing, and applying spelling knowledge in extended writing across all subject areas.

Key focus: Independent spelling accuracy, self-correction strategies, technical and subject-specific vocabulary, spelling in extended writing.

The following activities are supported by evidence and can be adapted across year levels. They move beyond rote memorisation to build genuine understanding of how English spelling works.

1. Word Sorts

Word sorts are one of the most effective activities for developing spelling pattern awareness. Students sort words into categories based on a shared spelling feature — for example, sorting words with the long /ae/ sound by their spelling pattern (a-e, ai, ay). Word sorts can be:

• Closed sorts: Teacher provides the categories (e.g., "Sort these words into ai words and ay words")
• Open sorts: Students determine their own categories based on patterns they notice
• Speed sorts: Students sort against the clock to build automaticity
• Blind sorts: One student reads a word aloud, another sorts it without seeing the spelling

2. Spelling Investigations

Give students a set of words and ask them to investigate a pattern or rule. For example: "Here are 20 words that end in -tion and 10 that end in -sion. Can you figure out when we use each one?" This inquiry-based approach builds deeper understanding than simply being told the rule.

3. Word Building with Morphemes

Give students a base word and a set of prefixes and suffixes. Challenge them to build as many real words as possible. For example, starting with play: play, plays, played, playing, player, replay, replayed, replaying, playful, playfully. This activity reinforces morphological knowledge and suffix spelling rules simultaneously.

4. Dictation

Dictation — where the teacher reads sentences aloud and students write them — is a powerful spelling activity because it requires students to apply their knowledge in the context of real writing. Start with sentences containing words that follow recently taught patterns, then gradually increase complexity.

5. Look, Say, Name, Cover, Write, Check

This is the evidence-based update to the traditional "look, cover, write, check" method. The critical addition is Name — students say the letter names as they study the word, which activates orthographic mapping. The sequence is:

1. Look at the word carefully
2. Say the word aloud
3. Name each letter in the word
4. Cover the word
5. Write the word from memory
6. Check against the original — if incorrect, identify specifically which part was wrong and repeat

6. Word Walls

Word walls are classroom displays of words organised by spelling pattern, word family, or topic. Unlike static alphabet displays, effective word walls are interactive and evolving:

• Add new words as they are taught
• Organise by pattern (all -ight words together) rather than just alphabetically
• Refer to the wall actively during writing time — "That word is on our word wall"
• Have students contribute words they encounter in their reading

7. Spelling Journals

Students maintain a personal spelling journal where they record:

• New words they want to learn
• Words they've misspelled in their writing
• Spelling patterns and rules they've learned
• Their own "have-a-go" attempts before checking the correct spelling

Spelling journals give students ownership over their learning and create a personalised reference tool they can use during writing.

8. Rainbow Writing

Students write their spelling words using a different colour for each phoneme or morpheme. For example, writing unhappiness with un in blue, happy in green, and ness in red. This reinforces the word's structure and helps students see the meaningful parts within words.

9. Word Ladders

Start with one word and change one sound or letter at a time to create a new word: cat → hat → hot → hop → hope → home. Word ladders develop phonemic awareness, reinforce letter-sound relationships, and can be differentiated easily by adjusting the complexity of the words used.

10. Spelling Games and Partner Activities

Peer practice is powerful for spelling. Simple partner activities include:

• Spelling snap: Match words with the same spelling pattern
• Word detective: One student gives clues about a word's structure, the other guesses and spells it
• Spelling tic-tac-toe: Students must spell a word correctly to claim a square
• Pattern hunt: Partners race to find words in a text that match a given spelling pattern

These activities build engagement and provide the repeated practice that supports orthographic mapping — without the tedium of copying words ten times each.