Writing Targets:

To Develop Spelling - Term 1

Reception / Be able to orally blend and segment CVC words, e.g. hop, leg, rich.
(See Letters and Sounds Phase 2) / Must: I can give the sound when shown any Phase Two letter s,a,t,p,I,n.
Should: I can orally blend and segment words like cat with three phonemes
Could: I can read and spell VC words such as if, am, on, up.
Y1 / Spell words with four phonemes, e.g. jump and with adjacent consonants, e.g. drift. (See Letters and Sounds Phase 4) / Must: I can blend and read words with adjacent consonants at the beginning of the word.
Should: I can segment and spell words with adjacent consonants at the beginning of the word.
Could: I can blend and segment single syllable words with adjacent consonants at the beginning or at the end of the word
Y2 / Spell words ending in s(plural),ing(presenttense) and ed(past tense). / Must: I can add an s to a word show that it is a plural, wave – waves.
Should: I can addingto verbs, e.g. splash – splashing.
Could: I can add ed to a verb to show that it is the past tense.
Y3 / Spell regular verb endings and irregular tense changes, e.g. carry – carries – carried, go - went. / Must: I can spell verbs with regular endings e.g. play – plays – played - playing.
Should: I can spell verbs with regular endings where there is a change of spelling before the suffix is added e.g.carry – carries - carried.
Could: I can spell verbs with irregular tense changes, e.g. go – went, do – does - did
Y4 / Distinguish between spellings and meanings of homophones, e.g. to/two/too. / Must: I can explain what a homophone is.
Should: I can spell some simple homophones, e.g. to/two/too.
Could: I can spell tricky homophones, e.g. they’re/their/there.
Y5 / Understand the meanings of, and spell words withcommon letter strings and different pronunciations e.g –ough: tough, plough, through / Must: I can spell and pronounce words with the letter stringsooe.g. good, book, mood andeare.g. pear, bear, dear, year
Should: I can spell and pronounce words with the letter stringsie e.g.lie, tried, field, thiefand ight e.g.right, night, weight, eight
Could: I can spell and pronounce words with the letter strings –ough e.g. bough, cough, though and –our e.g colour, your, flour
Y6 / To be able to spell and use correctly a variety of connectives e.g. notwithstanding, alternatively, although / Must: I can spell anduse correctly a variety of simple connectives e.g. later, before, because, although, until
Should: I can spell and use correctly a variety of compound word connectives, e.g. furthermore, henceforward, anyhow, meanwhile
Could: I can spell anduse correctly a variety of phrase connectives e.g. in the beginning, in addition to, for example, in other words.
Setting Targets /
  • Set mini-targets. Present expectations for independent spelling in terms of simple targets that will apply to all the writing the children do. These targets would generally be differentiated for groups, but it may be appropriate to tailor a target to include specific problem words for an individual.
  • Children should have no more than five target words at a time and these should be reviewed regularly, when children can look for evidence of correct spelling in their independent writing and remove the word from their target list once it has been spelt correctly five times in a row. The teacher can write the child’s spelling target into the log so that the child can refer to it regularly.