Are we deliberate enough about retrieval practice and its role in effective spelling instruction? Some thoughts and some simple tips that might just power up your spelling instruction!🧵

The first point echoes the sentiment of Tom Sherrington’s excellent blog post on encoding (teacherhead.com/2025/06/01/enc…). If initial spelling instruction consists of ‘look, cover, write, check’ followed by word searches and rainbow writing, encoding will be weak…

I’d love to hear from you (if anyone is still reading that is 😅). Do you have any retrieval routines that ensure previous content is revisited multiple times to ensure memories (orthographic representations) remain strong enough to survive the long haul!? RTs appreciated! 🫶

ICYMI Free phonics/spelling practice sheets and booklets covering consonant digraphs (ch, sh, th, ck, ng, qu...) and alternative vowel spellings for most sounds (/ay/, /ee/, /oe/, /er/, /oy/, /ow/, /oo/, /igh/, /or/, /air/ and /ar/).

Does anyone out there feel like they ARE actually very deliberate and systematic in the ways in which they revisit, rehearse or retrieve previously taught spelling material? I believe it's a big factor in why we get *some* children proficient with spelling instead of *most/all*!

Fresh FREE resources added to the folder! These focus on reinforcing some of the more complex consonant sound-spelling correspondences, encouraging children to hone in on positional orthographic tendencies (which spelling is more likely where). Samples of new content in thread👇

The Twitter algorithm is not being my friend with this so any retweets of the tweet below to help get the resources out to anyone who might find them useful would be great! These new sheets cover some common spelling mistakes - even amongst quite confident readers. 🔄🙏🙌