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Spectacular SPaG is an exciting pick up and go SPaG scheme, using small steps, designed to save you time whilst making SPaG engaging and active.
There are 9 lessons in the Autumn block of work, each of which focuses on a small step taken from the DfE’s English Appendix 2: Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation from the national curriculum.
Each lesson has a powerpoint presentation, an activity sheet and a worksheet. The activity sheets focus more on practical activities and the worksheets apply the skills, often through writing. Each activity and worksheet is differentiated at two levels. The less challenging resources tend to use words from earlier phonics phases and often include visual prompts and scaffolding.
Each lesson plan also includes ideas for additional or continuous provision activities.
The vocabulary used in the resources in this block is aligned with phonics phases 2, 3 and 4. Sometimes the vocabulary is kept simple to allow the children to focus on the new concept that is being taught.
Dependent on your timetabling and individual needs of your children, you may wish to split each lesson over 2, 3 or more sessions.
The following small steps are covered this term:
✅ Write a given sentence
✅ Start using finger spaces
✅ Recognise and write capital letters
✅ Use capital letters to mark the start of sentence
✅ Identify and use full stops at the end of a sentence
✅ Use a capital letter for I
✅ Identify and use question marks
✅ Use ‘and’ to join words in sentences
✅ Make plural words using -s or -es
In Year 1, children are introduced to foundational spelling and grammar concepts to build their early literacy skills. Here’s a breakdown of the key areas they should learn:
Spelling
1. Common Exception Words
– Learn to spell high-frequency words that don’t follow regular phonetic patterns (e.g., “the,” “said,” “was”).
2. Phonemes and Graphemes
– Understand that phonemes (sounds) match graphemes (letters or groups of letters).
– Begin with simple CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words like “cat,” “dog,” and “pen.”
3. Regular Phonics Patterns
– Learn phonics rules for short and long vowel sounds (e.g., “a” in “cat” vs. “cake”).
– Recognise digraphs (e.g., “ch,” “sh,” “th”) and trigraphs (e.g., “igh,” “ear”).
4. Adding Prefixes and Suffixes
– Introduction to simple suffixes like -s, -es (for plurals), and –ing, -ed (for verbs).
5. Segmenting and Blending
– Practice breaking down (segmenting) words into their phonemes and blending them back together to read and spell.
1. Sentence Structure
– Understand and write simple sentences with correct word order.
– Begin using capital letters for names, places, and at the beginning of sentences.
2. Punctuation
– Use full stops to end sentences.
– Begin to use question marks and exclamation marks in appropriate contexts.
3. Conjunctions
– Introduce simple conjunctions like “and” to join words and clauses.
4. Verbs
– Understand action words (verbs) and how they are used in sentences.
– Begin learning about tense (present and past) through simple verb forms like “walk,” “walked.”
5. Nouns
– Learn to identify common nouns (people, places, things) and proper nouns (specific names).
6. Pronoun
– Introduction to basic pronouns (he, she, they, it).
7. Adjectives
– Start using simple adjectives to describe nouns (e.g., “big,” “small,” “red”).
This curriculum helps lay the groundwork for later literacy skills, allowing children to read and write more fluently as they progress.
