Eleven Plus Stars

We have been thrilled to receive the results of the Eleven Plus children from the Medway towns who have passed. Congratulations to all these wonderful children and their fortunate parents. Earning a place in a grammar school could change the course of the lives of some of these children.

The Medway examination is interesting because a proportion of the marks are awarded to the ability to communicate in writing. One of the children who has passed has always had some problems with his spelling. We added a little spelling to his program to try to help.

Some educationalists look at a spelling problem and try to categories it into two different areas. One area suggests that the child may well have a reading and a spelling problem. A different child may simply have a spelling problem.

When a child reads there is often the ability to look at contextual clues to help with spelling. Spelling, however, demands a recall of words that have been learnt and assimilated.

The eleven plus child with a spelling problem may have to be able to generalise rules before being able to spell unfamiliar words. Children sometimes use one strategy for writing words down – and a different one for checking the spelling. Some children may even be able to analyse the word into components – like root, suffix and prefix.

Eleven plus parents will hope that their child will be able to pick up spellings easily and intuitively.

Some children find it useful to collect all their spelling mistakes into one place – and then try to learn the words. Rote learning of spellings, however, is sometimes very difficult. It may be more helpful for the bright child to learn various strategies.

So congratulations to all the stars that have passed. Super Nova congratulations to the star that had a spelling problem and still passed!