1. Spelling for Older Students
SOS
Lesson 23 z and w
Created for SPELD SA by Jan Polkinghorne

2. Sounds in a word w-or-t-er-m-e-l-o-n 9 s-er-f 3 s-n-ee-z 4
Say the names of these pictures. Use your fingers to count how many sounds in each word. NOTE that is sounds not letters.
Click for answers
w-or-t-er-m-e-l-o-n s-er-f 3 s-n-ee-z 4

3. Rhyming words. Find words to rhyme with each of these.
door
poor
store
floor
score
boor
tore
port
short
fort
bought
caught
nought

4. What is the same about each group of pictures? Say the words aloud.
Click the box for the answer.
Yellow box all have z sound:
Zulu, zip, buzzer, zoo, zebra, puzzle, zeppelin, sneeze.
Blue group all start with w:- wag, walk, wicket, windmill, waist, watch, whistle, wind, wagon, waistcoat, wand, wigwam, wind.

5. Sort all of your bottle top letters into vowels and consonants.
‘z’ and ‘w’ are both consonants. All letters in our alphabet belong to one of two groups
Focus on a voiced / unvoiced pair s and z. Make the 'bee' sound for ‘z’, and a snake sound for ‘s’. Which makes the vocal chords vibrate - with ‘s’ or ‘z’? (The answer should be ‘z’). ‘z’ is voiced while s is unvoiced. Apart from that they are formed the same way.
‘W’ is created with the jaw mostly closed and the lips formed in a small, tight circle. The sound is voiced, so the vocal cords must vibrate during the production of the sound.
Sort all of your bottle top letters into vowels and consonants.
We need to know whether a letter is a vowel or consonant to help us apply spelling rules.

6. Use your ears and listen carefully.
Complete the requirements for the next screen before proceeding. See Instructions.
Use your ears and listen carefully.

7. z sounds = red w sounds = yellow
Zara is sitting outside on the grass one sunny morning playing with her toy zebra. She hears a loud “zzz” sound. She looks around and sees a big bee, buzzing around the flowers. It is collecting pollen to be made in to honey, back at the hive. She watches the bee as it buzzes from flower to flower, landing on each one and collecting the pollen. It stops by a gazania and collects the pollen from the flower. Then it buzzes off to the next flower.

8. z sounds = red w sounds = yellow
Aesop told a fable about the wind and the sun. The west wind and the sun have an argument about who is the strongest. The west wind says to the sun, “You see that man down there? I bet I can blow so hard that his coat comes off.” The wind blows and blows, but the man hangs on to his coat. The harder the wind blows, the more the man holds on to his coat. “My turn! Let me try,” says the sun. The sun shines and shines. It gets warmer and warmer, and hotter and hotter. The man takes off his coat. “I win,” smiles the sun, and the west wind storms off.

9. How to write the letters ‘or aw’
Linked script is far better to write than printing. It is faster, easier, more comfortable to write for long periods and your brain learns the words better if they are linked.
Z z W w
Black and white zebra

10. There are two ways to write the sound w.
Most words use ‘w’ but some use ‘wh’. Many of the words which use ‘wh’ are question words : which, what, when , where, why, who. There are two ways to write the sound ‘z’. At the beginning of words ‘z’ is used but frequently on the end of a word (particularly plurals) s is pronounced with a ‘z’ sound. The easy way to remember this is if it is the name of something which is made plural it is probably ‘s’.

11. Click for answers
cups
gets
lets
puts
speaks
tents
plants
stops
looks
snakes
pens
reads
goes
cars
sees
lives
dogs
rise
rose
pins

12. Write wh in the space. Say the word.
Write w in the space. Say the word.
__ip
_et
__en
_ig
__ere
_and
__ich
_ind
__o
_ell
__y
__at
_eb

13. How many words can you make using these letters
How many words can you make using these letters? z, w, s, t, n, u, e, a , wh, i You may use a letter as many times as you like in a word. What is the longest word you can make?
You might be able to apply the doubling rule if you think of longer words.

14. Tricky Words – non phonetic
Click to reveal the word
Click to reveal the word
were
other

15. Time to do revision for Set 22 Tricky Word

16. Instructions.
Slide 2 counting sounds in a word. The answer is frequently not the same as the number of letters in the word.
Slide 3 Rhyming words
Slide 4 Hearing w and z sound.
Slide 5– knowing vowels and consonants is vital for learning spelling rules. Multisensory learning (feeling the formation of a sound) is useful for many students. Rule 1: If the short vowel pronunciation doesn’t work to make a word try the long vowel.
Slide 6 , 7 and 8. Read the story for z and w aloud. Ask each student to keep a tally of how many z and w sounds they hear in the story. Compare results. They need to use ears not eyes. Hand each student a copy of the story. Read it aloud again and have students mark each ‘w and z’ sound as they go.
Slide 9–writing w and z and linking. Handwriting I have used Sego Script because it is freely available on most computers . Research is now showing that linked script is more ergonomic and helps with retention of spelling. Many prospective employers are expecting job applications to be handwritten and many exams have to be handwritten. It is still a necessary skill.
Slide 10 – The 2 ways of writing w sound in English are: w and wh. The two common ways of writing z sound are z and s. Most z sounds on the end are plurals nouns and take s which sounds like z.
Slide 11- Listening activity to distinguish final s and z sounds. Worksheet in work sheet folder.
Slide 12- Listening activity to distinguish words which write w sound with wh ( most are question words.) and those which use w.
Slides 13 How many words can students make?
Slide 14 and 15 Tricky words. These words are high frequency, often non phonetic and have to be learnt by rote for both spelling and reading. Spell with alphabet names. Do not sound.