Grammar: Homophone Mix-Ups
Grammar: Homophone Mix- Ups
Aim
•Reinforce the children’s understanding of homophones and develop their ability to choose between similar sounding words in their writing.
Introduction
•Ask the children to call out some of the homophones that they have learnt so far.
•These include our and are; their, there and they’re; your and you’re; its and it’s; to, two and too; where, wear and were; practice and practise; licence and license.
•Mak e sure the children know which spellings take which meanings.
•Our is more properly pronounced /ou-r/ but in practice it is often pronounced /ar/ and can be confused with are.
• Were is not strictly a homophone of where, but their spellings are often confused so it helps to look at them together.
•Point out that some of these words are parts of the verb to be (are, were) and some are possessive adjectives (our, your, their, its), while others are contractions (they’re, you’re, it’s).
•Others are words that use the <c> spelling for the noun (practice and licence) and the <s> spelling for the verb (practise and license).
•Children often find its and it’s particularly difficult because apostrophe <s> can also be used to show possession. However , it is only used in this way to make possessive nouns and not possessive adjectives like its.
•If the children have particular problems with other homophones, write them on the board and revise them with the class.
Main Point
•Remind the children that it is important to use the correct spelling when writing homophones, otherwise their writing will not make sense.
•Ask the children if they can think of any other homophones and write them on the board, discussing their spelling and meaning.
•Add the words from the activity page, look at their spellings and check that the children know what they mean: alter I altar, sail!sale, piece Ipeace, week / weak, hire/ higher, medal / meddle, profit/ prophet.
•If the children are unsure of the meanings of any of the homophones, ask them to look the the words up in the dictionary and see who can find them first.
•Remind the children that they need to stop and think before writing a homophone, decide which meaning is needed, and think how the word with that meaning is spelt.
•Using the information they already know can sometimes help the children remember the different
spellings and meanings. For example, higher is a comparative adjective (or adverb) made by adding the suffix <-er> to the adjective (or adverb) high, whereas hire means to employ someone.
•If the sentence requires the adjective (or adverb), the children should remember to write higher.
•Ask the children to think of sentences for some of the homophones and discuss which spelling they would use.
Activity Page
•The children write the meaning for each homophone, looking them up in a dictionary if they are unsure of the meaning.
Extension Activity
•On a separate sheet of paper, the children write sentences for some of the homophones on the activity page.
•They could then work in pairs, taking it in turns to dictate a sentence, and then decide together whether the correct spelling has been used.
Rounding Off
•Go over the activity page with the children, discussing their answers.
•If they have done the extension activity, ask some
of the children to read out their sentences before checking which spelling they have used.
