Read with an adult. Take your time. You can say, point, draw or write your answer.
1 Let's look together
Read her, bird and turn with your adult. In many accents their vowel sounds are alike.
The words use er, ir and ur. We have to learn which spelling each word needs. Looking at a word carefully helps us remember.
h • erb • ir • dt • ur • n
Look, point and talk with your adult.
2 Watch how I do it
I read turn. I look at ur. I cover the word, try to spell it, then uncover it and check every letter.
3 Your turn
Which pair is in bird: ir or ar?
Have a go before opening the answer.
Let's check together
ir. The word is bird.
4 Try it away from the page
Sort her, term, bird, girl, turn and fur into er, ir and ur groups with an adult.
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Adult notes · prerequisites, safety and coverage
Introduce one spelling group at a time. Accent affects pronunciation. Unstressed er in butter is a later comparison, not assumed to be identical in every accent.
Read instructions aloud. Word-reading practice must match the child's taught sounds. The phonics pages support, but do not replace, the school's systematic synthetic phonics programme. Shared stories are adult-read unless the child can decode them. Re-read and practise daily.
Connect taught sounds and spellings for decoding.
Practise Year 1 spelling patterns, prefixes and endings.