This term a group of year 7 students competed in the UNSW spelling competition.
ICAS Spelling is an independent spelling assessment developed in conjunction with Macquarie Dictionary. It assesses and reports students’ skills at spelling words in four different contexts: dictation, proofreading, error correction and applying rules and conventions.
The words tested range from frequently-used/common words with simple spelling patterns to less frequently-used/less common and technical words with difficult or unusual spelling patterns. The words can be organised under four types of spelling knowledge:
- Visual – using memory of the visual features of a word
- Phonological – using sound-letter relationships
- Morphological – using parts of words to build word families
- Etymological – using word origins and derivations
The international competition involved dictation, rules and conventions, proofreading and correcting. The level was particularly challenging with words such as ‘exacerbate’, ‘plausible’, ‘camaraderie’ and ‘surreptitiously’. We are incredibly proud of our student participants and their achievements.
Congratulations to Riyan for achieving the highest score in our school and achieving a distinction award. Congratulations also to April (credit), Karina (credit), Micah, Nathaniel, Eli, Joshua, Isabella and Russel for their excellent achievement.
