Make word structure visible, meaningful and memorable with this structured spelling intervention resource.

The Structured Spellers: Word Sum and Matrix Starter Kit teaches students how familiar base words combine with prefixes and suffixes to build related words. Instead of approaching every longer word as a completely new spelling, students learn to recognise the meaningful parts inside the word.

Students build words with tiles first, discuss the role of the affix, read the completed word, and then write it from memory with the model hidden.

What’s Included:

• Detailed Teacher Guide
• Teacher Reference Slides
• Printable Base and Affix Tile Cards
• Word Sum Recording Sheet
• Word Matrix Build Sheets
• Prefix vs. Suffix Sort and Match Activity
• Sentence Dictation Practice
• Answer Keys

Students Will Learn To:

• identify a base word
• identify prefixes and suffixes
• build word sums
• understand how affixes combine with bases
• build a simple word matrix
• recognise families of related words
• explain what an affix does to a word
• preserve the spelling of a known base in the target words
• retrieve spellings from memory
• apply target words in dictation

Examples Included:
Students explore word sums including:
help + ing → helping
help + ful → helpful
un + kind → unkind

They then use the base help to build the related words:

helps • helping • helped • helpful • helpless • helper

Design For:

• Spelling intervention
• Dyslexia-type spelling difficulties
• Special education / SEN support
• Structured literacy
• 1:1 instruction
• Small groups
• Intervention teachers
• Tutors
• Homeschool

Easy To Implement!
The resource includes explicit teacher guidance and suggested language, making it suitable for teachers, support staff and tutors who may be new to morphology-based spelling instruction.

Suggested delivery is 15–20 minutes per session across approximately one school week.

The starter kit intentionally uses target combinations in which the base spelling remains stable, so students can focus first on understanding word structure before encountering more complex spelling-change conventions.

This is part of the Structured Spellers Series
Structured Spellers provides explicit, systematic spelling instruction for learners who benefit from seeing why words are spelt the way they are, rather than relying on memorisation or sound alone.

Please note: This is an educational resource and is not a diagnostic or clinical tool. It does not diagnose dyslexia or replace professional assessment.

This is a digital PDF download only.