How on earth do you teach new vocabulary and spelling rules without sacrificing something else in an already packed timetable? On one side, we must teach children technical aspects of spelling, even if we use a random set of largely irrelevant words to demonstrate this week's word level objectives. On the other, we bemoan pupils' lack of subject specific vocabulary in the rest of the curriculum. Just as
importantly, recent research suggests vocabulary development may have suffered at the hands of the National Literacy Strategy.

So, is it possible to do both? The answer can be 'yes', provided the investigative approach to spelling advocated by the NLS is also used in other subjects. We need to treat vocabulary met in the wider
curriculum in a similar way to the words children learn to spell in the literacy lesson. Like anything else, children should not learn words in isolation. Rules need to reflect real words and vocabulary needs a
relevant purpose if children are to gain sufficient understanding to use their knowledge of spelling conventions productively. This is as true at key stage 3 as in the junior classes.

The beginning of any lesson provides the first opportunity to review technical aspects of language. I shy away from making learning intentions too child-friendly. Instead I use adult vocabulary and encourage the class to rewrite objectives with me to make them more accessible. That way I make children engage with, and take responsibility for, their own learning.

A range of questions works well. For example, "Can you spot the verbs?" and "What about replacing one of them with a synonym to make your task clearer?" This exchange of ideas takes no more than a minute and is especially profitable when children spend 20 seconds or so discussing their ideas in pairs before
responding in a whole class context. Before long, pupils become used to picking out patterns in words and using those sounds and letter strings to work out unknown vocabulary. Often I ask children to copy
down the learning intention and underline four or five key words. Quicker writers then pair up and enjoy asking and answering their own questions about those words. "Are there any nouns you don't understand?" I overheard one child say to another. "Look at the endings - that '-es' means it's plural so we must be using more than one of those. "

It is important to make these interactions short and sharp. After all, this work on words is largely revision and there is a danger of detracting from the pace and point of of the current lesson if too long is spent on technical matters. However, knowledge of language is vital to all subjects and sometimes it is worth spending a little more time on word meanings. I also ask pupils to underline unknown words and make connections to those with which they are already familiar.

At the start of a lesson about Howard Carter, a few children were struggling to fully understand 'investigation' and 'Egyptologist'. With a little prompting, they were able to identify the suffix in
'investigation' and remove it to distinguish the root word - 'investigate'. They knew this was a verb and were able to apply their knowledge of spelling conventions to work out that a word ending in '-tion' was
almost certain to be a noun. Similarly, 'Egyptologist' sounded like 'archaeologist' because of the common suffixes. Children knew what an archaeologist was and, after the briefest of discussions with their partners, were able to define an Egyptologist as, "someone who studies things to do with Egypt". Most of my lower junior class made a good guess at what the '-ologist' ending did to the meaning of the root word. Some even wanted to know if they could check in the dictionary to see if there was such a thing as a 'Romanologist'.

Children in my class were fascinated when they discovered that different dictionaries gave different information. They were really interested in eponymous entries and how some people became so famous they ended up with a word named after them. I imagine most parents with a child in my class now know that 'Spangler' is a more legitimate name for their vacuum cleaner. Hoover bought the patent but it was Spangler who invented the first domestic device to suck up dirt and dust.

Excited by the range of information they discovered, our two-week block of work on dictionaries suddenly turned into a fabulous opportunity to teach many other curriculum areas and follow pupils' own interests. I asked children how they would become famous and what their surname might mean in 50 years' time. They loved dreaming about their futures and relished the prospect of 'doing a Delia (Smith)' and getting their idea adopted in the language of the next generation. One boy spent hours at home drawing up exact specifications for the dust truck he was going to invent and all researched their chosen curriculum areas thoroughly to ensure the dictionaries of the future had accurate information. Inevitably, the associated written work was of a very good standard.

In all literacy lessons I encourage children to pick out new vocabulary, especially words linked to other curriculum areas. They also keep their own spelling journals and use them to note words of interest from all subjects. Many children now value dictionaries as texts in their own right and pick them up in free choice reading sessions because they want to know where words come from and what they mean.

I can appreciate why two children spent 15 minutes with the maths dictionary looking up 'quotient' in an attempt to find all the words that mean divide rather than multiply. I also give weekly spelling tests on words and patterns children have investigated, but not necessarily the exact same words they listed at the beginning of the week.

In the plenary, I ask pupils to list new words they have found. Not only do they share observations with their peers but they also ask me why words are spelled in certain ways. I do my best to answer but the dictionaries are always at hand. Again, these interactions are only short but provide a valuable opportunity for children to speak and listen to each other, something that can be overlooked due to the demands of the NLS objectives. Children who use dialect and slang in everyday speech need to realise the differences between the written and spoken word and the need for formal language in certain situations. A reminder on the use of apostrophes for contractions is worthwhile here. Children spotted their science investigation 'didn't' work but realised I wanted to know why it 'did not' work when they wrote an explanation in their books.

We sometimes use 'thinking' paper or whiteboards to analyse new vocabulary. After 10 seconds brainstorming a list of prefixes, it is easier for children to define 'dissolve', 'undo' or 'anticlockwise', and to find a strategy for spelling each of them.

By saying a sentence to a partner, pupils consider whether they need the verb 'evaporate' or the noun 'evaporation' to explain exactly what they have discovered in science. I put both words on the board before children identify the changes needed to make one into the other and explain that the 'e' is removed when adding a suffix. In fact, we spell the sound 'shun' in many ways. Children need to go back to their knowledge of letter strings to tackle these problems and come up with potential solutions. They do not always find the right answer but they do have to think, theorise and apply their spelling skills.

The DFES Spelling Bank book is an invaluable reference point for literacy investigations. It explains, for example, that words ending in '-tion' are almost exclusively nouns. Adjectives to do with nationality often end in '-ian', while nouns to do with occupation often end in '-cian', as in 'optician'. Armed with this knowledge from a spelling investigation, children make an informed choice about the spelling of words in other curriculum areas. It becomes easier to work out that if children have been 'creating' something in art or technology it is a 'creation' and if they are asking questions about the role of Churchill in World War 2, he is a 'politician' and not a 'politition'. Alternatively, something named after the Ancient Greeks is likely to be 'Grecian' while an interest in spelling is a 'fascination'.

An investigative and problem-solving approach helps pupils, boys in particular, become more confident about unknown words. They realise that the English language has some rules that are useful and many that are broken. Perhaps more importantly, children become more interested in words, more enthusiastic about the vocabulary they encounter in all areas of life and more prepared to have a go at spelling and using them. One boy in my class comes to mind. An incredibly gifted mathematician but reluctant writer, he has responded positively to the problem-solving we do in spelling and has made a tremendous improvement in his writing across the curriculum as a result.

Now it is also easier to find words for our weekly spelling investigation. No longer must I wrack my brains to find 10 words that end in 'shun'. Instead, children have identified some themselves in their areas of work and, what is more, many cannot wait to find them in the dictionary and share their new-found knowledge with family and friends. Before long, their spelling ages as well as their facility with words in other subject areas, will have both improved. Dictionaries might seem dour but words in action work. Don't they?

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