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TRICKY
ENDINGS
-ance and -ence, -ant and -ent,
-ery and -ary, -able and -ible
A lot of words, especially adjectives, have endings which are often misspelt, and
which don’t really seem to follow any useful rule or pattern.
Take, for example, the adjective arrogant
(meaning haughty or self-important).
It’s not always clear from its usual
pronunciation, ‘ARR-o-g’nt’ whether
it should be spelt as, ‘arrogAnt ’ or
‘arrogEnt ’. The same goes for the
corresponding noun arrogance. Is
it ‘arrogAnce’ or ‘arrogEnce?
Unfortunately, there isn’t
a set way to decide.
The good and the bad
The
bad news is, easily misspelt words
like these simply need to be learnt. There’s
no substitute for knowing lots of words!
The
good news is, the more words you
know, the better your reading and writing
will be. Having plenty of words at your
command makes you a
far more
effective communicator!
For example, balance (as in not falling
over) is pronounced BA-lance, so writing
balEnce instead of balAnce definitely looks
wrong. When you know a word is Ance, not
Ence, spelling linked words becomes a bit
easier – such as the adjective balanced, or
the verb balancing.
Try the activity on the next sheet!
TRICKY
ENDINGS
ACTIVITY
ANCE or ENCE?
For each of the following
words, fill in the correct
ending. If you’re finding it
a little tricky, get someone
accept
def
exist
reluct
word and its definition
admitt
defi
guid
resist
perhaps try using it in a
ANT or ENT?
else to read out the full
from a dictionary, or
sentence.
accid
const
appar
excitem
For all four rounds, which
ERY or ARY?
pronunciation, and which
batt
spellings are helped by
aren’t? Can you think
of linked words, which
(like arrogant helps spell
inhabit
document
caution
these spellings help with
independ
itiner
element
jewell
pleas
reminisc
second
show
ABLE or IBLE?
arrogance)?
adapt
aud
divis
forgett
invinc
respons
laugh
submers
Activity taken from
Jam-packed full of super spelling hints and tips to help
you on your way to spelling superstardom!
Available in bookshops and online
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HOMONYMS
Homonyms are look-alike or sound-alike words, which can easily be mistaken
for each other.
1
Homophones : TO, TOO and TWO
maze
maize
sound the same, but have different meanings.
I went to school, my friend went too, there were two of us.
ACTIVITY
threw
through
sail
sale
Use each word in a separate sentence. If you’re not sure of a word’s meaning, find its
definition in a dictionary. For example: We saw a deer at the zoo. My cat is very dear to me.
find
fined
whale
wail
groan
deer
dear
grown
weather
whether
bread
bred
sum
some
band
banned
steel
steal
feet
feat
worn
warn
time
thyme
Activity taken from
Jam-packed full of super spelling hints and tips to help
you on your way to spelling superstardom!
Available in bookshops and online
Bloomsbury.com •
@KidsBloomsbury •
BloomsburyKids
HOMONYMS
Homonyms are look-alike or sound-alike words, which can easily be mistaken
for each other.
2
Homographs : Moped and moped
Spelt the same, but pronounced differently and with different meanings.
He moped around the house (pronounced MOWpd, meaning gloomy).
She zoomed away on her moped (pronounced moPED, meaning a small motorbike).
You can get lots of comical scenarios from mixed-up homonyms! Imagine the
meanings swapped over in the bat example!
The cricket player whacked the ball with his bat (‘bat’ as in flying animal).
A huge bat flew out of the cave (‘bat’ as in wooden stick).
ACTIVITY
Use the space provided to create some sentences in which the homonyms listed below could swap meanings
to create a funny or weird scenario! Once you’ve written your sentences, try drawing some pictures to show
the differences!
1. Bank (as in river bank)/bank (as in a place full of money)
2. Nail (as in a small metal spike)/nail (one of those things at the end of your fingers)
3. Match (a little stick which catches fire)/match (as in football)
Activity taken from
Jam-packed full of super spelling hints and tips to help
you on your way to spelling superstardom!
Available in bookshops and online
Bloomsbury.com •
@KidsBloomsbury •
BloomsburyKids
PLURALS
Peculiar plurals
Although most nouns (a word
which refers to a thing –
usually a person, place or
object) just need to have an
‘s’ added to them to make them
plural – dog/dogs, plate/plates, ship/ships, book/books – that isn’t
always the case. Below are a few examples to show what happens when you don’t simply need an ‘s’:
If a noun already ends in ‘s’, or ends in ‘x’, ‘o’, ‘sh’ or ‘ch’, you normally need to add ‘es’ to the
end of the word to make it plural. For example:
Gas/gases, peach/peaches, wish/wishes, fox/foxes, tomato/tomatoes, echo/echoes
However, not always for ‘o’ words: duo/duos, studio/studios, kilo/kilos and so on.
Nouns ending in ‘f’ or ‘fe’ often change it to ‘ves’ when they become plural. For example:
Loaf/loaves, wolf/wolves, shelf/shelves, knife/knives
But not always: giraffe/giraffes, cliff/cliffs, safe/safes and so on.
Nouns ending in ‘y’ normally change it to ‘ies’ to become plural. For example:
Army/armies, library/libraries, spy/spies, story/stories
Except when there’s a vowel before the ‘y’: toy/toys, valley/valleys, day/days and so on.
Nouns ending in ‘us’, ‘on’ and ‘um’ often change it to ‘a’, ‘ae’ or ‘i’.
For example: Bacterium/bacteria, phenomenon/phenomena, fungus/fungi and so on.
Some nouns are both singular and plural to begin with. These words include:
Sheep, deer, music, aircraft, news, furniture, headquarters and so on.
Some nouns become plural by changing their vowels:
Foot/feet, louse/lice, goose/geese, mouse/mice
Some nouns exist only as a plural. There’s no such thing as a scissor, a thank or a binocular,
there are only scissors, thanks or binoculars.
And there are just two nouns which become plural by adding ‘ren’ or ‘en’ to them –
child/children, ox/oxen.
Try the activity on the next sheet!
PLURALS
Below is a list of singulars. Use the space provided to change them into their plural
versions. Beware! Some of these are quite sneaky! Check definitions in a dictionary
if you need to, and practise writing out any plurals you’re not familiar with.
Man
challenge
basis
woman
uantity
mos uito
tooth
stone
chef
volcano
half
tuna
zoo
whale
formula
lens
circus
self
house
belief
brush
Activity taken from
Jam-packed full of super spelling hints and tips to help
you on your way to spelling superstardom!
Available in bookshops and online
Bloomsbury.com •
@KidsBloomsbury •
BloomsburyKids
uiz
branch
life
ACTIVITY
dish
bell
cactus
person
fly
valley