Download Spelling Policy Nov 15

Spelling Policy
Agreed by GB November 2015
Signed:……………….
1
Progression in spelling
Stage 1
Revision of reception work
Basic revision should include:
• All letters of alphabet and the sounds they represent
• Consonant digraphs which have been taught and the sounds they represent
• Vowel digraphs which have been taught and the sounds they represent
• The process of segmenting spoken words into sounds before choosing graphemes to
represent the sounds
• Words with adjacent consonants
• Guidance and rules which have been taught
Stage 1
The /f/l/s/z/k sounds are usually spelt ff, ll, ss, zz and ck if they come straight after a
single vowel letter in short words.
ff – off; ll – well; ss – miss; zz – buzz; ck – back
Exceptions pal, us, bus, yes
The ‘n’ sound before k – bank, think, honk, sunk
Adding s and es to words (plural of nouns and the third person singular of verbs)
When there is more than one you add s if the ending sounds like /s/ or /z/
If the ending sounds like /iz/ and forms an extra syllable or ‘beat’ in the word, it is spelt
as /es/
Cats, dogs, spends, rocks, thanks, catches, torches
More than one syllable – division of words into syllables
Each syllable is like a ‘beat’ in the spoken word.
A word can be split into parts (syllables) to help you spell
Sud/den; pull/ing; cob/web; sand/pit, pocket, rabbit, carrot, thunder, sunset
Words of more than one syllable often have an unstressed syllable in which the vowel
sound is unclear
Words ending in ‘ch’ sound spelt ‘tch’
At end of a word, when ‘ch’ comes after short vowel, it is often spelt ‘tch’ - itch, hatch,
catch, fetch, stitch
‘ch’ follows in other words – teach, coach, church, beach
Exceptions: rich, which, much, such
Words ending with ‘v’ and ‘j’ sounds
A ‘v’ sound at end of word is spelt ‘ve’
A ‘j’ sound at end of word is spelt ‘ge’ or ‘dge’
Have, give, solve, above, page, large, bridge, fridge, smudge
Adding the endings ‘ing’, ‘ed’, and ‘er’ to verbs where no change is needed to the root
word
‘ing’ and ‘er’ always add an extra syllable to the word and ‘ed’ sometimes does.
The past tense of some verbs may sound as if it ends in /id/ (extra syllable), /d/ or /t/ (no
extra syllable), but all these endings are spelt –ed.
If the verb ends in two consonant letters (the same or different), the ending is simply
added on.
hunt, hunted, hunter, buzzing, buzzed, buzzer, jumping, jumped, jumper
Adding ‘er’ and ‘est’ to adjectives where no change is needed to the root word
As with verbs, if the adjective ends in two consonant letters (the same or different) the
ending is simply added on.
Grander, grandest, fresher, freshest, quicker, quickest
Words ending in ‘y’
Very, happy, funny, party, family
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New consonant spellings ‘ph’ and ‘wh’
The ‘f’ sound is not usually spelt as ‘ph’ in short everyday words eg (fat, fill, fun)
Examples of ‘ph’ and ‘wh’ – dolphin, alphabet, phonics, elephant, when, where, which,
wheel, while
The ‘k’ sound is spelt as ‘k’ rather than ‘c’ before ‘e’, ‘i’, and ‘y’.
Examples Kent, sketch, kit, skin, risky, kill, skip, crisp, crack, cross, scar, scarf, scare
At the end of a word, a ‘k’ sound is spelt ‘ck’ when it comes straight after a short vowel.
It is spelt ‘k’ in other words
clock, sink, park, rock, truck, think, drink
Adding prefix ‘un’
The prefix ‘un’ is added to the beginning of a word without any change to the spelling of
the root word
Unhappy, undo, unload, unfair, unlock
Compound words
Split a word into two words to spell
Moonlight – moon light
Bed room; farm yard; rail way; after noon; play time; milk shake
Common exception words
Pupils’ attention should be drawn to the grapheme-phoneme correspondences that do
and do not fit in with what has been taught so far.
the, a, do, to, today, of, said, says, are, were, was, is, his, has, I, you, your, they, be, he,
me, she, we, no, go, so, by, my, here, there, where, love, come, some, one, once, ask,
friend, school, put, push, pull, full, house, our
The ‘oi’ sound
At the end of a word the ‘oi’ sound is spelt ‘oy’
Boil; boy; coin; join; joy; soil; toy; oil; enjoy; annoy; point
The ‘ai’ sound
Use ‘ai’ or a-e in the middle of words; use ‘ay’ at the end
Day; rain; play; pain; gain; stay; away; came; same; name
The long ‘i’ sound
Use ‘i-e’ in the middle of words; ‘igh’ before ‘t’; ‘y’ at the end of words
dry, try, sky, cry, light, night, might, right, bright; ‘ine’ (line); ‘ive’ (drive); ‘ike’ (like); ‘ide’
(slide); ‘ile’ (smile)
The long ‘e’ sound
ee – see; ea – tea; ee – feet; ea – mean
The long ‘o’ sound
At the end of the word is ‘ow’ – low
In the middle of a word the main spelling is ‘o-e’ or ‘oa’
oat – boat, coat; oad – road, toad; oke – joke, woke; ose – rose, nose; ope – slope,
rope; ole – stole
The long ‘oo’ sound
Middle of word – ‘oo’ or ‘u-e’ (food, rude)
At the end of a word – ‘ue’, ‘ew’ or sometimes ‘oo’ (true, threw, boo, zoo)
The ‘ur’ sound
ur as in fur; ir as in sir; er as in her
burn, dirt, perch, term, turn, girl
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The ‘ow’ sound
‘ow’ at the end of words – cow
‘ow’ or ‘ou’ in the middle – brown, count
The ‘or’ sound
In the middle of words, ‘or’ can be spelt ‘aw’ – sort, dawn
At the end of words, ‘ore’ or ‘aw’ are most likely – sore, jaw
saw, door, before, shore, more,
Short ‘u’ and short ‘e’ sounds
In some words, short ‘u’ and ‘e’ sounds are spelt like long vowels
Stood (oo = ‘u’) bread (ea = ‘e’)
The ‘ear’ sound
In most words, the ‘ear’ sound is spelt ‘ear’. Some words have ‘eer’ - cheer, fear, here,
appear
The ‘air’ sound
The ‘air’ sound can be spelt ‘air’, ‘are’, or ‘ear’ – glare, bear, chair, dare, pear, dare, hair
Two syllable words ending with long ‘e’
At the end of a two-syllable words, a long ‘e’ sound is spelt ‘y’ or sometimes ‘ey’ – thirty,
copy, trolley
‘key’, ‘ney’ – turkey, chimney, donkey, honey
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Stage 2
Revise work from stage 1
As new words/spellings introduced, ensure that links are made by revising previous learning
Stage 2
The long ‘a’ sound
In the middle of a word, the main spellings for a long ‘a’ sound are ‘ai’ and ‘a-e’ – faint,
waste, sail, made, brain, plate, grain, space, faze
The long ‘i’ sound
The main long ‘i’ sound at the end of a word is ‘y’
In the middle of a word it is ’i-e’, ‘igh’ – try, fine, sight
Other spellings to learn – die, find
The long ‘o’ sound
The main long ‘o’ spellings are ‘ow’, ‘o-e’, and ‘oa’ – snow, alone, foam
There are other spellings you need to learn – hoe, post
Broke, oak, goal, stroll, moan, cone, note, float, gold, bowl, slope, hope, flow, know, toe,
hello, glow, goes
The long ‘e’ sound
The main long ‘e’ spellings are ‘ee’ and ‘ea’ – teeth, scream, cheat, beak, sweep
Other spellings to learn – me, eve, thief, chief, these, brief, field, theme, even, shield,
belief
The long ‘oo’ sound
The main spellings for ‘oo’ and ‘yoo’ sounds are ‘oo’, ‘u-e’ and ‘ew’
Cool, rude, blue, drew, fuse, fool, shoot, choose, tube, cute, use, argue, huge, a
muse, few
The ‘or’ sound is usually spelt as ‘a’ before ‘l’ and ‘ll’ – all, ball, call, walk, talk, always
The letter j is never used for the ‘j’ sound at the end of English words.
At the end of a word, the ‘j’ sound is spelt –dge straight after short vowels – badge,
edge, bridge, dodge, fudge
After all other sounds, whether vowels or consonants, the ‘j’
sound is spelt as –ge at the end of a word – age, huge, change, charge, bulge, village
In other positions in words, the ‘j’ sound is often (but not always) spelt as g before e, i,
and y. The ‘j’ sound is always spelt as j before a, o and u – gem, giant, magic, giraffe,
energy, jacket, jar, jog, join, adjust
The ‘n’ sound spelt ‘kn’ and less often ‘gn’ at the beginning of words
The ‘k’ and ‘g’ at the beginning of these words was sounded hundreds of years ago. –
knock, know, knee, gnat, gnaw
Adding ‘ing’
If a word ends with an ‘e’, drop the ‘e’ to add ‘ing’
hide – hiding, like – liking, slide – sliding
Adding ‘ed’
Adding ‘ed’ makes the past tense. If the word ends with ‘e’, drop the ‘e’ to add ‘ed’ – turn
– turned, like – liked, share – shared
Double letters before adding ‘ing’ and ‘ed’
If a word ends with a short vowel sound and a single letter, double the last letter before
adding ‘ing’ or ‘ed’ – hum, hummed; slip, slipping, clap, clapped, clapping, stop,
stopped, stopping, groan, groaned, groaning, cook, cooked, cooking
Exception – the letter x is never doubled – mixing, mixed
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Adding ‘ing’ and ‘ed’ to words ending ‘y’
If a word ends with consonant and ‘y’, change ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and add ‘ed’ – cry, cried
But to add ‘ing’ , just add ‘ing’ – crying
Dry, dried, drying, try, tried, trying
Play, played, playing, stay, stayed, staying
Adding ‘s’ to words ending ‘y’
If a word ends with ‘y’, change the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and add ‘es’
Lolly – lollies, story – stories
But if it ends ‘ey’, ‘ay’ or ‘oy’, keep the ‘y’ and just add ‘s’
Monkey – monkeys, tray – trays
The ‘w’ special
In some ‘w’ special words ‘wo’ is spelt ‘wa’ – was, want, watch
In other ‘w’ special words ‘wer’ is spelt ’wor’ – word
Wash, want, wand, watch, worm, worth, work, world
The ‘q’ special
The letter ‘q’ is always followed by the letter ‘u’ – quiet, square, quick, squash
‘le’ at the end of words
The ‘le’ spelling is the most common spelling for this sound at the end of words – table,
apple, bottle, little, middle
The ‘el’ spelling at the end of words is less common than ‘le’
The ‘el’ spelling is used after m, n, r,s,v,w, and more often than not s – camel, tunnel,
squirrel, travel, towel, tinsel
Not many nouns end in ‘al’ but many adjectives do – metal, pedal, capital, hospital,
animal
Words ending in ‘il’ – there are not many of these – pencil, fossil, nostril
The ‘i’ sound spelt ‘y’ at the end of a word – most common spelling for this sound at the
end of words – cry, fly, dry, try, reply, July
Adding suffix ‘y’
Add ‘y’ to make adjectives – mood, moody,
Use same rules for adding ‘ed’ – laze, lazy, fun, funny
Dirty, smoky, shiny, foggy, runny
Adding ‘er’ and ‘est’
Add ‘er’ and ‘est’ to make words that compare things – neat, neater, neatest
Use the same rules as for adding ‘ed’ – late, later, big, biggest
Fat, fatter, fattest, wider, wider, widest
Adding ‘ful’ ‘less’ ‘ment’ ‘ness’
The suffixes ‘ful’ and ‘less’ are added to make words to make adjectives – play, playful,
hope, hopeful, hopeless
The suffixes ‘ment’ and ‘ness’ are added to make words into nouns –enjoyment,
sadness
If the suffix starts with a consonant letter, it is added straight on to the root word without
any change to the last letters
Exceptions – argument
Root words ending in ‘y’ with a consonant before it but only if the root word has more
than one syllable – merriment, happiness, plentiful, penniless, happily
Words that sound the same – homophones
Been, bean, bee, be, see, sea, made, amid, meat, meet, cheep, cheap, weak, week,
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blue, blew, there, they’re, their, here, hear, quite, quiet, bare, bear, one, won, sun, son,
to, too, two, blue, blew, night, knight
Adding the prefix – ‘un’
Adding the prefix ‘un’ changes the meaning of a word – ‘un’ means not
Happy – unhappy, well, unwell, fair, unfair, safe, unsafe, tidy, untidy
Adding the prefix ‘dis’ – changes the word to the opposite
Appear, disappear, agree, disagree, like, dislike
Tricky consonants
In some words the ‘f’ sound is spelt ‘ph’
In some words and names a ‘k’ sound is spelt ‘ch’
Alphabet, elephant, phonics, echo, chorus, school, Christmas
Some words have silent or unspoken letters
Kn – know, wr – wrap, climb – mb
Comb, write, kneel, lamb, knight, knotty, wrist, wreck, numb, crumb, thumb
Soft ‘c’
At the end of a word a ‘s’ sound is sometimes spelt ‘ce’ – place, face
A ‘s’ sound is sometimes spelt ‘c’ in other words too (before e,i,y)– circle, ceiling
Dance, slice, glance, price, prince, fancy, pencil, recipe, voice, city, circus, palace
Topic words:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, hour, tomorrow,
month
Two syllable words
Say syllables to support spelling
Powder, monster, target, mountain, person, problem, follow, window, blanket, kitchen
Words ending ‘shun’ and ‘ul’
Some endings are not spelt like they sound
A ‘shun’ ending is spelt ‘tion’ – action, station, nation, fiction, lotion, fraction, caption,
section
At the end of a two syllable word an ‘ul’ ending is most often spelt ‘le’
Uncle, table, apple, kettle, stable, handle, ankle, candle, tickle
Taking words apart
Explore segmenting for spelling
For- get- ful, im-port-ant, un-want-ed, en-joy-ment
The ‘r’ sound spelt ‘wr’ at the beginning of words – pronounced hundreds of years ago –
write, written, wrote, wrong, wrap
Contractions
In shortened forms two words and joined together and letters are omitted and an
apostrophe used:
It’s, don’t, let’s, there’s that’s, hasn’t
Possessive apostrophe (singular nouns) the girl’s , Megan’s
Common exception words
Some words are exceptions in some accents but not others
Great, break and steak are the only common words where the ‘a’ sound is spelt ‘ea’
door, floor, poor, because, find, kind, mind, behind, child, children*, wild, climb, most,
only, both, old, cold, gold, hold, told, every, everybody, even, great, break, steak, pretty,
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beautiful, after, fast, last, past, father, class, grass, pass, plant, path, bath,
hour, move, prove, improve, sure, sugar, eye, could, should, would, who, whole, any,
many, clothes, busy, people, water, again, half, money, Mr, Mrs, parents, Christmas –
and/or others according to programme used.
Note: ‘children’ is not an exception to what has been taught so far but is included
because of its relationship with ‘child’.
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Stage 3 and 4
Revision of work from years 2 and 3
Pay special attention to rules for adding suffixes
Stage 3/4
Words ending ‘le’
‘ckle, ‘dle’, ‘ble’, ‘ple’, ‘gle’
Prickle, chuckle, candle, handle, scramble, trouble, sample, jungle, angle
Double letters before ‘le’
A long vowel is followed by one consonant before the ‘le’ – needle
A short vowel is followed by two consonants before ‘le’ – bubble
Eagle, dazzle, giggle, title, apple, gobble, beetle, people, scribble, middle, kettle
Double letters before other endings
Use the double consonant rule to help you spell two-syllable words with other endings:
super (long vowel) supper (short vowel)
Some consonants are never double – seven, never
happen, sorry, cotton, arrow, pillow, jolly, person, waiter, party, sudden, carrot, lesson
Words ending ‘el’, ‘al’ and ‘il’
In some words an ‘ul’ ending is spelt ‘el’, ‘al’ or ‘il’ – model, animal, April
total, pupil, equal, local, petal, pencil, pedal, metal, kennel, marvel
Word endings:
Endings are not always spelt as they sound – village, fiction, target, market, secret,
cottage, message, fraction, mention
The ɪ sound spelt y elsewhere than at the end of words - learn as needed myth, gym,
Egypt, pyramid, mystery
Topic words – January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September,
August, September, October, November, December
Adding ‘ed’
Use the rule ‘drop the e’ and ‘double the last letter’ to add ‘ed’ – close, closed, trip,
tripped, moan, moaned, slip, slipped
Adding ‘ed’ and ‘ing’ to words ending in y
If a word ends with a consonant and y, change the y to an i and add ed – cry, cried
If there is a vowel before the y just add ed – play, played
To add ing, just add ing – cry, crying, play, playing
Irregular past tense
Not all verbs use ed to change to the past tense – grow, grew, throw, threw, blow, blew,
tear, tore
write, drive, make, swim, ring, drink, begin, spend, speak, think, catch, break, keep,
fight, teach
Adding s and es
If a word ends with a consonant before the y, change the y to i and add es – try, tries
If there is a vowel before the y, just add a – destroy, destroys
Spelling patterns – c and k
The k sound is spelt ck after a short vowel and k after a long vowel or consonant – stick,
choke
At the end of a two syllable word it is often spelt c – music
Spelling patterns – x and ex
Very few words begin with x but lots begin with ex
exclaim, expand, experience
More or spellings
The main spelling of the or sound are or and aw – sport, awkward
Other spellings – ward, August, stalk, thought, therefore, cause, yawn, haunt, walk
More ur spellings
The main spellings for the ur sound in the middle of a word are ur, ir and er – blur, dirt,
fern
Other spellings you need to learn – word, earn, earth, learn, search
More oo and yoo spellings
The main spellings for the oo and yoo sounds are oo, ue, ew amd u-e – scoot, blue,
few, huge
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Other spellings to learn – cruise, move, super, group, through, bruise
Adding y
Use the rules ‘drop the e’ and ‘double the last letter’ to add y
smoke, smoky, wobble, wobbly, fog, foggy
Other words just add y – rain, rainy
Adding er and est
Use the same rules for adding er and est as you use for adding ed
Drop the e – safe, safer
Double the last letter – big, biggest
Change y to i – funny, funniest
Adding ly
‘ly’ is added to an adjective to make an adverb
For most words just add ly – near, nearly
For words that end in y, change y to i – merry, merrily
For words that end in le, change le to ly – simple, simply
For words ending with ’ic’ ‘ally’ is added rather than just ‘ly’ except in the word publicly –
basically, frantically
Exceptions – truly, duly, wholly
Spelling with suffixes
Adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words of more than one syllable
If the last syllable of a word is stressed and ends with one consonant letter which has
just one vowel letter before it, the final consonant letter is doubled before any ending
beginning with a vowel letter is added. The consonant letter is not doubled if the syllable
is unstressed.
Examples
forgetting, forgotten, beginning, beginner, prefer, preferred gardening, gardener,
limiting, limited, limitation
Suffixes add to root words – faith/ful, faith/less, drink/able, read/er, dark/ness, peace/ful,
speech/less, amaze/ment
Contractions – shortened forms
The apostrophe is in place of the missing letters
I had, I’d, I am, I’m, I have, I’ve, you have, you’ve, you will, you’ll, he’s, she’s, he’ll’
we’re, we’ve, they’re, they’ll, don’t, aren’t, he’d
Silent letters
Some words have letters that you cannot hear
knock, climb, wrap, listen, scene, hour, whistle, wreck, glisten, castle, ghost, knuckle,
scissors
Soft g and soft c
Sometimes a j sound is spelt g – magic, strange
Sometimes a s sound is spelt c – centre, recipe, notice
urgent, gym, imagine, fidget, digest, angel, gentle, century, decide, cancel, circle,
success, certain
Homophones
Words that sound the same the same but are spelt differently
plane, plain, here, hear, right, write, mist, missed, herd, heard, wood, would, great, grate
Prefixes – re, de, pre, mis
Prefixes ‘dis and ‘mis’ have negative meanings – disappoint, disagree, misbehave,
mislead
When you add a prefix it changes the meaning of a word but not the spelling: do/redo,
fix/prefix, treat/mistreat
rewrite, reform, decode, defrost, misbehave, restart
The prefix ‘in’ can mean both ‘not’ and ‘in/into’ – incorrect
Before a root word starting with ‘l’, ‘in’ becomes ‘il’ – illegal, illegible
Before a root word starting with ‘r’, ‘in’ becomes ‘ir’ – irregular, irrelevant, irresponsible
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Stage 4
re– means ‘again’ or ‘back’.
re–: redo, refresh, return, reappear, redecorate
sub– means ‘under’.
sub–: subdivide, subheading, submarine, submerge
inter– means ‘between’ or
‘among’.
inter–: interact, intercity, international, interrelated
(inter + related)
super– means ‘above’.
anti– means ‘against’.
auto– means ‘self’ or ‘own’.
super–: supermarket, superman, superstar
anti–: antiseptic, anti-clockwise, antisocial
auto–: autobiography, autograph
Words ending ture and sure
A ‘chuh’ sound at the end of a word is spelt ‘ture’ – fixture
A ‘zhuh’ sound at the end of a word is spelt ‘sure’ – closure
adventure, furniture, picture, pleasure, measure, treasure, leisure
Possessive apostrophes
Adding ‘s’ shows that something belongs to someone
Jill’s trainers, the man’s boots
More homophones
leak, leek, steal, steel, stare, stair, mail, male, hole, whole, flower, flour, mane, main,
pain, pane, meddle, medal, berry, bury, heel, heal, board, bored, grown, groan, allowed,
aloud, piece, peace, knew, new, to, too, two, their, there, threw, through, weather,
whether, accept, except, missed, mist, whose, who’s
The ‘ch’ grapheme
A ‘k’ sound is sometimes spelt ‘ch’ –school, Christmas, echo
A ‘sh’ sound is sometimes spelt ‘ch’ – chef
Y as a vowel
Vowel sounds are often spelt ‘y’ at the end of words
Lady (long e) spy (long i)
Vowel sounds are sometimes spelt ‘y’ in the middle of words - style (long i) cylinder
(short i)
crystal, system, mystery, symbol, busy, baby, carry
Tricky plurals
Most words ending ’f’ or ‘fe’ drop the ‘f’ and add ‘ves’ to make a plural – leaf, leaves, life,
lives
A few just add ‘s’ – sniff, sniffs, roof, roofs
Knife, knives, loaf, loaves, gloves
Some add ‘es’ – witches, foxes
Some change ‘y’ to ‘ies’ – ponies, armies
To make the plural of words ending ‘o’, some just add ‘s’ and others ‘es’ – solo, two
solos, potato, potatoes
Spelling patterns ‘gu’ and ‘gue’
Sometimes as hard ‘g’ sound is spelt ‘gu’ – guinea pig, guitar
At the end of some words a hard ‘g’ sound is spelt ‘gue’ – tongue, catalogue
Spelling patterns ‘qu’ and ‘que’ (French origin)
In most words the letters ‘qu’ represents a ‘kw’ sound – quite, equal
But some words end with a ‘k’ sound that is spelt ‘que’ – opaque, technique
Words with the ‘s’ sound spelt as ‘sc’
In the Latin words from which these words come, the Romans probably pronounced the
c and the k as two sounds rather than one – /s/ /k/. Science, scene, discipline,
fascinate, crescent
Letter strings ‘ear’ – letter strings can represent a variety of sounds – hear, bear, learn
Wealth, rear, feather, search, heard
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Letter strings – ‘gh’
The letters ‘gh’ appear after different combinations of vowels
Sight, slight, weigh, height, thought, brought, caught, naughty, straight, enough,
neighbour
Prefixes – ‘al’, ‘a’, ‘ad’ and ‘be’
Always, already, although, around, ahead, across, adjective, adjust, advice, between,
behind, beneath
Prefixes – dis, re, im, de, in
Discover, disapprove, disappear, research, recycle, recover, imperfect, incorrect,
invisible, deflate,
Adding ‘ly’
If the word ends with ‘l’, just add ‘ly’- real, really
If the word ends with ‘e’, just add ‘ly’ – love, lovely
If the word ends ‘le’, change ‘le’ tp ‘ly’ – simple, simply
Adding ‘ed’ and ‘ing’
Recap rules
Forming nouns
These suffixes are added to form a range of nouns
Consonant suffixes – ness, ment, ship, hood, dom
Vowel suffixes – age, ity, ist
Fairness, amusement, membership, childhood, freedom, breakage, stupidity, balloonist
Adding ‘ation’
Add ‘ation’ to the end of verbs to form nouns – form, formation
Explore, exploration, prepare, preparation
Words ending in ‘shun’
Use ‘tion’ if the root word ends ‘t’ or ‘te’ – subtract, subtraction
Use ‘sion’ if the root word ends in ‘d/de’ or ‘s/se’ – divide, division
Use ‘ssion’ if the root word ends in ‘ss’ – discuss, discussion
‘cian’ is used if the root word ends in ‘c’ or ‘cs’
invention, injection, action, hesitation, completion
expression, discussion, confession, permission, admission
expansion, extension, comprehension, tension
musician, electrician, magician, politician, mathematician
Words ending ‘able’ and ‘ible’
The ending ‘able’ usually follows a root word – agreeable, available
The ending ‘ible’ usually follows a part-word or the letter ‘s’ – terrible, sensible,
comfortable, horrible, suitable, invisible
Remember to drop the ‘e’ before adding ‘ible’ and ‘able’ – valuable, responsible,
believable
The suffix ‘ous’
Sometimes the root word is obvious and the usual rules apply for adding suffixes
beginning with vowel letters.
poisonous, dangerous, mountainous, famous, various
Sometimes there is no obvious root word.
tremendous, enormous, jealous
–our is changed to –or before –ous is added.
humorous, glamorous, vigorous
A final ‘e’ of the root word must be kept if the
sound of ‘g’ is to be kept.
courageous, outrageous
If there is an /i:/ sound before the –ous ending, it is usually spelt as i, but a few words
have e.
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serious, obvious, curious hideous, spontaneous, courteous
Possessive apostrophes
If a plural ends in ‘s’ add the possessive apostrophe but no extra ‘s’ – the boys’ coats
The teachers’ cars
The peoples’ seats
Say the syllables
To spell the longer words, make sure you say all the syllables clearly
Sat ur day, car pet, an i mal, reg u lar. opp o site
Looking for root words with affixes – un forgive able, re place ment, dis appoint ment, un
confort able
Greek and Latin prefixes help you understand the meaning and spelling of words – ‘bi’
means ‘two’, bicycle, biplane
‘tele’ means distant – telephone; ‘trans’ means across - transport
Words with the ‘ei’ sound spelt ‘ei’, ‘eigh’, or ‘ey’
Vein, weigh, eight, neighbour, they, obey
See appendix 1
Word list years 3 and 4
Stage 5 and 6
Revise work from previous years
Stage 5
Unstressed vowels – in longer words, syllables and vowels are difficult to hear when
words are spoken normally
Chocolate; interesting, definite, general, average, several, offering, marvellous,
considerable, miserable, prosperous, natural
Words ending ‘er’
An unstressed ‘er’ at the end of a word might be spelt ‘er’, ‘ar’, ‘or’ or ‘re’ – protester,
sugar, instructor, genre, robber, sailor, beggar, metre
Words ending ‘ary’, ‘ory’ and ‘ery’
Stress the vowel to help distinguish
Jan u ary, fact ory, scen ery,
Words ending ‘shun’
tion’ if it ends ‘t/te’
‘cian’ if the root word ends ‘ic’ – politician
‘sion’ if the word ends ‘d/de’ or ‘se’ – persuade, persuasion
‘ssion’ if the root word ends in ‘ss’ or ‘it’ – admit , admission
Letter string ‘au’
‘au’ makes an ‘or’ sound – daughter, pause, dinosaur
‘au’ can make other sounds – beauty, laughter
Letter string ‘our’
The ‘our’ letter string makes different sounds in different words – flour, fourteen,
journey, pour, armour, rumour, tourist
Letter string ‘ough’
The letter string makes different sounds – cough, borough, fought, tough, rough, dough,
thorough
Words with ‘ie’ and ‘ei’
A long ‘e’ sound is often spelt ‘ie’, unless it comes after ‘c’
Brief, deceit, grief, ceiling, perceive, receipt, deceive, quiet, height, weird, either
Words with soft ‘c’
A ‘s’ sound is spelt ‘c’ when it is followed by i, e or y – decide, excellent, bicycle,
decimal, fancy, process, exceed
Spelling patterns ‘ci’, ‘cu’ and ‘cc’
The letter ‘c’ sometimes combines with other letters to make different sounds – ‘ci’ = ‘sh’
– appreciate, official; ‘cu’ = ‘q’ – rescue; ‘cc’ = ‘x’ = access
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Words with soft ‘g’
A ‘j’ sound is often spelt ‘g’ before the letters e,i,and y
Digest, strange, giant, imagine, gym
Silent letters
Some letters have silent consonants attached to them – wrong, sign, succumb, thistle,
rhyme, knight, autumn, debt (rh, gn, wr, mn, bt)
Words ending ‘ti’ and ‘tu’
Endings beginning ‘ti’ and ‘tu’ create ‘sh’ and ‘ch’ sounds
‘ti’ = ‘sh’ – fiction, initial, fictitious
‘tu’ = ‘ch’ – picture, actual
Prefixes in, im, ir and il
Double letters occur when these prefixes are added to words starting m, r or l
Immortal, irresistible, illegal, illuminate
Incredible, immovable, impassable, incapable, incomplete, illogical,
More prefixes – af, ad, af, at, ap, ar, as
Often , but not always, adding them results in double letters – affix, affect, appear,
attain, accord, arrears
Admit, advance,
Prefixes can be added to a shorter root word (per, pro, pre) – progress, prefer, perform.
Perfect, proceed, prevent
Homophones - extend –need, knead, rain, reign, peer, pier, pray, prey, aisle, isle
Adding suffixes – words ending in ‘e’
Drop the ‘e’ to add vowel suffixes; keep the ‘e’ to add consonant suffixes – hope,
hoping, hoped, hopeful, hopeless, using, used, useful, useless
Adding suffixes – words ending y
Change y to i to add all suffixes except ing
Pity, pitiful, pitied, pitying
Heavy, heavier, heaviest, heavily, heaviness
Exceptions – shy, shyness, shyly
Adding suffixes – double last letter
Double the last letter to add vowel suffixes such as ed, er, est, en, ing and y
Kidnap, kidnapper, picnic, picnicked
But not if the word ends with an unstressed syllable – target, targeted
Beginner, permitted, regretting, admitting
Developing, gossiping, marketing
adorable/adorably (adoration),
applicable/applicably (application), considerable/considerably (consideration),
tolerable/tolerably (toleration)
changeable, noticeable, forcible, legible
dependable, comfortable, understandable, reasonable, enjoyable, reliable
possible/possibly, horrible/horribly, terrible/terribly, visible/visibly, incredible/incredibly,
sensible/sensibly
Adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words ending in –fer
The r is doubled if the –fer is still stressed when the ending is added.
The r is not doubled if the –fer is no longer stressed.
referring, referred, referral, preferring, preferred, transferring, transferred
reference, referee, preference, transference
Word families – thinking about family of words and words linked by meaning can help
you with spelling – medic, medical, medicine, sign, signal, signature, act, actor, activity,
Word histories eg prim (meaning first) – prime, primary, primitive, primrose
Auto aero – aqua - audi
Common confusions:
Eliminated, illuminated, decent, descent, wary, weary, country, county, loose, lose,
choose, chose, dessert, desert, lightening, lightning, eligible, illegible, angel, angle,
proceeds, precedes, dairy, diary
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Stage 6
‘cious’ or ‘tious’
If the root word ends in ‘ce’ the sound is usually spelt as ‘c’ eg grace, gracious, space,
spacious
vicious, precious, conscious, delicious, malicious, suspicious
ambitious, cautious, fictitious, infectious, nutritious
–cial is common after a vowel letter and –tial after a consonant letter, but there are
some exceptions.
Exceptions: initial, financial, commercial, provincial
official, special, artificial, partial, confidential, essential
The ‘i before e except after c’ rule applies to words where the sound spelt by ei is /i:/.
Exceptions: protein, caffeine, seize (and either and neither if pronounced with an initial
/i:/ sound).
deceive, conceive, receive, perceive, ceiling
Many vowel and consonant sounds have alternative spellings
The ‘k’ sound is sometimes ‘ch’ – stomach, scheme
The ‘i’ sound is sometimes spelt ‘y’ – system
Other examples: (gu) guardian, language, (que) technique, boutique, (ui) bruise, juice,
Many longer words are built by adding more than one affix- re source ful ness, un easy
ness, un accept able
Rules and exceptions
Just add ‘ly’ unless the word ends y, le or ic
Ready, readily, suitable, suitably, tragic, tragically
Some short words do not follow the rules – true, truly, shy, shyly
Visual strategies – look for smaller words within other words to help you remember the
spelling
Favourite honour relief thorough country
Unstressed vowels
Several miserable vegetable chocolate memorable opportunity abandoned
individual literature medicine generally category corporal decimal vocabulary
laboratory escalator familiar mineral abominable similarly ceremony astronomy
development business compromise controversy violence permanent parliament
miniature explanatory extraordinary
Unstressed consonants
Handbag Wednesday government handsome raspberry cupboard shepherd
chestnut handkerchief sandwich environment punctual moisten pattern
recognise attempts exhibition particular hundredth modern exhilarate
Unstressed endings – ant, ance, ent, ence
Sometimes a related word can help make the ‘a’ and ‘e’ sound clear – confident,
confidence, hesitate, hesitant, hesitancy
Use ‘ent’ or ‘emce’ after soft ‘c’ and ‘g’ sounds – intelligent, intelligence
Dependent, dependence, absent, absence, permanent, permanence
Elegant, elegance, ignorant, ignorance, assistant, assistance
Exceptions – assistant, assistance, obedient, obedience, independent, independence
Double or single consonants
There is usually a reason for double consonants, for example, an affix has been added
or the consonant follows a short vowel – misspell, rattle
Immediate, recommend, disapprove, programme
Prefixes – dis, de, ex, re, sub, con
distract, detract, extract, retract, subtract, contract
un, in, en, as
unsure, insure, ensure, assure
Hyphens
Use a hyphen to join a prefix if it confuses letter combinations
co-writer, re-assemble, re-examine, de-ice
Confusions
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In the pairs of words opposite, nouns end –ce and verbs end –se. Advice and advise
provide a useful clue as the word advise (verb) is pronounced with a /z/ sound – which
could not be spelt c.
More examples:
aisle: a gangway between seats (in a church, train, plane). isle: an island.
aloud: out loud. allowed: permitted.
affect: usually a verb (e.g. The weather may affect our plans). effect: usually a noun
(e.g. It may have an effect on our plans). If a verb, it means ‘bring about’ (e.g. He will
effect changes in the running of the business).
altar: a table-like piece of furniture in a church. alter: to change.
ascent: the act of ascending (going up). assent: to agree/agreement (verb and noun).
bridal: to do with a bride at a wedding. bridle: reins etc. for controlling a horse.
cereal: made from grain (e.g. breakfast cereal). serial: adjective from the noun series –
a succession of things one after the other.
compliment: to make nice remarks about someone (verb) or the remark that is made
(noun). complement: related to the word complete – to make something complete or
more complete (e.g. her scarf complemented her outfit).
descent: the act of descending (going down). dissent: to disagree/disagreement (verb
and noun).
desert: as a noun – a barren place (stress on first syllable); as a verb – to abandon
(stress on second syllable) dessert: (stress on second syllable) a sweet course after the
main course of a meal.
draft: noun – a first attempt at writing something; verb – to make the first attempt; also,
to draw in someone (e.g. to draft in extra help) draught: a current of air.
Examples
advice/advise
device/devise
licence/license
practice/practise
prophecy/prophesy
farther: further father: a male parent
guessed: past tense of the verb guess guest: visitor
heard: past tense of the verb hear herd: a group of animals
led: past tense of the verb lead lead: present tense of that
lead: present tense of that verb, or else the metal which is very heavy (as heavy as
lead)
morning: before noon mourning: grieving for someone who has died
past: noun or adjective referring to a previous time (e.g. In the past) or preposition or
adverb showing place (e.g. he walked past me) passed: past tense of the verb ‘pass’
(e.g. I passed him in the road)
precede: go in front of or before
proceed: go on
principal: adjective – most important (e.g. principal ballerina) noun – important person
(e.g. principal of a college) principle: basic truth or belief
profit: money that is made in selling things prophet: someone who foretells the future
stationary: not moving stationery: paper, envelopes
steal: take something that does not belong to you steel: metal
wary: cautious weary: tired
who’s: contraction of who is or who has whose: belonging to someone (e.g. Whose
jacket is that?)
Homophones and near homophones
Foreward, forward, current, currant, accept, except, minor, miner, past, passed, whose,
who’s, coarse, course
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Adding suffixes to words ending ’l’
For longer words that end with a short vowel and ‘l’, double the ‘l’ to add most vowel
suffixes – travel, travelled, travelling, traveller
Adding suffixes to words ending ‘fer’
When adding a vowel suffix, double the ‘r’ if the ‘fer’ syllable is stressed – referring,
referral, referred
But do not double if the ‘fer’ is unstressed – referee, reference
Adding ‘ate’, ‘ify’, ‘ise’, and ‘en’
These vowel suffixes are added to roots to form verbs – educate, qualify, realise, soften
Changes to root words
Some root words change in unusual ways when certain vowel suffixes are added –
able, ability, proclaim, proclamation, curious, curiosity, reveal, revelation
Greek spelling patterns
Odd spellings such as ‘ph’ for ‘f’ often come from Greek words – phonics, phrase,
phoneme, phantom, phobia
More – phy, hy, rh, ps, pn
Psalm, physical. Hygiene, rhinoceros, pneumatic
Word endings
ior, ion, ium, ius
junior, million, aquarium, radius, warrior, rebellion, medium, genius
Confusions
icle, acle, ical
tropical, article, obstacle
est, ist
modest, extremist
een, ene, ine
magazine, eighteen, submarine
ough is one of the trickiest spellings in English – it can be used to spell a number of
different sounds.
ought, bought, thought, nought, brought, fought
rough, tough, enough
cough
though, although, dough
through
thorough, borough
plough, bough
People and places
The suffixes ‘an’ and ‘ian’ help from adjectives relating to people and places – Austrian,
Kenyan,
See appendix 1
Word list years 5 and 6
The spelling policy is organised into 6 stages of progression and can be assigned to year groups.
However, teachers should apply decisions to the current stage that children are working on and
teach accordingly to meet individual learning needs.
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