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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 2 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 3 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 4 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 5 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, 6 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, 7 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’. 8 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 9 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 10 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 11 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. 12 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 13 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 14 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 15 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 16 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. 17