The National Curriculum provides a spelling appendix, intended to give rules and guidance to support the teaching of spelling. Below are the statutory requirements for years 3 and 4, along with some example words and a link to an activity that can be used to support the teaching and learning of this requirement.
| Statutory Requirement | Example Words | Playful Games to Play |
| Adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words of more than one syllable | forgetting, forgotten, beginning, beginner, prefer, preferred, gardening, gardener, limiting, limited, limitation | |
| The / / ɪ sound spelt y elsewhere than at the end of words | myth, gym, Egypt, pyramid, mystery | |
| The /ʌ/ sound spelt ou | young, touch, double, trouble, country | |
| More prefixes | dis–: disappoint, disagree, disobey mis–: misbehave, mislead, misspell (mis spell) in–: inactive, incorrect illegal, illegible immature, immortal, impossible, impatient, imperfect irregular, irrelevant, irresponsible re–: redo, refresh, return, reappear, redecorate sub–: subdivide, subheading, submarine, submerge inter–: interact, intercity, international, interrelated (inter + related) super–: supermarket, superman, superstar anti–: antiseptic, anticlockwise, antisocial auto–: autobiography, autograph | |
| The suffix –ation | information, adoration, sensation, preparation, admiration | 1 |
| The suffix –ly | sadly, completely, usually (usual + ly), finally (final + ly), comically (comically) happily, angrily gently, simply, humbly, nobly basically, frantically, dramatically | 1 |
| Words with endings sounding like /ʒə/ or /tʃə/ | measure, treasure, pleasure, enclosure creature, furniture, picture, nature, adventure | |
| Endings which sound like /ʒən/ | division, invasion, confusion, decision, collision, television | |
| The suffix –ous | poisonous, dangerous, mountainous, famous, various, tremendous, enormous, jealous humorous, glamorous, vigorous courageous, outrageous, serious, obvious, curious, hideous, spontaneous, courteous | 1 |
| Endings which sound like /ʃən/, spelt –tion, –sion, –ssion, –cian | invention, injection, action, hesitation, completion expression, discussion, confession, permission, admission expansion, extension, comprehension, tension musician, electrician, magician, politician, mathematician | |
| Words with the /k/ sound spelt ch (Greek in origin) | scheme, chorus, chemist, echo, character | |
| Words with the /ʃ/ sound spelt ch (mostly French in origin) | chef, chalet, machine, brochure | |
| Words ending with the /g/ sound spelt –gue and the /k/ sound spelt –que (French in origin) | league, tongue, antique, unique | |
| Words with the /s/ sound spelt sc (Latin in origin) | science, scene, discipline, fascinate, crescent | |
| Words with the /eɪ/ sound spelt ei, eigh, or ey | vein, weigh, eight, neighbour, they, obey | 1 |
| Possessive apostrophe with plural words | girls’, boys’, babies’, children’s, men’s, mice’s (Note: singular proper nouns ending in an s use the ’s suffix e.g. Cyprus’s population) | |
| Homophones and near-homophones | accept/except, affect/effect, ball/bawl, berry/bury, brake/break, fair/fare, grate/great, groan/grown, here/hear, heel/heal/he’ll, knot/not, mail/male, main/mane, meat/meet, medal/meddle, missed/mist, peace/piece, plain/plane, rain/rein/reign, scene/seen, weather/whether, whose/who’s | 1 |