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 year 5 and 6, 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 |
Endings which sound like /ʃəs/ spelt –cious or –tious | vicious, precious, conscious, delicious, malicious, suspicious, ambitious, cautious, fictitious, infectious, nutritious | |
Endings which sound like /ʃəl/ | official, special, artificial, partial, confidential, essential | |
Words ending in –ant, –ance/–ancy, –ent, –ence/–ency | observant, observance, (observation), expectant (expectation), hesitant, hesitancy (hesitation), tolerant, tolerance (toleration), substance (substantial) innocent, innocence, decent, decency, frequent, frequency, confident, confidence (confidential) assistant, assistance, obedient, obedience, independent, independence | 1 |
Words ending in –able and –ible Words ending in –ably and –ibly | 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 | 1 |
Adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words ending in –fer | referring, referred, referral, preferring, preferred, transferring, transferred reference, referee, preference, transference | |
Use of the hyphen | co-ordinate, re-enter, co-operate, co-own | |
Words with the /i:/ sound spelt ei after c | deceive, conceive, receive, perceive, ceiling | |
Words containing the letter-string ough | ought, bought, thought, nought, brought, fought, rough, tough, enough cough though, although, dough, through thorough, borough, plough, bough | |
Words with ‘silent’ letters (i.e. letters whose presence cannot be predicted from the pronunciation of the word) | doubt, island, lamb, solemn, thistle, knight | 1 |
Homophones and other words that are often confused | advice/advise, device/devise, licence/license, practice/practise, prophecy/prophesy More examples to be found in the Spelling Appendix (see link below) | 1 |
To see the whole spelling appendix click here.