Top tips for parents:
Highlight the Hard Bit
Frequently, there will be one part of a word that trips up your child each time. Look at the word together and highlight the part that they find particularly tricky. For example:
Night Separate Was Receive Weird
What Two Friend Said Cheap
Or there may be two parts that need attention, for instance;
Accommodate Address Necessary
Once you’ve done the highlighting together, get them to write out the word again without looking. This time they’ll be more focused on getting that tricky bit right, and will be able to remember how it looks.
Make the Spelling Stick
If one or two parts of a particular word just don’t seem to ‘sink in’ by simply highlighting them, try to think of other ways to help them stick.
For example:
- With weird, people often get the i and e confused. Help by saying weare weird, so your child remembers that we is the first part of the word.
- For the double s in dessert: desserts are both sweet and sugary.
- For a word with two ‘tricky’ parts, like necessary, think Cats Eat Salty Sardines to remember the c and the double s (see ‘Make it an acronym’ below).
Break it Down
Try breaking down polysyllabic words to make each syllable easier to remember. Even young children may be doing this at school – they might call syllables ‘beats’. Help them decipher how many ‘beats’ or syllables there are in a word by clapping the word together, one clap per syllable.
So, for two-syllable words…
Danger Dan / ger
Windmill Wind / mill
Option Op / tion
And for three-syllable words…
Relation Re / la / tion
Beautiful Beau / ti / ful
It may help to segment the words into a chart like this:
| Syllable 1 | Syllable 2 | Syllable 3 |
| Re | la | tion |
Copy it, Copy it, Recall it.
Use a chart like this:
| Copy it | Copy it | Recall it |
| What | What | What |
After your child has copied the word twice, fold the paper over so they can’t see what they’ve written and ask them to have a go at writing the word unaided. They should be able to recall the spelling without looking.
Another classic technique is known as Look, Cover, Write and Check.
So, they look at the word…
Cover the word…
Write the word…
And finally check it.
Year 5/6 spelling List
accommodate
accompany
according
achieve
aggressive
amateur
ancient
apparent
appreciate
attached
available
average
awkward
bargain
bruise
category
cemetery
committee
communicate
community
competition
conscience*
conscious*
controversy
convenience
correspond
criticise (critic + ise)
curiosity
definite
desperate
determined
develop
dictionary
disastrous
embarrass
environment
equip (–ped, –ment)
especially
exaggerate
excellent
existence
explanation
familiar
foreign
forty
frequently
government
guarantee
harass
hindrance
identity
immediate(ly)
individual
interfere
interrupt
language
leisure
lightning
marvellous
mischievous
muscle
necessary
neighbour
nuisance
occupy
occur
opportunity
parliament
persuade
physical
prejudice
privilege
profession
programme
pronunciation
queue
recognise
recommend
relevant
restaurant
rhyme
rhythm
sacrifice
secretary
shoulder
signature
sincere(ly)
soldier
stomach
sufficient
suggest
symbol
system
temperature
thorough
twelfth
variety
vegetable
vehicle
yacht
Y5 Amethyst 