Spelling in Year 5 and Year 6
Spelling in Year 5 and Year 6
The 2014 curriculum groups spellings for Years 5 and 6 together, so it is up to a teacher's discretion which spellings they decide to give out in which year group.
Year 5 and Year 6 spelling patterns and rules
In Years 5 and 6, the following spelling rules and patterns will be taught:
- Words ending -cious and -tious such as 'delicious' and 'superstitious'
- Words ending -cial and -tial such as 'special' and 'partial'
- Words ending -ant, -ance and -ancy such as 'hesitant', 'hesitance' and 'hesitancy'
- Words ending -ent, -ence and -ency such as ‘patient’, ‘patience’ and ‘frequency’
- Words ending -able / -ably and -ible / -ibly such as 'comfortable' / 'comfortably' and 'horrible' / 'horribly'
- Adding -ing / -ed to words ending -fer, for example: 'prefer', 'preferring' and 'preferred'
- Use of the hyphen, for example: 'co-ordinate', 're-enter'
- Words containing ie / ei, for example: 'piece' and 'ceiling'
- Words containing ough and looking at the different sounds this grapheme makes in different words, for example: 'enough', 'through', 'although', 'plough'
- Silent letters in words such as 'doubt', 'thistle' and 'knight'
- Homophones (words which sound the same but are spelled differently) for example: 'principle' and 'principal'
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How spelling is taught in Year 5 and Year 6
Spelling words get considerably harder in Years 5 and 6, however the time spent on teaching spellings may be reduced due to preparation for tests. Children need to become much more independent when it comes to learning their own spellings and ensure that they keep up the practice for their weekly spelling tests.
Year 5 spelling worksheets and Year 6 spelling worksheets
Look through our selection of Y5 spelling worksheets and Y6 spelling worksheets for code-breaking challenges, wordsearches and other spelling learning activities.
TheSchoolRun has also produced Y5 spelling practice tests and Y6 spelling practice tests to help revise the common spelling patterns and tricky words learned in each year group.
How spelling is taught in primary school, year by year
Find out what words and spelling patterns children are taught in each year of primary school with our parents' guides:
Spelling in Reception
Spelling in Year 1
Spelling in Year 2
Spelling in Year 3 and Year 4
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