Year 5 and 6 Spelling List

Spelling is an important part of Key Stage Two (KS2) and is formally assessed in the Year 6 SAT tests.

The National Curriculum details a list of 100 words that children should be able to spell by the end of Year 6, and, fortunately, there are some fantastic online resources available to help you support your child's learning at home. As parents, it's obviously important that we understand what is expected of our child's spelling ability, so Kidadl has created this handy resource to allow you to support your child's spelling of words essential to KS2.

In terms of spelling, pupils in Years 5 and 6 work towards mastering the same statutory list of 100 words.  This list is a key resource, comprised of words that children use frequently in their writing, and words that children commonly misspell. The National Curriculum sets a standard of seven key targets for pupils to achieve by the end of Year 6.

These are:

1.Children should have a good understanding of prefixes and suffixes and be able to use them confidently and correctly.

2.They should be proficient at spelling words that contain 'silent' letters.

3.They should be able to determine the difference between words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings (homophones).

4.They should understand that the origin (etymology) and structure (morphology) of a word can indicate its spelling and meaning.

5.They should be able to use a dictionary as a resource to check meanings and spellings.

6.They should be able to find words in a dictionary using the first three or four letters of a word.

7.They should be able to use a thesaurus as a resource to search for synonyms and antonyms.

During Year 5, teaching of spelling focuses on words for which certain rules apply.

The rules Year 5 pupils learn include:

The 'ough' letter patterns and sounds.

The 'i before e' rule.

The 'shul' sound; words ending in 'tial' and 'cial'.

Naturally, the spelling rules learned during Year 6,  are more difficult than those covered in Year 5.

They include:

The 'shous' sound; words ending in 'cious' or 'tious'.

Adding 'ly' to the end of an adjective to form an adverb.

Adding 'ation' to the end of a verb to form a noun.

Learning to spell words is much easier, for both you and your child, if you are able to engage them in an educational activity that feels a bit more exciting than standard homework tasks.  If you search online, you will find a whole host of fun resources that have been created exactly for this purpose, and many schools offer guidance in the form of resource packs for parents.  

A few of our favourite tips for assisting your child's spelling at home include:

Making silly sentences using as many words as possible from their spelling list.

Creating rhymes using their spelling words.

Creating fun crosswords using their spelling words.

Encouraging your child to make their own mnemonics to assist them in remembering how to spell words they struggle with.

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

Curiosity

Definite

Desperate

Determined

Develop

Dictionary

Disastrous

Embarrass

Environment

Equip (equipped, equipment)

Especially

Exaggerate

Excellent

Existence

Explanation

Familiar

Foreign

Forty

Frequently

Government

Guarantee

Harass

Hindrance

Identity

Immediate (immediately)

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 (sincerely)

Soldier

Stomach

Sufficient

Suggest

Symbol

System

Temperature

Thorough

Twelfth

Variety

Vegetable

Vehicle

Yacht