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Spelling Lists and Quick Tips

A comprehensive guide to common spelling difficulties in English, including silent letters, doubled consonants, unstressed vowels, ie/ei words, words with prefixes and words with suffixes. Improve your spelling skills with these lists and quick tips.

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Spelling Lists and Quick Tips

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  1. Spelling Lists and Quick Tips 75% of English spellings are regular and predictable. It just so happens that many of our most commonly used words are some of the most irregular. Spelling could be seen as the flip-side of reading, which most educators agree is the most important skill to develop in our students. Both spelling and reading rely on students’ abilities to connect written letters with the sounds they make.

  2. Spelling Lists and Quick Tips There are 6 types of spelling that cause difficulties. In English, we have grouped them so students can see patterns, and we’ve allocated one of these types of spellings to each half term. Silent letters; Doubled consonants; Unstressed vowels; ie/ei words; Words with prefixes; Words with suffixes For each group we test students on 20 of the most commonly misspelt words at the start and then the end of each half term. Here are the lists with some (by no means comprehensive) tips.

  3. Silent letters (Term 1) These words contain either a consonant or a vowel which students cannot ‘hear’ when they pronounce the word. The best way for students to improve their spelling of these words is to sound out (pronounce) the letter which is silent. 11. Knowledge 12. Parliament 13. Psychology 14. School 15. Science 16. Thorough 17. Through 18. Thumb 19. Which 20. Wrapping 1. Business 2. Column 3. Conscious 4. Environment 5. Excited 6. Foreign 7. Ghost 8. Government 9. Guard 10. Know

  4. The most common reason for consonant doubling is to maintain the sound of a vowel that would otherwise be changed by the presence of a later vowel. E.g. Hop with a short ‘o’ becomes hope with a long ‘oh’ thanks to the presence of the letter e. Hoping has a long ‘oh’ sound thanks to the letter i. To maintain the short ‘o’ sound, the p is doubled in hopping. For some of these words there are useful mnemonics: ‘One collar two sleeves’ for necessary ‘When I’m embarrassed I go really red and start shaking. Doubled consonants 11. Embarrass 12. Harass 13. Immediate 14. Necessary 15. Occur 16. Possess 17. Possible 18. Preferred 19. Terrible 20. Tomorrow 1. Accommodate 2. Appalled 3. Aggressive 4. Apparent 5. Appear 6. Appoint 7. Bizarre 8. Committee 9. Different 10. Dilemma

  5. Just like silent letters, these words cause problems because you can’t hear a letter making a distinct sound. E.g. In apparent you hear apparuhnt because the e is unstressed. In interest it is easy to write intrest and miss out the e because it’s unstressed. As with silent letters, the simplest solution is for students to ‘say’ the letter out loud and give it an artificial stress. Unstressed vowels 11. Incident 12. Interest 13. Persistent 14. Poisonous 15. Propaganda 16. Religious 17. Resistance 18. Secretary 19. Separate 20. Tendency 1. Apparent 2. Beauty 3. Boundary 4. Certain 5. Curious 6. Definite 7. Dependent 8. Deter 9. Embarrass 10. Fluorescent

  6. These words are tricky but can be grouped: i before e except after cBelieve / Relieve / Achieve Receive / Deceive / Receipt This works where the ie/ei makes a simple ‘ee’ sound. Exceptions to this rule. Helpful I know! Seize / Caffeine The ‘cie’ familyWith these you can just about hear the separate i and e sounds: Science / Ancient / Sufficient Oddities! Neither / either / weird ie / ei words 11. Neither 12. Patient 13. Protein 14. Receipt 15. Receive 16. Science 17. Seized 18. Soldier 19. Sufficient 20. Weird 1. Ancient 2. Believe 3. Conscience 4. Counterfeit 5. Deceive 6. Efficient 7. Either 8. Foreign 9. Forfeit 10. Leisure

  7. If these are misspelt it is usually because students don’t know how to spell the prefix: Dis = one s. Dissatisfy has two because it brought one from the root word ‘satisfy’ Mis = one s. Misspelling has two because it brought one from the root word ‘spelling’ Ir = one r You can see a pattern emerging here! Words with prefixes 11. Misbehave 12. Misplace 13. Misspelling 14. Reaction 15. Rearrange 16. Reappear 17. Rewrite 18. Uncertain 19. Unfamiliar 20. Uninterested 1. Disappoint 2. Dishonest 3. Dissatisfy 4. Impatient 5. Incorrect 6. Indefinite 7. Independent 8. Infinite 9. Impossible 10. Irresistible

  8. If these are misspelt it is usually because students don’t know how to spell the suffix: ful = one l. The only word in English that ends ‘full’ is the opposite of empty! ly Very few words in English end ‘ley’, and the ‘ley’ is part of the root word:Valley / galley / motley However there are some tricky ones they’ll just need to learn like the double r in occurred which stops it sounding like ‘cured’. Words with suffixes 11. Excitable 12. Finally 13. Guardian 14. Happened 15. Harassment 16. Immediately 17. Incidentally 18. Occurred 19. Occurring 20. Terribly 1. Accommodation 2. Aggression 3. Apparently 4. Appearance 5. Awful 6. Basically 7. Beautiful 8. Definitely 9. Deterred 10. Dissatisfied

  9. Some ‘Dos’

  10. And finally... At a recent Heads of English conference, the main speaker managed to use the wrong version of ‘practise’ throughout their whole presentation, which was unfortunate. Here’s a quick way of remembering which one to use:

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