Learning weekly spellings without the night-before cram
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The list comes home on Monday, the test is on Friday, and the learning happens on Thursday night. Children often pass the test that way, then misspell the same words in their writing a fortnight later.
Two changes fix most of this. Spread the practice over several short sessions, because returning to words after a gap is far better for long-term memory than one cram. And look for patterns, because most English spellings are not random. A child who understands why happiness has an i will find business and loneliness easier too.
The four-day routine
Each session takes five to ten minutes.
Monday: find the pattern. Read the list together and ask what the words have in common. Do they all end in -tion? Do they share a silent letter? Circle the ones that look tricky, and think of another word that follows the same pattern. Then go through each word once with look, say, cover, write, check:
- Look carefully at the word.
- Say it aloud, perhaps in syllables.
- Cover it.
- Write it from memory.
- Check it letter by letter against the original.
Covering is the step that matters. Copying a word five times while looking at it trains the hand, not the memory.
Tuesday: tricky words only. Look, say, cover, write, check again for the circled words, and find a memory trick for each.
Wednesday: use them. Write each word in a sentence, or play with them: spell a word aloud while bouncing a ball, or hide several in one silly sentence (The necessary camel ate a separate sandwich).
Thursday: practice test. Read the words in a random order, not list order. Mark together. Any wrong words get one more round of look, say, cover, write, check, and that is all. No late-night drilling.
Four rules worth knowing
Treat these as strong patterns rather than laws, since almost every English spelling rule has exceptions. They still save a great deal of guesswork.
1. Short word, one vowel, one final consonant: double the consonant before -ing or -ed. hop → hopping, stop → stopped, run → running
2. Words ending in e: drop the e before a suffix starting with a vowel, but usually keep it before a consonant. hope → hoping, but hopeful; care → caring, but careless
3. Consonant + y: change the y to i before most suffixes, but keep it before -ing. happy → happiness, carry → carried, busy → business; but carry → carrying
4. Longer words: double the final consonant if the last syllable is stressed. forget → forgetting, begin → beginning; but garden → gardening and limit → limited, where the stress falls on the first syllable
Memory tricks for words that break the rules
Some words simply have to be learned. A trick makes them stick.
| Word | Trick |
|---|---|
| necessary | One collar, two sleeves: one c, two s |
| separate | There is a rat in separate |
| because | Big elephants can always understand small elephants |
| rhythm | Rhythm helps your two hips move |
| February, Wednesday | Say them as they are spelt: Feb-ru-ar-y, Wed-nes-day |
| island | An island is land |
| business | You go to business on a bus |
| sign | Think of signature, where you can hear the g |
The last one shows something useful: word families. Sign, signal and signature share a spelling because they share a meaning. Medical helps with medicine; bombard explains the b in bomb.
Quick check: Can your child find the smaller word hiding inside knowledge? (Know, which explains the silent k.)
Why the test score can mislead
Full marks every Friday but the same words wrong in stories? The words are being learned for the test rather than for good. Add two or three old words to each Thursday test, and ask your child to use this week's words in their next piece of writing. Sound-alikes such as there, their and they're, or affect and effect, need practising in sentences; ModernScholar's commonly confused words quiz is a quick self-test for older juniors.
If your child regularly gets very few right, ask the teacher whether a shorter list would help: six words learned properly beat twelve half-learned. Spelling fits easily into an existing homework routine, and EduPrintables has free worksheets for extra practice on paper.
In Year 6, spelling sits in the same test as grammar; our guide to KS2 grammar terms covers the other half.
Sources and further reading
- National curriculum in England: English programmes of study – Appendix 1 sets out the spelling rules and statutory word lists for each year group.
- Downloadable materials (The Learning Scientists) – free posters on spaced practice and retrieval practice, the ideas behind the four-day routine.
- Words for Life (National Literacy Trust) – literacy activities for families, grouped by age.
