You may have guessed that our words this term all revolve around synonyms!

Enriching vocabulary is incredibly important, especially as pupils transition to secondary school. Encourage your child to use a variety of words, and to find a stronger or more specific word to describe something they see, or how they feel. 

Words that function as verbs and nouns:

A spelling list with a grammatical rule this week! Make sure you can spell all these words, but also use them in sentences as both a noun and a verb, as this is always a question that comes up in the test!

e.g. I love the challenge of climbing mountains (noun: easy to spot because it has 'the' in front of it)

I love to challenge myself by climbing mountains (verb: easy to spot because it has 'to' in front of it)

challenge

protest

broadcast

benefit

charge

function

influence

interest

object

damage

Word families: gram

...which derives from Greek and is often associated with words that mean written  or drawn.

This week's spellings are words that end in -tious and -cious. 

spacious

scrumptious

malicious

ambitious

cautious

ferocious

gracious

superstitious

pretentious

conscientious

But how do we know which to choose?

To help learn the spelling of words ending in either –cious or –tious:

• If the root word ends in ce e.g. space, remove the -ce and replace with -cious. E.g. space – spacious; malice – malicious

• If the root word ends in tion e.g. nutrition, remove the -tion and replace with -tious.  E.g. nutrition – nutritious; caution – cautious

 There are some exceptions to the above rules e.g. delicious, fictitious, anxious. These exceptions just need to be learnt

Have a look at the BBC Bitesize page:

New spellings are from the statutory word list:

sincerely

privilege

legible

criticise

occupy

hindrance

signature

disastrous

marvellous

necessary

This week, our words involve silent letters!

knight

solemn

autumn

doubt

silhouette

yacht

succumb

wrestle

aisle

mortgage

Make sure you know how to spell these too!

tial

Following on from last week, our words are: 

partial

confidential

essential

substantial

torrential

sequential

potential

spatial

martial

influential

cial

This week, our words all have -cial endings, not to be confused with -tial endings!

It's confusing, as they sound the same.

Our words for this week are:

official

special

artificial

social

racial

crucial

facial

beneficial

superficial

antisocial

-cial & -tial endings usually sound the same "shul"

special, confidential, initial, official

If you're wondering why we have these two when one would do, it's all about the French and Latin origins of these words, and the t or c in the original word:

e.g.
potential - from late Latin potentialis, from potentia 'power', from potent- 'being able'
facial - from medieval Latin facialis, from facies
initial - from Latin initialis, from initium 'beginning'

(You don't need to know French and Latin but it's always good to know why spellings and words are the way they are.)

There's a rule about which one to use but, like all rules, there are exceptions.

What's the letter before these -cial words: social, special, beneficial?

What's the letter before these -tial words: essential, substantial, partial?

Rule:

Use -cial after a vowel, like after the vowel 'o' in social, 'e' in special, 'i' in beneficial

Use -tial after a consonant, especially, after 'n' in substantial, essential, and 'r' in partial  

***

vowel + cial =
social, special, official, crucial, judicial, artificial, racial, beneficial, superficial, unofficial, facial, glacial, especially, specially, sacrificial, prejudicial, antisocial, multiracial.

especially and specially are very common usage words. They mean the same thing but especially is used more in writing and formally. To remember the spellings try breaking them down    e + special + ly = especially,  special + ly = specially

exceptions - consonant + cial:
financial commercial provincial
because the root words end in -ce (finance - financial, commerce - commercial, province - provincial) 

***

-tial    n + tial =
potential, essential, substantial, residential, presidential, influential, differential, confidential, sequential, preferential, consequential, celestial, existential, circumstantial, prudential, torrential, referential, exponential, inconsequential, insubstantial, experiential, quintessential, evidential, deferential, credential

r + tial =  martial, impartial, partial

p + tial = nuptial, prenuptial

exceptions - vowels + tial
initial, spatial, palatial 

***

The word “controversial” is controversial because it contradicts all the rules and is spelled with “s.” 

***

Memorise these seven exceptions:

financial, commercial, provincial, initial, spatial, palatial, controversial 

Statutory Words

This week's words are from the Statutory Word List. It is essential that pupils can spell most (Expected Standard) or some (Working Towards) of the words on this list. This doesn't mean only spelling these words correctly though - any words which follow a similar spelling rule or pattern is also expected to be spelt correctly. 

So, if you want to achieve Y6 Expected Standard, you need to be able to either spell the statutory word list correctly, or recognise when you may need to check your writing with a dictionary and self-edit!

Please practise as many words as you can from the lists as often as you can. This week, let's focus on:

attached

ancient

average

competition

conscience

correspond

embarrass

especially

exaggerate

cemetery

Homophones!

There are so many homophones (words that sounds the same but have different meanings) in the English language that it's easy to get caught out. 

This week, let's try to practise the following:

principal (adjective): chief / main / first / primary 

principal (noun): headteacher or leader of a college

principle (noun): a basic idea or rule that explains or controls how something happens or works

precede (verb): to go before something or someone

proceed (verb): to continue as planned, to move forward

their (determiner): of or belonging to them

there (adverb): that place

they're (contraction): they are 

stationery (noun): the things needed for writing

stationary (adjective): not moving or not changing

compliment (noun): a remark that expresses approval, admiration or respect

complement (verb): to make something else seem better or more attractive when combining with it

ough

Spellings this week focus on the -ough letter strand. 

-ie -ei words

We are looking at words with the -ee- sound (phoneme) which has the -ie or -ei grapheme.

If the sound is -ee-, then the rule is that the 'i comes before the e':

siege

believe

mischievous

achieve

However, if there is the consonant 'c' directly before the grapheme, then it changes to -ei:

receive

receipt

deceive

Watch out! There are also some exception words:

caffeine

seize

(I have also included 'convenience' as this is often mispelled, but is actually a different phoneme)

18.10.18

Compound Adjectives

man-eating

little-used

rock-bottom

wide-eyed

pig-headed

tight-fisted

cold-hearted

stone-faced

green-eyed

short-tempered 

w/c 8th Oct

 This week, please practise words containing hyphenated prefixes. We hyphenate when the word would look strange or it may be difficult to know how to pronounce it without the hyphen:

co-operate

co-ordinate

co-own

co-author

re-enter

re-educate

re-examine

re-evaluate

re-energise

re-elect

w/c 1st Oct

This week, we look at the -ent / -ence / -ency words...

I will also include 'blind' words in the test: words that follow the same format or rule but were not included in the practise list.

innocent

innocence

decent

decency

excellent

excellence

confident

confidence

existent

existence

w/c 24th September

This week's spellings are words that end in -ant/-ance/-ancy, as opposed to -ent/-ence/-ency (next week!). 

observant

observance

expectant

expectancy

hesitant

hesitancy

tolerant

tolerance

relevant

relevance

w/c 17th September:

This week, the rule is all around whether we use -ce or -se.

e.g. practice, spelt with -ce is a noun (doctor's practice, choir practice etc), whereas practise spelt with -se is a verb (we need to practise our spellings etc)

advice

advise

device

devise

licence

license

prophecy

prophesy

practice

practise

w/c 10th September

This week, we are looking at using more ambitious vocabulary in our writing:

aggressive

hostile

awkward

obstinate

desperate

frantic

disastrous

calamitous

marvellous

spectacular