Downloadable Year 6 Spelling Word List and Practice Tips
Your child's sixth year will be a pivotal and exciting one. They will be preparing for both SATs and secondary school in earnest now that they have reached the top of the school, and they will acquire much more independence and resilience as the year progresses.
Your kid will now be required to know how to use a broad range of punctuation, write using a variety of sentence patterns, utilise a large vocabulary, and spell words correctly in English. They may be completely self-sufficient readers, selecting novels and nonfiction works depending on their own interests. Your child's writing at school will become more confident and imaginative.
In Year 6, your kid will be able to spell increasingly difficult words with more precision.
Year 6 students can use the resources below to:
Develop thesaurus skills that will enhance their writing practice and handwriting techniques.
Master their spelling of the year 5 and 6 words list comprehend the typical exception.
Words develop thesaurus skills that will improve their writing.
Increasing the Number of Prefixes and Suffixes
Suffixes are morphemes (groups of letters that have their own meaning) that are appended to the end of a root or root word to alter its meaning. Prefixes are morphemes that are appended to the beginning of a word.
In Years 5 and 6, your child will study a variety of prefixes and suffixes that may be used to spell larger words and modify their meaning.
Using Silent Letters to Spell Some Words
Some words contain letters that were spoken hundreds of years ago but no longer exist in modern English. For example, there used to be a 'k' sound before the 'n' in 'knight.' Because the pronunciation has changed but the spelling hasn't, the term now has a silent letter that can't be anticipated based on how it sounds. This type of word is notoriously difficult to spell.
Some of these words will be taught to your kid in Years 5 and 6, including the following:
doubt, island, lamb, solemn, thistle, and knight.
Easy Spelling Words for Year 6
Guest, guide, guitar, handle, health, heart, heavily, helmet, idea, kindness, level, locket, lumber, magic, melon, metre, money, motor, mountain, partner, afternoon, appear, attack, attend, able, aftermath, breakfast, brightly, cabbage, comfort, comical, discover, empty, encourage, entertain, equal, exactly, forever, fruit, fuel, group, guard, perfect, perhaps, personal, plastic, pocket, protect, provide, railway, record, reward, shoulder, socket, stranger, stroll, subject, suit, supply, confirm, construct, curtain, customer, cable, carpenter, channel, circle, climb, damage, decide, delight, disappear, temper, theatre, total, toward, treatment, useful, vacant, windy, writer.
Challenging Spelling Words for Year 6
Action, advertisement, anoint, apparel, appliance, awkward, burglar, calculator, capital, ceiling, cemetery, conscious, constant, detrimental, dominant, eighth, exasperating, excel, exert, exhale, extravagant, facility, faucet, frugal, jealous, texture, territory, treachery, vain, valiant, veil, vein, virtue, visual, wren, wring, achieve, acoustics, language, leather, manageable, medallion, medicinal, overrule, precious, preferred, pronounce, propel, receive, recitation, reign, retrieve, significance, similar, simplicity, sleight.
Spelling with Morphology and Etymology
Morphemes are the smallest units of grammar and syntax, as well as the smallest units of meaning. In English, every word is made up of one or more morphemes. The study of these morphemes is known as morphology. A morpheme is a single root word, such as "cat" or "happy." A morpheme can be a root (the building block of a word) or a prefix or suffix that attaches to a root. Each morpheme has its own meaning, yet they frequently combine and collaborate to form words.
When a word isn't spelled with the most obvious group of letters to match the sounds, knowing the origins of words can assist. Knowing that science, awareness, and conscience all have the same Latin origin, for example, might help us recall how difficult spelling can be.
The study of word origins is known as etymology. This includes their origins, as well as how their shape and significance have evolved over time. This is important for spelling words that come from different languages, as well as terms that employ letter groupings that aren't the ones we're used to seeing.
Tips for Parents
If your youngster is having trouble memorising a spelling list, consider the following suggestions:
Remind your youngster to proofread their work for spelling mistakes on a frequent basis. They must have a sense of whether a term is correct. They might highlight terms they aren't sure about and then look them up in a dictionary.
Use a lot of pronunciation. Encourage students to say Wed-nes-day as they write on Wednesday. Many words include sounds that aren't usually clearly articulated (such as words ending in -ed), and over-emphasizing these while writing them out will help your youngster remember the spelling.
Make a list of the terms that your youngster needs to remember how to spell. The process of writing the words by hand helps youngsters remember the spelling and encourages them to consider the letters that reflect the sounds in the word. It's not as effective to type the text onto a computer or iPad.
Ask your youngster to highlight the problematic parts of a word to draw their attention to them. Encourage them to write the word, then highlight or underline this section to assist them in remembering. For primary-aged students, few resources are more stimulating than a highlighter pen!
Conclusion
One of the most crucial literacy skills your child will acquire is spelling, and as a parent, it's natural that you want to help them remain on track. From the comfort of your own home, we've made it as simple as possible for you to assist your youngster with this skill. Simply explore and download any of the worksheets, PowerPoint presentations, matching card games, and other materials focused on assisting year 6 students in achieving their objectives. The first thing to understand is that no precise spelling phrases are necessary for year 6.
FAQs on Year 6 Spelling Words: Key Words for Confident Writing
1. What are the key spelling concepts a Year 6 student should understand?
In Year 6, students are expected to move beyond basic words and understand key spelling concepts. This includes mastering words with silent letters (e.g., knight, doubt), understanding and applying prefixes and suffixes (e.g., un-, -able), correctly spelling homophones (e.g., there/their/they're), and tackling more complex, multi-syllable words from various subjects.
2. What are some examples of challenging spelling words for a Year 6 student?
Year 6 students often encounter words that don't follow simple phonetic rules. Examples of challenging words include:
- Words with silent letters: conscience, foreign, rhythm
- Homophones: principle/principal, stationary/stationery
- Complex Vowel Sounds: beautiful, queue, yacht
- Multi-syllable words: accommodation, miscellaneous, necessary
3. Why is mastering Year 6 spelling words so important for confident writing?
Mastering spelling is crucial for a Year 6 student as it directly impacts their writing fluency and confidence. When a student doesn't have to pause to think about how to spell a word, their thoughts can flow more freely, leading to more expressive and complex sentences. Correct spelling also ensures the writer's message is clear and credible, which is a key skill for all academic subjects and future examinations.
4. What is the difference between homophones and homonyms, with examples relevant for Year 6?
Understanding the difference between these is a key Year 6 skill.
- Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. For example: 'accept' (to receive) and 'except' (not including), or 'affect' (a verb, to influence) and 'effect' (a noun, the result).
- Homonyms are words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings. For example: 'address' (a location) and 'address' (to speak to), or 'right' (correct) and 'right' (a direction).
5. How do prefixes and suffixes change the spelling of root words for a Year 6 student?
Understanding prefixes and suffixes helps in spelling longer words. For Year 6, it's important to know the rules associated with them. For example, when adding a suffix that starts with a vowel (like -ing or -ed) to a word ending in a silent 'e', the 'e' is often dropped (e.g., 'hope' becomes 'hoping'). Similarly, for short vowel words, the final consonant is often doubled (e.g., 'run' becomes 'running'). This knowledge helps decode and spell thousands of words correctly.
6. What are some effective techniques for a Year 6 student to practise and improve their spelling?
Consistent practice is key. Effective techniques for a Year 6 student include:
- Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check: A classic method that reinforces memory.
- Word Dissection: Breaking down words into prefixes, root words, and suffixes (e.g., 'un-believe-able').
- Creating Mnemonics: Making a memorable phrase to remember a tricky spelling, like 'because' (Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants).
- Keeping a Spelling Journal: Noting down personally difficult words and reviewing them regularly.
7. How does developing a strong vocabulary help with spelling in Year 6?
A strong vocabulary and good spelling skills are interconnected. When a Year 6 student learns a new word, understanding its meaning, origin (etymology), and context helps solidify its spelling in their memory. For instance, knowing that words related to sight often contain 'spec' (like spectacle, inspect, spectator) provides a clue for spelling them. Reading widely exposes students to words in their correct form, naturally improving their spelling accuracy over time.
8. What are some common spelling mistakes Year 6 students make and how can they be avoided?
Common mistakes often involve confusing homophones, forgetting silent letters, or misapplying suffix rules. For instance, students frequently mix up 'their'/'there'/'they're' or write 'wierd' instead of 'weird'. To avoid these, students should focus on understanding the 'why' behind the spelling. Learning the rules for 'i before e, except after c' or associating a visual cue with a word can be very effective. Proofreading their own writing is also a critical habit to develop at this stage.
