
Complete Year 6 Spelling Words List with Meanings 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 for Students and Teachers
1. What are Year 6 spelling words?
Year 6 spelling words are advanced vocabulary words that students in Year 6 are expected to read, spell, and use correctly in their writing. These words often include:
- Commonly misspelled words (e.g. accommodate, necessary)
- Words with complex prefixes and suffixes
- Words ending in -able/-ible and -ably/-ibly
- Words with silent letters (e.g. knight, island)
2. What spelling rules do you learn in Year 6?
In Year 6, students learn advanced spelling rules involving prefixes, suffixes, and word endings. Key rules include:
- Adding -able and -ible correctly (e.g. adorable, possible)
- Changing -able to -ably and -ible to -ibly
- Words ending in -ent/-ence and -ant/-ance
- Using hyphens with prefixes (e.g. co-operate, re-enter)
3. How do you spell words ending in -able and -ible?
Words ending in -able usually come from whole root words, while words ending in -ible often do not have a complete root word. For example:
- comfortable (comfort + able)
- reliable (rely → reliable)
- possible (no full root word "poss")
4. What are some commonly misspelled Year 6 words?
Commonly misspelled Year 6 spelling words include tricky words with double letters or unusual letter patterns. Examples include:
- accommodate
- embarrass
- definitely
- conscience
- recommend
5. How can I practise Year 6 spelling words at home?
You can practise Year 6 spelling words at home by using repetition, word study, and active recall techniques. Effective strategies include:
- Writing each word in a sentence
- Breaking words into syllables (e.g. ac-com-mo-date)
- Using the look, cover, write, check method
- Practising weekly spelling tests
6. Why are prefixes and suffixes important in Year 6 spelling?
Prefixes and suffixes are important in Year 6 spelling because they change the meaning and form of root words. For example:
- un- + happy = unhappy
- help + -ful = helpful
- possible + -ity = possibility
7. What is the difference between -ance and -ence endings?
The difference between -ance and -ence endings depends on the related adjective or root word. For example:
- important → importance
- different → difference
8. How do you spell words with silent letters in Year 6?
Words with silent letters must be memorised because the silent letter is written but not pronounced. Common examples include:
- knight (silent k)
- island (silent s)
- lamb (silent b)
9. What are homophones in Year 6 spelling?
Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Common Year 6 examples include:
- their, there, they’re
- to, too, two
- principal, principle
10. How do Year 6 spelling words help with SATs preparation?
Year 6 spelling words help with SATs preparation by improving accuracy in grammar, punctuation, and spelling assessments. These words:
- Appear in the KS2 SATs spelling test
- Strengthen vocabulary in reading papers
- Improve clarity in extended writing tasks



















