Year 6 Spelling

20 January 2017

This week’s spellings all end in ‘tial and ‘cial. They’re not difficult spellings but we need to know when to start this ‘chul’ sound with ‘t’ and when to start it with ‘c’.

Usually, where the part of the word preceding ‘chul’ ends with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), we use C-I-A-L. However, there are a couple of exceptions to this: commercial and financial.

If the part of the word preceding ‘chul’ ends with a consonant, we use T-I-A-L. I can think of one exception: initial.

These words will be tested on Friday 27 January.

13 January 2017

All week, we’ve been going through the Year 5/6 spelling list identifying which words we think we already know.

For this week’s spelling activity, the children should practise those spellings they already know by writing them into sentences as well as identifying ten words which they feel they’ll struggle to remember.

There won’t be a test on Friday; instead we’ll discuss the words we’ve identified as trickier and create a spelling list for us to learn the following week.

06 January 2017

This week’s spellings focus on the letter string, ‘ough’.

• enough
• tough
• though
• thought
• rough
• ought
• cough
• bought
• brought
• drought
• although
• dough
• plough
• sought
• thorough

Ten of these spellings (or words in their word families, eg thorough and thoroughly) will be tested on Friday 13 January.

09 December 2016

There’s not a theme with spellings this week and there’ll be no test. I’ve given the children the Year 5/6 spelling list which indicates which words Year 6s need to know (that they haven’t learnt already in Year 3 and 4). I want them to look through the spellings and see if they can create groups of words which could be learnt together.

• homophones
• spelling patterns
• suffixes
• prefixes
• rhymes and rememberings

Then look and see which words it is difficult to put into a group – these are probably the hardest to learn.

02 December 2016

We’ve been exploring words ending in …tious and …cious for our spelling activity and next week these are the spellings we’ll be tested on.

• vicious
• malicious
• suspicious
• precious
• conscious
• delicious
• nutritious
• surreptitious
• conscientious
• cautious
• infectious
• fictitious
• ambitious

Ten words will be tested on Friday which could be from this list or could be in one of these word’s word family.

Word families are a great way to practise spelling: infect, infectious, infecting, infected, disinfect, disinfectant. Not only do I have to write the spelling pattern over and over again, but it also highlights that there’s a ‘t’ in all of these words therefore, I’ll use a ‘t’ for the …tious spelling.

25 November 2016

Next we’ll, we’ll be focussing on word endings in …tious and …cious. Here are some words which end in these sounds. Work out the root word for each of them and think about how this can help you to decide whether the spelling is with a ‘t’ or a ‘c’.

vicious, precious, conscious, delicious, malicious, suspicious, ambitious, cautious, fictitious, infectious, nutritious

18 November 2016

Our spelling list leads on from our spelling activity from last week. These are the homophones that Year 6 need to learn – remember it’s not the spellings that are tricky but knowing when to use them so you need to practise using them in sentences correctly.

11 November 2016

This week’s spelling activity is all about homonyms.

Read the chapter from Ann M. Martin’s ‘How to look for a lost dog’ which is all about homonyms. Rose (the main character) loves homonyms which include homophones and homographs.

• Homophones are words which sound (hence, ‘phone’) the same but are spelt differently: their, there, they’re.
• Homographs are words that are spelt the same (hence, ‘graph’, as in autograph) but sound different: to bow, the bow and arrow.

Rose creates lists of homonyms because she really likes them. How many groups of homonyms can you (ewe) create and can you (yew) then use them correctly in (inn) sentences. I wonder whether you can write a sentence with the whole (hole) group of homonyms in it?

Challenge – Rose can only think of one group of four homonyms. Can you think what that is? (Check Rose’s rules for homonyms in the chapter.)

4 November 2016

This week, we’ve been looking at the Year 5/6 spelling list from the National Curriculum and finding spellings that we can think of tricks and tips for remembering them. The children have chosen their own ten spellings to practise and will be tested on them on Friday 11 November.

Look at the full list of National Curriculum Year 5/6 spellings (page 23).

21 October 2016

It’s half-term, so there’s no homework. Enjoy the holiday instead: hunt down a collection of chestnuts on a walk at Roundhay Park, enjoy a cinema trip on a damp day, go further afield and visit somewhere new…

Whatever you do, have a good break.