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Years 3 and 4 English · Key Stage 2 · Spelling – English Appendix 1

Years 3 and 4 spelling words: disappear to important

The statutory spelling list for Years 3 and 4 gathers words that children often use in their writing and often get wrong. This page covers the second group of 25 in alphabetical order, from disappear to important, including height, February, favourite, grammar and heart. Children learn them by finding the tricky part of each word and using what they know about word families.

Spelling words: disappear to important, explained

The Years 3 and 4 list is statutory, so every school teaches it, but how the words are grouped and in what order is the school’s decision. This page follows alphabetical order: disappear, early, earth, eight and eighth, enough, exercise, experience, experiment, extreme, famous, favourite, February, forward and forwards, fruit, grammar, group, guard, guide, heard, heart, height, history, imagine, increase and important. A child may meet these words spread across many weeks and in a different order.

A cluster of words here share the letters ear, which stand for different sounds. In early, earth and heard the letters say “er”. In heart they say “ar”. Learning them together, and noticing which are which, helps more than meeting them one at a time. Other groups share unusual vowel pairs: fruit has ui saying “oo”, group has ou saying “oo”, and guard and guide both have a silent u after the g. Eight, eighth and height all use eigh, and enough ends with ough saying “uff”.

Many spellings come from knowing how a word is built. Disappear is dis- plus appear, so it has one s and two p letters. Eighth is eight with an h added, so it has just one t. Famous is fame plus ous with the e dropped. Imagine belongs to the word image. History ends with the word story, which helps children remember the ending. Important contains the word port. Grammar and exercise are less obviously built, so they are learned by looking at the tricky spots: the double m and the -ar ending in grammar, and the -ise ending in exercise.

Two words ask children to say them differently from how they are spelt. February has an r that is often dropped in speech, so it sounds like “Feb-yoo-ary”, but the spelling is Feb-ru-ary. Favourite is built from favour, so it keeps the British -our in the middle, unlike the American favorite, and it ends in -ite, not -it or -ate. The list includes both forward and forwards, which differ only by the final s. Teachers help children by saying words in a spelling voice, as if all the letters were pronounced.

Height catches out many children, and plenty of adults. It ends in -ht, like eight, not in -th, which is why “heighth” is a common slip. A useful trick is that height is simply the word eight with an h put in front. The word is pronounced quite differently, but the memory trick holds, and it is the kind of connection teachers encourage because it gives each word its own anchor.

Words your child will hear

Statutory
Set down in law. Every school must teach the words on the list.
Prefix
Letters at the start of a word that change its meaning, such as dis- in disappear.
Suffix
Letters added to the end of a word, such as -ous in famous or -ly in actually.
Silent letter
A letter you can’t hear, like the u in guard and guide.
Mnemonic
A memory trick, such as “height is eight with an h in front”.
Word family
Words that are related, such as image and imagine.

What the National Curriculum says

In Years 3 and 4, pupils should be taught to:

  • Spell these words from the statutory word list for years 3 and 4: disappear, early, earth, eight/eighth, enough, exercise, experience, experiment, extreme, famous, favourite, February, forward(s)
  • Spell these words from the statutory word list for years 3 and 4: fruit, grammar, group, guard, guide, heard, heart, height, history, imagine, increase, important

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: four tricky words, four tricks

Your child needs to learn “height”, “February”, “guard” and “heart”. How can they find the tricky part of each and remember it?

  1. Height: say it, then notice that it ends in -ht like eight. Height is the word eight with an h in front. That one trick fixes the “heighth” error, because there is no th at the end.
  2. February: say it in a spelling voice, “Feb-ru-ary”, making the r clear, which most people drop in speech. The first part is Feb, the middle is ru and the ending is ary. Write it with the three chunks marked.
  3. Guard: the tricky part is the silent u after the g. Say it as “g-u-ard” and write it. Link it to guide, which also has a silent u after g, so the two words support each other.
  4. Heart: it has ear saying “ar”, unlike early and earth where it says “er”. A common trick is to find the word ear in heart, or the word art in heart. Either way, children notice that the spelling is built from small words they know.
  5. Cover, write and check all four. Practise again the next day, then use each word in a sentence, for example “My favourite month is February.”

height (eight with an h in front), February (Feb-ru-ary), guard (silent u), heart (ear saying “ar”).

Common mistakes and how to help

Writing “heighth”, “hieght” or “hight”

Width and length end in -th, so children expect height to follow the pattern. The ei and ie order is also easy to flip.

What helps: Use the trick that height is eight with an h in front. Say it as “h-eight” when writing. Point out that the -th pattern belongs to width and length, not height.

Writing “Febuary” or “Febuarry”

Most people say the word without the first r, so children write what they hear.

What helps: Say it slowly as Feb-ru-ary when practising. Write it in three colours, one for each chunk, and keep a calendar nearby to check against.

Mixing up the ear words: “erly”, “hert”, “hurd”

The same four letters sound different in heart, heard, early and earth, so sound-based spelling gets a different result each time.

What helps: Sort them: “er” in early, earth and heard, and “ar” in heart. Write each group in its own colour and make up a sentence with two in it.

Dropping or adding letters in disappear, famous and grammar, such as “dissapear”, “fameous” or “grammer”

Children try to spell by sound and miss that the word is built from parts. In grammar, the final syllable sounds like “er”.

What helps: Split the word into its parts: dis + appear, fame without e + ous, gram + mar. Say grammar as gram-mar, with two m letters and the ending -ar, and check the spelling again the next day.

How to help at home

  • Find the word inside. Look for small words hidden in big ones: art or ear in heart, story in history, port in important, image in imagine. Write each word and underline the hidden one.
  • Sort the ear words. Write early, earth, heard and heart on cards and sort them by sound. Add other words with ear as you meet them in books, and talk about why spelling by sound alone won’t work.
  • Calendar spelling. Choose a month each week and write it out in full from memory, starting with February. Then write a sentence about something you plan to do in that month.
  • Height chart. Measure each family member against a wall and write a label for each with their height in a sentence, such as “My height is 135 centimetres.” It makes a tricky word feel useful.
  • Spelling voice and silent partners. Read guard and guide aloud, saying every letter including the u, then cover and write them. Keep these two silent u words together on one card, put fruit and group on another as the “oo” words, and test again after a few days.

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More on spelling – English Appendix 1

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