Years 5 and 6 English · Key Stage 2 · Writing – transcription (spelling)

Years 5 and 6 spelling: prefixes, suffixes and silent letters

By Years 5 and 6 the words children need to spell are longer, and many come from Latin, Greek and French, so sounding them out is rarely enough. Children learn how words are built from prefixes, roots and suffixes, how to add endings correctly, which letters stay silent, how to tell apart words that sound the same or nearly the same, and which words simply have to be learnt. The goal is spelling that is secure enough to stop getting in the way of writing.

Prefixes, suffixes and silent letters, explained

Spelling at this stage rests on morphology, which is the study of the meaningful parts of words, and etymology, which is where words come from. A child who knows that the root “sign” means mark can see why the g in sign is there: it is pronounced in signature. Other words work the same way, such as autumn and autumnal, solemn and solemnity, or bomb and bombard. Silent letters often make sense once you know a word’s family or history, and the curriculum’s examples (non-statutory) are knight, psalm and solemn. Knight once had a pronounced k, which is why it is there.

Prefixes go at the start of a word and change its meaning. Children met many in Years 3 and 4, such as dis-, mis-, sub-, inter-, super-, anti- and auto-, and the way in- becomes il-, im- and ir- (illegal, impossible, irregular). In Year 5 they use prefixes to make verbs, such as dis-, de-, mis-, over- and re- (disappear, defrost, misunderstand, overtake, recalculate). The main guidance is that adding a prefix does not change the spelling of the root: “dis” plus “satisfied” is dissatisfied, with both s’s kept. New in Years 5 and 6 is the hyphen, which can join a prefix to a root, especially when the prefix ends in a vowel and the root starts with one, as in co-ordinate, co-operate and re-enter. Some of these words are also accepted without a hyphen, so it helps to check what your child’s school uses.

Suffixes go at the end, and the guidance on adding them is where most Year 5 and 6 spelling errors happen. Children learn to turn words into verbs with -ate, -ise, -ify and -en. They learn when to use -able and -ible, -ably and -ibly, -ant and -ent, and -ance and -ence. A related word ending in -ation is often a clue to -ant, -ance or -able (hesitation, hesitant; adoration, adorable). Endings that sound like “shus” are -cious or -tious, and the c version is usual when the root ends in -ce (grace, gracious; space, spacious). Endings that sound like “shul” are -cial or -tial: -cial is common after a vowel (official, special) and -tial after a consonant (partial, essential), with exceptions such as initial and financial. Children also learn the “i before e except after c” rule for words with a long “ee” sound (receive, ceiling) and its exceptions, such as protein and seize, and the many sounds of the letter string ough (though, through, bought, rough, cough, plough). They also learn that when a word ends in -fer and the ending starts with a vowel, the r is doubled only if the stress stays on the -fer: referring and referred, but reference and preference. Each of these comes with guidance and with exceptions, so children also build up their memory of the actual words.

Another strand is words that are often confused. Some are homophones, such as past and passed, or who’s and whose. In another group the noun and the verb are spelt differently, sometimes with a change in sound and sometimes without: advice and advise, device and devise, practice and practise, licence and license, prophecy and prophesy. In British English the noun takes the c and the verb takes the s. Spell-checkers cannot help, because both spellings are real words, so children have to learn to think about the meaning and the job the word is doing in the sentence.

Finally, the curriculum includes a list of words for Years 5 and 6 (about a hundred) which children are expected to learn specifically, because they follow few patterns. Words such as necessary, accommodate, conscience, parliament and thorough are typical. Teachers use mnemonics, word families, saying a word as it is spelt (Wed-nes-day) and regular testing. The end-of-Year-6 grammar, punctuation and spelling test includes a spelling section with words read aloud, but the real aim is accurate spelling in everyday writing.

Words your child will hear

Prefix: A group of letters added to the start of a word that changes its meaning, such as dis- in disagree.
Suffix: A group of letters added to the end of a word, such as -able in comfortable.
Root word: The main part of a word that prefixes and suffixes are added to.
Silent letter: A letter written in a word but not pronounced, such as the k in knight.
Homophone: A word that sounds the same as another but is spelt differently and means something else, like passed and past.
Morphology: How words are built from meaningful parts such as prefixes, roots and suffixes.
Etymology: The history of a word and where it comes from.

What the National Curriculum says

In Years 5 and 6, pupils should be taught to:

Use further prefixes and suffixes and understand the guidance for adding them
Spell some words with ‘silent’ letters
Continue to distinguish between homophones and other words which are often confused
Use knowledge of morphology and etymology in spelling and understand that the spelling of some words needs to be learnt specifically, as listed in English appendix 1

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

Try it: choosing -able or -ible

Spell the words meaning: (a) able to be adored, (b) able to be seen, (c) able to be noticed.

Start with the root. For (a) the root is “adore”, which is a complete word. When the root is a whole word, the ending is usually -able, as in comfortable and enjoyable.
Adore ends in an e, and the ending begins with a vowel letter, so the e is dropped: adore becomes adorable.
```
adore + able  →  adorable
```
For (b) the root is “vis”, from a Latin word for see. It is not a word on its own, and -ible usually follows a root that is not a word, so the ending is -ible. Check with the word family: vision, visual, visit.
```
vis + ible  →  visible
```
For (c) the root is “notice”. The c is soft, saying “s”. If the e were dropped, the c would be followed by an a and would read as a hard “k”, as in cable. So the e is kept to keep the c soft.
```
notice + able  →  noticeable
```
Remember this is a strong guideline, not a law with no exceptions. If a word looks wrong, the word list and a dictionary are the final check.

(a) adorable, (b) visible, (c) noticeable.

Common mistakes and how to help

Always dropping the final e before an ending, writing “noticable” or “managable”

The usual pattern, in words like adore and adorable, is to drop the e, so children apply it everywhere.

What helps: Show the soft c and soft g examples: noticeable, manageable, courageous. Ask your child to say the word with and without the e, and notice that without it the c or g would sound hard.

Mixing up -ant and -ent, or -ance and -ence, as in “independant”

In speech the vowel is a weak “uh” sound, so the ear gives no clue which letter to use.

What helps: Use word families where the vowel is clearer: hesitation points to hesitant, and confidential to confident. After a soft c or g, or after qu, the ending is -ent or -ence (innocent, intelligent, frequent); with an a after it, a c or g would sound hard. Many words follow no clue at all, so keep a list of the ones that catch your child out, including independent.

Leaving out silent letters because they are not said, writing “nife” or “autum”

Children spell what they hear, and nothing in the sound of the word tells them the letter is there.

What helps: Make a game of the story behind the letter. Link a word to its relatives, such as sign and signature, and say it as it is spelt (kuh-night) when practising.

Trusting a spell-checker to catch “practice” and “practise” or “advice” and “advise”

Both versions are real words, so nothing is flagged, and children rely on the tool rather than the meaning.

What helps: Teach the rule that the noun has the c and the verb has the s. A quick test is to swap in another noun-verb pair: you give advice but advise someone, just as you have a device but devise a plan.

How to help at home

Be a word detective. Pick a root such as sign, bomb or act and see how many family members your child can find. Seeing why a letter is there makes it much easier to remember.
Say it as it is spelt. For tricky words, pronounce them in an exaggerated way when practising: Wed-nes-day, Feb-ru-ary, k-night. It is a memory trick, not how you say them for real.
Make sentence pairs. For each confused pair, such as past and passed or advice and advise, ask your child to write two sentences that make the difference obvious, then check them with you.
Little and often. Five minutes with three words from the year’s list works better than a long session. Look, cover, write and check, then come back to the same words a few days later.
Spot words in the wild. Notice endings on signs, packaging and labels: -able, -ible, -tion, -cial. Ask which ending it is and whether the root is a whole word.

Builds on

Years 3 and 4: Prefixes, suffixes and homophones
Years 3 and 4: Plural apostrophes, dictionaries and dictation

Leads on to

Key Stage 3: Writing for different purposes
Key Stage 3: Organising and rhetorical devices
Key Stage 3: Drafting, editing and proofreading