KeyStage

Years 5 and 6 English · Key Stage 2 · Spelling – English Appendix 1

Years 5 and 6 spelling words: identity to pronunciation

By the end of Year 6, children in England are expected to spell the words on the statutory Years 5 and 6 list, 100 words in all, which schools usually teach in small groups across the two years. This page covers 25 of them, from identity to pronunciation. They are words that turn up constantly in writing and are easy to get wrong because of double letters, silent letters and vowel patterns that do not match the sound. Spelling them securely means a child can write fluently without stopping to worry.

Spelling list: identity to pronunciation, explained

The words on this page are identity, immediate (and immediately), individual, interfere, interrupt, language, leisure, lightning, marvellous, mischievous, muscle, necessary, neighbour, nuisance, occupy, occur, opportunity, parliament, persuade, physical, prejudice, privilege, profession, programme and pronunciation. The list is statutory, which means schools must teach it, but the order and the grouping are up to each school. Your child may meet these words one or two at a time, or in sets built around a shared pattern.

Good spelling teaching at this age is not just copying a word ten times. Teachers help children find the “tricky bit” of each word and then do something about it. In this group the tricky bits are mostly double letters (immediate, interrupt, occupy, occur, opportunity, necessary), a silent letter (the c in muscle), and vowel strings that do not match the sound (leisure, neighbour, mischievous, language, nuisance, persuade). Children are also taught to say a word the way it is spelt, so that nui-sance, mis-chiev-ous and par-li-a-ment sound a little silly but are easy to write.

Many of these words belong to families, and the family often gives away the spelling. Pronounce becomes pronunciation, but the o drops out. Occur becomes occurred and occurring because the final r is doubled when a suffix beginning with a vowel is added and the last syllable of the word is stressed. Profession gives professional, muscle gives muscular, physical sits beside physics, and marvellous is marvel plus ous, with the l doubled in British spelling. The curriculum’s own guidance says that word history can help, and some words reward it: immediate means “with nothing in between”, individual comes from a Latin word meaning “not able to be divided”, parliament comes from an old French word built on parler, “to speak”, and muscle comes from a Latin word meaning “little mouse”.

Children are expected to use these words correctly in their own writing, not only in spelling practice. Teachers look for them in everyday work, and the Year 6 grammar, punctuation and spelling test includes a spelling section in which words are read out and the child writes them in. Children are also taught to check a doubtful spelling in a dictionary, which is easier once they can guess the likely letters. British spellings matter here: neighbour, marvellous and programme look wrong to a spellchecker set to American English.

Words your child will hear

Statutory word list
The words the National Curriculum says every child must be taught to spell in Years 5 and 6.
Prefix
Letters added to the front of a word to change its meaning, such as inter- in interrupt and interfere.
Suffix
Letters added to the end of a word, such as -ly in immediately or -ed in occurred.
Word family
Words that share a root and often a spelling, such as pronounce and pronunciation, or profession and professional.
Double consonant
The same consonant twice in a row, such as the cc in occur and the pp in opportunity.
Syllable
A single beat in a word. Pronunciation has five: pro-nun-ci-a-tion.
Mnemonic
A memory trick for a hard spelling, such as “one collar, two sleeves” for necessary.

What the National Curriculum says

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

  • Spell these words from the statutory word list for years 5 and 6: identity, immediate(ly), individual, interfere, interrupt, language, leisure, lightning, marvellous, mischievous, muscle, necessary, neighbour
  • Spell these words from the statutory word list for years 5 and 6: nuisance, occupy, occur, opportunity, parliament, persuade, physical, prejudice, privilege, profession, programme, pronunciation

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

Try it: learning to spell “pronunciation”

Pronunciation is easy to say but hard to spell. How can your child learn it so it stays learned?

  1. Say it slowly in syllables and tap one for each beat: pro-nun-ci-a-tion. That is five beats. Saying every beat stops the middle of the word getting squashed when it is written down.
  2. Link it to its family. The word it comes from is pronounce, which has an ou in it. Pronunciation does not: the o drops out and it becomes nun. Say the difference aloud: “pronounce has an ou, pronunciation has a nun.”
  3. Mark the tricky parts. Underline the nun and the c that follows it: the “see” sound after nun is spelt ci, not si or see, and the ending is the familiar -ation. Then the child makes up their own memory trick, since a trick they invent sticks better than one they are given.
  4. Use look, say, cover, write, check. Look at the word, say it by syllables, cover it, write it, then uncover it and compare letter by letter. If one letter is wrong, rewrite the whole word rather than just fixing the letter.
  5. Try again the next day and again at the weekend, then put it in a sentence of their own: “The teacher praised her clear pronunciation of the French words.” Short practice spread over several days usually works better than many repetitions in one sitting.

pronunciation: pro-nun-ci-a-tion, with no ou, written correctly from memory on three different days and used in a sentence.

Common mistakes and how to help

Writing “pronounciation” because pronounce is in it

Children reasonably assume that a word built from pronounce keeps its spelling. It is a good guess that happens to be wrong, because the o is lost.

What helps: Treat it as a family with an exception. Write pronounce and pronunciation side by side and circle the letters that change. The same idea helps with other pairs where letters change, such as persuade and persuasion.

Getting the double letters wrong: “interupt”, “ocur”, “oportunity”, “neccessary”

Double letters are invisible in speech. Children spell what they hear, and a single consonant sounds the same as a double one.

What helps: Count the consonants before writing. Use a trick for necessary (one collar, two sleeves: one c, two s) and link occur to occurred, where the double r shows up. Interrupt is inter plus rupt, as in erupt, so the r is doubled where the two parts join.

Spelling by sound where the sound misleads: “mischievious”, “lightening”, “parliment”

Mischievous is often said with an extra syllable, mis-chee-vee-us, which then gets written down. Lightning and lightening sound the same but mean different things, and parliament is usually said with the middle swallowed.

What helps: Say the word the way it is spelt, with three syllables for mischievous and four for parliament. For lightning (the storm) versus lightening (making something lighter), link lightening to the verb lighten: you lighten a heavy bag, so that word keeps its e, while the flash in the sky has no e.

Using American spellings: “neighbor”, “marvelous”, “program”

Children read a lot online and in imported books, and spellcheckers are often set to American English by default.

What helps: Explain that England uses neighbour with the ou, marvellous with two l’s and programme with the extra me for a television or school programme. Computer program is a separate matter, so it is fine if that one looks different. Set the family computer’s language to British English.

How to help at home

  • Three words at a time. Pick three words your child gets wrong in their own writing and work only on those for a week. Look, say, cover, write and check on three separate days beats one long session, and it keeps the effort small enough to feel manageable.
  • Sort the words by their tricky part. Write a few words on scraps of paper and sort them into piles: double letters, a silent letter, a surprising vowel pattern. Deciding which pile a word belongs in forces your child to look at it properly, which is where most spelling learning happens.
  • Build families. Take one word and see how many relatives your child can find: occur, occurred, occurring; profession, professional; prejudice, prejudge. Spotting that the root stays the same makes the spelling feel like a pattern rather than a coincidence.
  • Dictate a short sentence. Read out a sentence that uses two or three of the words, for example “It was a nuisance that our neighbour kept interrupting.” Your child writes it, then checks each word themselves. Dictation practises spelling in context, which is where the words are needed.
  • Make the dictionary a habit. When your child is unsure, ask them for two guesses and then check in a dictionary together. Narrowing the options and finding the right one is a skill they will use for the rest of their schooling.

Related topics

Builds on

More on spelling – English Appendix 1

Everything in Years 5 and 6 English

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