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

Years 5 and 6 spelling words: queue to yacht

The statutory spelling list for Years 5 and 6 has 100 words, and children are expected to spell them correctly by the end of Year 6. This page covers the last 25, from queue to yacht. Many of them hide a silent letter, a spelling borrowed from Greek or a smaller word inside the bigger one, so learning why a word is spelt as it is works better for most children than simply writing it out again and again.

Spelling list: queue to yacht, explained

The 25 words here are queue, recognise, recommend, relevant, restaurant, rhyme, rhythm, sacrifice, secretary, shoulder, signature, sincere (and sincerely), soldier, stomach, sufficient, suggest, symbol, system, temperature, thorough, twelfth, variety, vegetable, vehicle and yacht. They are statutory, so every school teaches them in Year 5 or Year 6, but schools choose the order. Some teachers take them alphabetically, others group them by a shared pattern so that one word helps with the next.

A good number of these words keep spelling patterns from Greek, French or other languages, and they do not follow the usual English sound rules. Stomach has a ch that sounds like k, and rhythm starts with the Greek rh, a spelling that rhyme later copied. Symbol and system use a y where an i would do, while yacht, which came into English from Dutch, has a silent ch and vehicle a silent h. Queue and restaurant come from French: queue keeps four vowels, ueue, after the q, although all they say together is “you”. Teachers do not ask children to learn each as a separate oddity. They show that these are groups of words with the same quirk, so once your child has met the y in symbol, the y in system is easier.

Another set of words rewards looking for a smaller word inside. A secretary keeps a secret, a signature begins with sign (the g is silent in sign but sounded in signature), twelfth is twelve with the ve swapped for an f before the th, variety comes from vary, and recommend is re plus commend. Suffixes follow rules too: sincere keeps its e when -ly is added, so sincerely, and recognise ends in -ise, the spelling used in the statutory list and taught in most schools in England. Suggest and sufficient both double a letter, gg and ff, because they come from Latin words that began with sub-, and the b changed to match the letter that follows.

Children are expected to use these words in their own writing. The Year 6 grammar, punctuation and spelling test includes a spelling section in which words are read out and the child writes them in, and teachers look for correct spelling in everyday work. Dictionaries are part of the curriculum too: a child who can guess two likely spellings can usually find the right one. Several of these words appear in letters, which is a natural place to practise, since “Yours sincerely” closes a letter to a named person.

Words your child will hear

Silent letter: A letter you write but do not say, such as the h in vehicle or the ch in yacht.
Suffix: Letters added to the end of a word. In sincerely, the suffix is -ly and the e of sincere stays.
Base word: The simplest form a word grows from. Secret is the base word inside secretary.
Letter string: A group of letters that often appear together, such as the ough in thorough.
Syllable: A beat in a word. Tem-per-a-ture has four syllables, though it is often said with three.
Mnemonic: A memory trick for a spelling. “Rhythm helps your two hips move” gives the letters of rhythm.
Homophone: A word that sounds like another but is spelt differently, such as symbol and cymbal.

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: queue, recognise, recommend, relevant, restaurant, rhyme, rhythm, sacrifice, secretary, shoulder, signature, sincere(ly), soldier
Spell these words from the statutory word list for years 5 and 6: stomach, sufficient, suggest, symbol, system, temperature, thorough, twelfth, variety, vegetable, vehicle, yacht

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

Try it: sorting tricky words by what makes them tricky

Sort these eight words by the reason they are hard to spell: stomach, vehicle, yacht, signature, rhythm, suggest, sufficient, symbol.

Say each word aloud and underline the part that does not match the sound. For stomach it is ch, for vehicle the h, for yacht the ch, for signature the g, for rhythm the rh and y, for suggest the gg, for sufficient the ff, and for symbol the y.
Make the first group: letters borrowed from Greek. Stomach has ch making a k sound, rhythm has rh and y, and symbol has y where an i would do. Add system, which has the same y as symbol. A reminder for stomach: the ch says k, as in school.
Make the second group: silent letters. The h in vehicle says nothing: it is vee-ick-ul. The ch in yacht says nothing either: the word sounds like “yot”. A trick that works for yacht is to write it in chunks while saying them: y, a, ch, t.
Make the third group: doubled letters from a changed prefix. Suggest and sufficient both come from Latin words that started with sub-, and sub- became sug- and suf- to match the next letter. So the double letter has a reason, which is easier to remember than a rule with no explanation.
Place signature in a group of its own: a hidden smaller word. It is sign plus ature, and the g that is silent in sign is said in signature. Writing sign first and then adding the ending gets it right.

Greek-style letters: stomach, rhythm, symbol (and system). Silent letters: vehicle, yacht. Doubled letters after a changed prefix: suggest, sufficient. Hidden smaller word: signature (sign).

Common mistakes and how to help

Writing words as they are said: “tempreture”, “vegtable”, “restront”

In everyday speech, temperature loses a syllable, vegetable loses its middle and restaurant ends in a sound like “ront”. Children spell what they hear.

What helps: Say each one in the spelling voice: tem-per-a-ture, veg-e-ta-ble, rest-aur-ant. It sounds odd, which is the point. Exaggerated speech makes the hidden letters audible.

Missing a letter from a word that is built from another: “twelth”, “secratary”, “relevent”

Twelfth is formed from twelve, so the f is easy to forget, and the sound at the end of twelfth runs together. Secretary and relevant have unstressed vowels that sound the same whichever letter is written.

What helps: Link each word to its base: twelve, secret, and for relevant, say rel-e-vant slowly, with the vowels in order. Say fifth and twelfth together to feel the same f in both.

Mixing up look-alike and sound-alike words: symbol and cymbal, thorough and through

These pairs look or sound close. Symbol and cymbal sound identical, and thorough shares its ough with through even though the two sound quite different, so the letters give no clue about the sound.

What helps: Put each word in a sentence that only fits one meaning: “The cymbal crashed,” “A red cross is a symbol,” “She gave the room a thorough clean.” Keep ough words together in a list and say each aloud, since the letters do not predict the sound.

Dropping the e from sincerely or inventing a spelling for recognise

Children often learn that a final e is dropped before a suffix beginning with a vowel and apply this where it does not belong. In recognise they leave out the g, because it is hard to hear.

What helps: Sincerely: the suffix -ly begins with a consonant, so the e stays. Recognise: say rec-og-nise, giving the g its sound. Writing a short formal letter, for example to a club leader or a local library, and closing it “Yours sincerely” is a natural way to practise sincerely.

How to help at home

Say it the spelling way. Pick a word and say it aloud in a silly voice with every letter sounded: ve-hi-cle, ya-ch-t, tem-per-a-ture. It takes a few seconds and it is surprisingly effective, because the hidden letters become audible.
Hunt for the smaller word. Challenge your child to find the word hidden in each of: secretary, signature, twelfth, variety, recommend, sincerely. Once they spot it, they should write the small word first and add the rest, so they build the spelling rather than guess it.
Write a real letter or note. A thank-you note, a restaurant recommendation for a relative, or a postcard about a trip all use words from this list naturally. For a more formal letter to someone your child does not know well, such as a club leader, they can practise closing with “Yours sincerely”.
Spelling quiz on a journey. Take turns to give each other three words to spell out loud. Let your child be the quizmaster, and make a mistake now and then so they get to correct you. Spotting someone else’s mistake makes your child look closely at every letter.
Invent your own memory tricks. For rhythm, try “Rhythm helps your two hips move”. For secretary, remember that a secretary keeps a secret. Ask your child to invent the next one: the sillier it is, the more likely it is to stick. Keep a short list on the fridge.

Builds on

Years 3 and 4: Suffixes, –ation and –ly
Years 3 and 4: Prefixes, y and ou spellings
Years 3 and 4: Endings -tion, -sion, -cian, -ous, -sure
Years 3 and 4: Greek, French and Latin spellings; ei, eigh, ey
Years 3 and 4: Plural apostrophes and homophones
Years 3 and 4: Spelling words: accident to difficult
Years 3 and 4: Spelling words: disappear to important
Years 3 and 4: Spelling words: interest to potatoes
Years 3 and 4: Spelling words: pressure to woman