Spelling Rules | Bentley High Street Primary School

Spelling Rule	Example Words	Useful links and worksheets
The sound spelt as ge and dge at the end of words, and sometimes spelt as g or j elsewhere in words before e, i and y	badge, edge, bridge, age, huge, change, gem, giant, magic, giraffe, jacket, jar, jog, join, adjust	Flash Cards Worksheet
The /s/ sound spelt c before e, i and y	race, ice, cell, city, fancy	Cinderella Story
The /n/ sound spelt kn and (less often) gn at the beginning of words	knock, know, knee, gnat, gnaw	Silent "K"
The /r/ sound spelt wr at the beginning of words	write, written, wrote, wrong, wrap	"WR" worksheet
The /l/ sound spelt –le at the end of words	table, apple, bottle, little, middle	"le" ending worksheet
The /l/ sound spelt el	camel, tunnel, squirrel,	el worksheet
The /l/ sound spelt –al at the end of words	metal, pedal, capital, hospital, animal	al worksheet
Words ending –il	pencil, fossil, nostril	il worksheet
The /aɪ/ sound spelt –y at the end of words	cry, fly, dry, try, reply, July	y worksheet y worksheet 2
Adding –es to nouns and verbs ending in –y	flies, tries, replies, copies, babies, carries	the Y rule
Adding –ed, –ing, –er and –est to a root word ending in –y with a consonant before it	copied, copier, happier, happiest, cried, replied …but copying, crying, replying Exceptions skiing and taxiing.	Y rule crossword
Adding the endings –ing, –ed, –er, –est and –y to words ending in –e with a consonant before it	hiking, hiked, hiker, nicer, nicest, shiny	crossword To double or not to double
Adding –ing, –ed, –er, –est and –y to words of one syllable ending in a single consonant letter after a single vowel letter	patting, patted, humming, hummed, dropping, dropped, sadder, saddest, fatter, fattest, runner, runny	worksheet
The /or/ sound spelt as a before l and ll.	all, ball, call, walk, talk, always
The sound o	other, mother, brother, nothing, Monday
The /ee/ sound spelt –ey	key, donkey, monkey, chimney, valley
The /o/ sound spelt a after w and qu	want, watch, wander, quantity, squash
The /er/ sound spelt or after w	word, work, worm, world, worth
The /or/ sound spelt ar after w	war, warm, towards
The /zu/ sound spelt s	television, treasure,usual
The suffixes –ment, –ness, –ful , –less and –ly	enjoyment, sadness, careful, playful, hopeless, plainness (plain + ness), badly merriment, happiness, plentiful, penniless, happily
Contractions	can’t, didn’t, hasn’t, couldn’t, it’s, I’ll
The possessive apostrophe (singular nouns)	Megan’s, Ravi’s, the girl’s, the child’s, the man’s
Words ending in –tion	station, fiction, motion, national, section
Homophones and near-homophones	there/their/they’re, here/hear, quite/quiet, see/sea, bare/bear, one/won, sun/son, to/too/two, be/bee,
Common exception words	door, floor, poor, because, find, kind, mind, behind, child, children, wild, climb, most, only, both, old, cold, gold, hold, told, every, everybody, even, great, break, steak, pretty, beautiful, after, fast, last, past, father, class, grass, pass, plant, path, bath, hour, move, prove, improve, sure, sugar, eye, could, should, would, who, whole, any, many, clothes, busy, people, water, again, half, money, Mr, Mrs, parents, Christmas – and/or others according to programme used Note:* ‘children’ is not an exception to what has been taught so far but is included because of its relationship with‘child’.