Spellings Year 4
Based on Support for Spelling and the NC 2014
Support for spelling is a fantastic programme which is available to view online and has some great ideas which support the teaching of spelling in
schools.
Autumn Term 1
Support for Spelling Objectives
To distinguish between the spelling and
meaning of Homophones.
NC 2014 links
Key Words
hear/here,
2 word examples be/bee, knew/new, right/write, through/threw,
whole/hole, are/our, sea/see, here/hear,
flower/flour
history, grammar, century, increase, pressure,
position, naughty, notice
3 word examples – were/where/we’re,
their/there/they’re, to/too/two.
Autumn Term 2
NB. Homophones are words which sound the
same but are spelt differently.
To investigate collect and classify spelling
patterns relating to the formation of plurals.
OUT
Statutory expectations to cover
Homophones and near-homophones
New NC with examples
accept/except, affect/effect, ball/bawl,
berry/bury, brake/break, fair/fare, grate/great,
groan/grown, heel/heal/he’ll, knot/not,
mail/male, main/mane, meat/meet,
medal/meddle, missed/mist, peace/piece,
plain/plane, rain/rein/reign, scene/seen,
weather/whether, whose/who’s
Key Words
describe
breathe, breath, calendar, forward(s), height,
promise, straight, remember
Statutory expectations to cover
Use of the French ‘gue’ and ‘que’
New NC with examples
League, tongue, antique, unique
Statutory expectations to cover
Spring 1
Spring 2
To investigate and learn to spell words with
common letter strings.
OUT
To understand how suffixes change the
function of words.
OUT
Use of the Latin words where the ‘s’ sound is
spelt ‘sc’
New NC with examples
Science, scene, discipline, fascinate, crescent,
scent.
Statutory expectations to cover
Words with –sure or – ture endings
New NC with examples
Measure, treasure, pleasure, enclosure,
creatures, furniture, picture, nature, adventure.
NB. Beware words which sound similar but
have (t)ch endings (eg. teacher, catcher,
richer, stretcher)
Key Words
accident(ally), occasion(ally), centre, difficult,
mention, ordinary, purpose, special, extreme
Statutory expectations to cover
Use of the letter string ‘ch’
New NC with examples
Greek - scheme, chorus, chemist, echo, character
French – chef, chalet, machine, brochure
NB. ‘ch’ – with greek origin sounds ‘c’
whereas if they have French origin sounds
‘sh’
Key Words
Famous, various
Busy/business, certain, experience, fruit, guard,
guide, interest
Statutory expectations to cover
Use of the suffix -ous
New NC with examples
Obvious root – poisonous, dangerous,
mountainous, famous, various.
No obvious root – tremendous, enormous,
jealous.
Ending in ‘our’ – humorous, glamorous, vigorous,
Keeping the final ‘e’ – courageous, outrageous,
Further examples – serious, obvious, curious,
hideous, spontaneous, courteous.
Summer 1
To understand the use of the apostrophe in
contracted forms of words.
Word examples
don’t, aren’t, can’t, hadn’t, doesn’t, couldn’t, I’d
(for I had and I would), you’re, they’re, I’ve,
you’ll, I’ll, he’ll, I’m, you’ve.
NB. Rule – apostrophe replaces missing
letters.
‘It’s’ meaning it is or has.
‘Its’ – is a possessive pronoun and is gender
neutral and does NOT need an apostrophe
when talking about an animal or an
inanimate object. Often confused with the
possessive form (eg. Jenna’s bike)
Uses - The cat licked its paws. The oak tree
loses its leaves etc.
NB – Usual rules apply for obvious root
words.
Rule - If word ends in ‘our’ it is changed to ‘or’
before ‘ous’ is added.
Rule – The final ‘e’ of the root word must be
kept if the ‘g’ sound of ‘g’ is to be kept.
Key Words
Island, knowledge, medicine,
possess/possession, strange, suppose,
Statutory expectations to cover Possessive
form of apostrophe
New NC with examples
girls’, boys’, babies’, children’s, men’s, mice’s
NB. Rule – The apostrophe is placed after the
plural form of the word. ‘s’ is not added if the
word already ends in ‘s’ but is added if it does
not, as with many irregular verbs (eg.
children)
Rule – single proper nouns ending in ‘s’ do
add an ‘s’ (eg. Cyprus’s population)
Summer 2
To revise and investigate links between
meaning and spelling when using affixes.
(Affixes – general term for prefixes or
suffixes)
Auto – means self or own
Example words:
Autograph, autobiography, automatic,
automobile.
NB – Objective from support for spelling but
the coverage of specific prefixes/ suffixes
have changed to match new curriculum
requirements. Overlap – auto
Affix – the general term for a prefix or a
suffix. It is placed at the beginning or end of a
root work to change its meaning. It cannot
stand alone.
Key Words
Revise ALL words from the year
Statutory expectations to cover
Use of prefixes.
‘Auto’ and ‘Sub’
New NC examples
autograph, autobiography, subheading,
subdivide, submerge, submarine.
Statutory expectations to cover
Use of suffixes
-ation, - tion, - sion, -ssion, -cian
-ation is added to verbs to form nouns
(information, adoration, sensation, preparation,
admiration)
The following are strictly speaking –ion, but the
root word determines their ending.
- tion used if the root words ends ‘t’ or –‘te’
(invention, injection, action, hesitation,
completion)
- sion – is used is the root word ends in ‘d’ or ‘se’
(expansion, extension, comprehension, tension,
division, invasion, confusion, decision, collision,)
- ssion – is used if the root word ends in ‘ss’ or
‘mit’ (expression, discussion, confession,
permission, admission)
- cian – is used if the root words ends in ‘c’ or ‘cs’
(musician, electrician, magician, politician,
mathematician)
NB – For an extension you could also cover –
inter meaning between or among, - anti
means against,