About This Spelling Book

Your child has finished learning the Year Three and Year Four government words. This spelling book is designed to increase your child’s vocabulary and encourage them to make brave choices in their vocabulary. Children are more likely to use new words when they are confident at spelling them.

Each set contains five words. Using phonics is still important, but time will need to be spent discussing the meanings. You will be able to hear when your child doesn’t quite use a new word correctly and help them to become more fluent.

The Two-Week Practice Approach

Each spelling set is designed to be practised over two weeks. This timeframe is crucial for effective learning. When children encounter the same words multiple times across several days, they can develop automatic recognition and spelling ability. Please keep rehearsing to improve their chances of permanently recalling each spelling. Research shows that spacing out practice over time, rather than trying to learn in one session, is by far the most beneficial. Forgetting a spelling during a check-up or when applying it within writing is a natural part of the learning process, especially when the meanings of words are less familiar.

Daily Practice Tips

Keep practice short and positive: just two to three minutes daily is far more effective than longer, infrequent sessions. Do return to previous spellings to ensure that these (and the definitions) have been retained.

Supporting Your Child

! Celebrate recognition of mistakes and effort, not just correct spellings.

! Encourage your child’s determination and help them to recognise errors as an inevitable part of the learning journey.

! Make practice fun and varied to maintain interest. For ideas to motivate and to encourage positive conversations about inaccuracies, please click here.

! Support your child to find the definitions of their spelling words, using an online or paper dictionary, to encourage accurate use in their writing.

! These words are only useful if they are used in writing. Remind your child to write them in correctly punctuated sentences.

! Challenge your child to use words, like ‘illuminated’ in fiction (for example in vivid descriptions) and non-fiction (information texts).

Retaining and applying learning

! Remember: consistent practice over the two-week period will give your child the best chance to master these spellings and to build their confidence as a speller. Repeated practice is the key!

! It is great to build up strategies for trickier words, but remember that building words using phonics is often the most reliable approach. View the phonics charts via the links below: they are so helpful as they show spelling choices that your child can make.

! Use the links below for handwriting practice sheets for each set. There are also sentences to try out that include every word in this book.

Thank you for supporting your child to flourish.