The Year 3 to 6 spelling lists
English · Key Stage 2 · The School
The lists have patterns in them
The statutory Year 3–4 and Year 5–6 word lists look like a hundred unrelated words and are not. Groups run through them. Silent letters: doubt, island, knowledge, scissors, thorough. The -ough family: although, thought, through, enough. Words ending -cious or -tious: precious, suspicious, ambitious. -ance and -ence: appearance, existence, correspond.
Learn the group, not the word
Learning ACCOMMODATE alone is one word. Learning that it takes double c and double m alongside occasion, occur and necessary starts a pattern you can extend. Sorting a list into groups before learning it is itself most of the learning, because grouping forces you to look at the letters rather than the shape.
When a word will not stick
For a word you keep failing: say it as it is SPELLED rather than as it sounds — WED-NES-DAY, SEP-A-RATE. Find a word inside it: there is a RAT in sepaRATe, an ISLAND has an IS. Write it large and look at the letters that catch you out. These feel childish and they work, which is why professional writers still use them.
Take: knight, thought, definite, doubt, although, separate, wrestle, rough, desperate, island, through, ancient. Sort them. SILENT LETTERS: knight, doubt, wrestle, island. -OUGH: thought, although, rough, through — and note they sound different from each other. UNSTRESSED VOWEL: definite, separate, desperate — all with a hidden 'e' or 'a' you cannot hear. Twelve words became three groups, and the groups are what you actually learn.