Spelling patterns
Most spelling mistakes aren't random. They follow a pattern, and once you know the pattern you can fix every word that uses it, not just the one that went wrong.
These pages explain each pattern children meet at primary school: the rule, example words, and when it is taught in the National Curriculum for England. Each one has a short teaching guide. The guides are drafts while a teacher reviews them.
Suffixes and word endings
-ful, -ness, -ly, -tion and friends, and what happens to the word before them.
Prefixes
un-, dis-, mis-, re-, im- and more, added to the front without changing the word.
The unstressed vowel (schwa)
The quiet 'uh' in words like separate and chocolate that hides which vowel is there.
Silent letters
kn, wr, mb, gn, stle and friends: letters you write but don't say.
Same sound, different spelling
ph for /f/, wh for /w/, augh for 'or', and the famously unpredictable ough.
Vowel digraphs
ai/ay, oi/oy, ee/ea, er/ir/ur and 'i before e': two letters, one sound.
Soft c, soft g, dge and tch
city and giant, badge and catch: consonants that change with their neighbours.
Double letters
ff, ll, ss, zz and ck after a short vowel, and doubles inside longer words.
Doubling before an ending
hopping or hoping? Short vowels double the last letter, long vowels don't.
Long vowel sounds
cake, bike, home: split digraphs and the other ways to spell a long vowel.
Plurals
-s, -es, -ies, -ves and the odd ones out like children and mice.
Apostrophes
don't and can't, the girl's coat and the girls' coats, its and it's.
Homophones
there, their and they're: words that sound the same but mean different things.
Word families
sign, signal, signature: related words that share a spelling.
Root words and word origins
act, action, actor: the root keeps its spelling however the word sounds.
Spelling words as they sound
When sounding it out isn't enough: said, because, people.
Words from other languages
chef and machine, league and unique: spellings English borrowed.
Exception words
said, friend, busy: common words that don't follow the usual rules.
Look-alike letters
b and d, p and q, m and w: mirror-image letters, not a spelling mistake.
UK vs US spelling
colour and color, centre and center: the patterns that differ, and the traps.
Want the short version? The 18 KS2 spelling patterns explained. See how the app uses them: spelling patterns in Spelling.Live.