Spelling
Year 4
Spelling for Grammar Year 4 investigations
Spellings
Nouns can be made by
adding a suffix
e.g. add –ness
Adjectives can be made
from nouns and verbs
using suffixes
e.g. add –ful,
add – less
add - ous (see below)
Adverbs can be made by
adding a suffix to
adjectives -ly
Rules/guidance
 Nouns can be made from adjectives by
adding suffixes such as –ness
 Spellings are modified when the root
word ends in y
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Root words can be modified to
create word families by changing
suffixes and prefixes.
Spellings are modified when the
root word ends in y
Ful is not spelled with two ‘l’s
Not all adverbs end –ly but
Adjectives can be turned into
adverbs by adding this suffix
Spellings are modified when the
root word ends in y
Examples
Happy – happiness
Cheerful – cheerfulness
Cold – coldness
Cruel – cruelness
Tidy - tidiness
Weak - weakness
Soft – softness
Open - openness
Aware - awareness
Mild - mildness
Nervous - nervousness
Forgetful - forgetfulness
Tired - tiredness
Beauty – beautiful
Help – helpful
Harm – harmful
Peace – peaceful
Play – playful
Success – successful
Care – careful
Pain - painful
Sleeve – sleeveless
Hope – hopeless
Rest – restless
End – endless
Breath – breathless
Point – pointless
Price - priceless
Angry – angrily
Bad – badly
Brave – bravely
Cruel – cruelly
Easy – easily
Happy – happily
Greedy – greedily
Sad – sadly
Safe – safely
Foolish – foolishly
Loud – loudly
Quiet - quietly
Spelling
Year 4
New Spellings for Year 4
Spellings
Rules/guidance
Examples
Adding suffixes beginning
with vowel letters to words
of more than one syllable
If the last syllable of a word is stressed and
ends with one consonant letter which has
just one vowel letter before it, the final
consonant letter is doubled before any
ending beginning with a vowel letter is
added.
The consonant letter is not doubled if the
syllable is unstressed.
The prefix in– can mean both ‘not’ and
‘in’/‘into’. In the words given here it means
‘not’.
Before a root word starting with l, in–
becomes il.
Before a root word starting with m or p, in–
becomes im–.
Before a root word starting with r, in–
becomes ir–.
sub– means ‘under’.
forgetting, forgotten,
beginning, beginner, prefer,
preferred
prefixes
inter– means ‘between’ or ‘among’.
super– means ‘above’.
anti– means ‘against’.
auto– means ‘self’ or ‘own’.
The suffix –ation
The suffix –ation is added to verbs to form
nouns. The rules already learnt still apply.
Words with endings
sounding like /ʒə/ or /tʃə/
The ending sounding like /ʒə/ is always
spelt –sure.
The ending sounding like /tʃə/ is often spelt
–ture, but check that the word is not a root
word ending in (t)ch with an er ending –
e.g. teacher, catcher, richer, stretcher.
If the ending sounds like /ʒən/, it is spelt as
–sion.
Sometimes the root word is obvious and the
usual rules apply for adding suffixes
beginning with vowel letters.
Sometimes there is no obvious root word.
–our is changed to –or before –ous is
added.
A final ‘e’ of the root word must be kept if
the /dʒ/ sound of ‘g’ is to be kept.
If there is an /i:/ sound before the
–ous ending, it is usually spelt as i, but a
few words have e.
Endings which sound like
/ʒən/
The suffix –ous
gardening, gardener, limiting,
limited, limitation
in–: inactive, incorrect
illegal, illegible
immature, immortal, imperfect
impossible, impatient,
irregular, irrelevant,
irresponsible
sub–: subdivide, subheading,
submarine, submerge
inter–: interact, intercity,
international, interrelated
(inter + related)
super–: supermarket,
superman, superstar
anti–: antiseptic, anticlockwise, antisocial
auto–: autobiography,
autograph
information, adoration,
sensation, preparation,
admiration
measure, treasure, pleasure,
enclosure
creature, furniture, picture,
nature, adventure
division, invasion, confusion,
decision, collision, television
poisonous, dangerous,
mountainous, famous, various
tremendous, enormous,
jealous
humorous, glamorous,
vigorous
courageous, outrageous
serious, obvious, curious
hideous, spontaneous,
courteous
Spelling
Year 4
New Spellings for Year 4 continued…
Spellings
Rules/guidance
Endings which sound like
/ʃən/, spelt –tion, –sion, –
ssion, –cian
Strictly speaking, the suffixes are –ion and
–ian. Clues about whether to put t, s, ss or
c before these suffixes often come from the
last letter or letters of the root word.
–tion is the most common spelling. It is
used if the root word ends in t or te.
–ssion is used if the root word ends in ss
or –mit.
–sion is used if the root word ends in d or
se.
Exceptions: attend – attention, intend –
intention.
–cian is used if the root word ends in c or
cs.
Words with the /k/ sound
spelt ch
Words with the /ʃ/ sound
spelt ch
Words ending with the /g/
sound spelt –gue and the
/k/ sound spelt –que
Words with the /s/ sound
spelt sc
Possessive apostrophe
with plural words
Homophones and nearhomophones revision
Homophones and nearhomophones
Word list
(Greek in origin)
(mostly French in origin)
(French in origin)
Examples
invention, injection, action,
hesitation, completion
expression, discussion,
confession, permission,
admission
expansion, extension,
comprehension, tension
musician, electrician,
magician, politician,
mathematician
scheme, chorus, chemist,
echo, character
chef, chalet, machine,
brochure
league, tongue, antique,
unique
(Latin in origin) In the Latin words from
science, scene, discipline,
which these words come, the Romans
fascinate, crescent
probably pronounced the c and the k as two
sounds rather than one – /s/ /k/.
The apostrophe is placed after the plural
girls’, boys’, babies’,
form of the word; –s is not added if the
children’s, men’s, mice’s
plural already ends in
(Note: singular proper nouns
–s, but is added if the plural does not end in ending in an s use the ’s suffix
–s (i.e. is an irregular plural – e.g.
e.g. Cyprus’s population)
children’s).
there/their/they’re, here/hear, quite/quiet, see/sea, bare/bear, one/won,
sun/son, to/too/two, be/bee, blue/blew, night/knight
accept/except, affect/effect, fair/fare, grate/great, groan/grown, main/mane,
medal/meddle, peace/piece, rain/rein/reign, scene/seen, weather/whether,
whose/who’s
accident(ally)
difficult
knowledge
position
actual(ly)
disappear
learn
possess(ion)
breath
enough
library
possible
breathe
exercise
material
pressure
build
experience
medicine
probably
busy/business
extreme
mention
purpose
calendar
famous
natural
question
centre
favourite
naughty
recent
century
grammar
notice
separate
certain
guard
occasion(ally)
special
complete
guide
opposite
straight
consider
height
ordinary
strength
continue
imagine
particular
suppose
decide
increase
peculiar
therefore
describe
important
perhaps
though/although
different
interest