Spelling words for 8 9 year olds

The Basic Spelling Vocabulary List

By: Steve Graham, Karen R. Harris, Connie Loynachan

This list was created to help teachers know which spelling words should be taught to kids in grades 1–5. The list contains 850 words that account for 80 percent of the words children use in their writing — the ones they need to be able to spell correctly.

This list was devised to help educators know which spelling words should be taught to children. The list contains 850 words that account for 80 percent of the words children use in their writing — the ones they need to be able to spell correctly.

Mastering this relatively small corpus of words yields a high rate of return. For example, the most common 1,000 words are used 13 times more frequently than the next most common 1,000 words. It also provides teachers flexibility in planning spelling instruction, providing an opportunity to give children the "basics" while supplementing with other spelling words germane to classroom activities.

Grade level for each word was determined based upon difficulty, pattern of occurrence in children's writing across grades, and grade placement on current vocabulary lists and spelling materials.

Words that children have difficulty spelling correctly are marked with an asterisk.

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Graham, S. , Harris, K.R. and Loynachan, C. (1993). The Basic Spelling Vocabulary List. Journal of Educational Research 86(6) 363-368.

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Spelling in Year 4 (age 8–9)

In Year 4, your child will continue to develop their spelling. They will write and read more, learning more complex spellings as they go. They will use dictionaries to check words they are unsure of.

Read on to discover the National Curriculum expectations for spelling in Year 4, and to find out how you can support your child at home.

What your child will learn

Take a look at the National Curriculum expectations for spelling in Year 4 (age 8–9):

Using more prefixes and suffixes

Suffixes are morphemes (groups of letters that mean something on their own) that are added at the end of a root or root word to change the meaning. Prefixes are morphemes added at the front of a word. Over the course of Year 4, your child will learn about lots of prefixes and suffixes to spell longer words and change the meaning of those words.

Spelling more homophones

Homophones are words that are spelled differently and have different meanings, but are pronounced in the same, or almost the same, way. They are often confused in children’s writing. In Year 4, your child will learn the difference between:

accept/except, affect/effect, ball/bawl, berry/bury, brake/break, fair/fare, grate/great, groan/grown, here/hear, 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

Spelling words that are often misspelt

The National Curriculum in England provides a word list for Year 3 and Year 4 children of words that are often misspelt. Children will be taught to spell these words at school.

Practise spelling these words with our Spelling word list for Year 3 and Year 4.

Using the possessive apostrophe with regular and irregular plurals

Apostrophes are used to show possession (who or what something belongs to). These are different depending on whether there is one person or thing (singular) or more than one (plural).

When showing singular possession, an apostrophe and an -s are often added (for example, ‘Paul’s bike’ or ‘the girl’s voice’). If an -s is already at the end of a word to show a plural, the apostrophe is added after the -s (for example, ‘the girls’ voices’).

Singular possession: ‘the horse’s field’ (one horse).

Plural possession: ‘the horses’ field (more than one horse).

When a word ends in an -s, but isn’t a plural (for example, ‘Chris’ and ‘diplodocus’), the apostrophe can be added with or without the -s (‘the diplodocus’ swamp’ or ‘the diplodocus’s swamp’ – both are correct).

Some plural words are irregular, meaning that they do not end in an -s (for example, ‘children’, ‘team’). Here, an apostrophe and an -s are added after the final letter (‘the children’s toys’ or ‘the team’s boots’).

Checking spellings in a dictionary

​In Year 4, your child will continue to check the spellings of their words using an age-appropriate dictionary. Find out more about how dictionaries can help your child learn on our Children’s dictionaries page.

How to help at home

There are lots of ways you can help your Year 4 child with spelling. Here are our top ideas.

1. Help with spelling homework

If your child is struggling with a spelling list they have been asked to learn, here are a few ideas to help:

• • Remind your child to regularly check through their writing for spelling errors. They need to develop a feel for whether a word looks right. They could underline words they are not sure of and then check with a dictionary.
  • Use over-pronunciation. So for Wednesday, encourage children to say Wed-nes-day as they write. There are lots of words which feature sounds that aren’t always pronounced clearly (such as words ending in -ed), and over-emphasising these while spelling them out can help fix the spelling in your child’s memory.
  • Ask your child to write down the words that they need to remember how to spell. The physical act of writing the words by hand helps to anchor the spelling in children’s memories and encourages them to think about the letters that represent the sounds in the word. Typing the words into a PC or tablet isn’t as effective.
  • Focus your child’s attention on the tricky bits in a word by asking them to highlight them. For example, show them that said has ‘ai’ in the middle and ask them to write the word, and then highlight or underline this part to help them remember. Few resources are more motivating than a highlighter pen for primary-aged children!

2. Play spelling games

Playing games can help children to learn about spelling in an enjoyable way. Watch grammar expert Charlotte Raby’s video ‘How can I help my child with grammar, punctuation and spelling?’ to see some fun and easy games:

Video playlist: How can I help my child with SPaG?

Charlotte Raby offers her expert advice for helping your child develop their grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills at home.

Online games such as Word worm can be motivating, and so can more traditional games like hangman. Making silly sentences can be great fun too. Challenge your child to write a silly sentence, including as many of the words on their spelling list as possible.

For example, your child may have to learn ‘room took hoop foot book’. They could make up a silly sentence such as ‘The boy took his book across the room but got his foot caught in a hoop’. Why not draw illustrations to go with the sentences?

3. Find the right resources

Learning to spell is a gradual process and mastering English’s complex spelling system can take time. All children are different: some pick up spelling quickly, while others take longer. Whatever their level, we have lots of free spelling activities to support them.

Year 3 & 4 spelling word list

100 words children are expected to be able to spell by the end of Year 4.

Hyphen between words - rules and examples

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Continuous, separate and hyphenated spelling of words is a real nightmare for most schoolchildren. There are indeed a lot of rules in this topic that you need to remember. But spelling doesn't seem so difficult if you understand it properly. This is what we will do today: we will consider which words are written together, separately or with a hyphen.

Nouns

Hyphen in nouns

Let's see in which cases we can put a hyphen in words and between parts of a word, if we are talking about nouns. In total, we have three options for such a spelling, let's get to know everyone.

1. If a noun has a root half- and the second root begins with a consonant l , a vowel or an uppercase letter, then there must be a hyphen between them:

   nine0024

2. half lemon,

3. half watermelon,

4. half of Hungary etc.

In all other cases, the morpheme gender with nouns is written together.

5. If a compound noun is formed from two words without a connecting vowel, and both of them can be used as separate words, then a hyphen is written between its stems:

6. Words are also written with a hyphen, namely compound nouns that denote cardinal points or geographical names:

Continuous spelling of nouns

Next, let's look at when nouns can be written together. Usually this concerns the spelling of complex words.

1. Compound abbreviated nouns must be written together:

   • special forces,

   • gym,

   • Ministry of Culture etc.

2. If a compound noun has a connecting vowel, it is also written together:

   • dump truck,

   • medical examination,

   • pipeline etc.

3. If a noun has the root half-, and the second root does not begin with an uppercase letter, vowel or consonant l, it is written together. Also, a noun with the root semi- should be written together:

   • half measures,

   nine0017

   half store,

   • half home etc.

4. Complex nouns with foreign elements Avo- , Auto- , Agro- , Aero- , Bio-, Video- , hydro-, ZOO- , are also also written. metro , micro , motorcycle , tele , photo and some others:

   • hydrosphere,

   • autopilot

   • airport etc.

Test Yourself

Read the nouns below and identify which words are hyphenated and which are not. Open the brackets and support your answer with the rules in this section.

(Sea) swimmer, (half) boat, (half) coat, (half) continent, (half (Europe), (north) east, (St.) Petersburg, (sea) infantry

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Adjectives

Hyphen in adjectives

Adjectives can be written with a hyphen in three cases. Let's consider them in more detail together with examples.

1. If the adjective is formed from compound nouns, parts of which are written with a hyphen, then the word itself must contain this hyphen:

   At the same time, if the adjective is formed from a compound noun without a hyphen, then the adjective itself must be written together. This can be seen in the example of the words motor ship - motor ship .

2. If a compound adjective is formed by adding two words, put a hyphen between its stems. It is easy to define such words - between these bases you can add the union and :

   • Russian-German - Russian and German,

   • sweet and sour - sour and sweet.

3. If a compound adjective reflects additional qualities of an object, for example, shades of color, a hyphen should be put between its parts:

   • bright green,

   • sky blue.

Continuous spelling of adjectives

1. 0003

   • locomotive - locomotive,

   • lightning rod - lightning rod etc.

2. If an adjective is formed from two independent words by addition with a suffix and a connecting vowel, it should also be written together:

   • Pacific + Ocean - Pacific,

   • railway + railway - railway etc.

   nine0043

Test Yourself

Read the adjectives below and identify which words are hyphenated and which are not. Support your answer with the rules in this section.

Physics (mathematical), steam (carry), acid (yellow), garden (garden), helicopter (flight), water (wire).

Adverbs

Hyphen in adverbs

Now let's move on to adverbs and consider all cases when the words of this part of speech are written with a hyphen.

1. If an adverb is formed from a noun or an adjective with the prefix in - and the suffixes -th , -th , -and , it must contain a hyphen:

2. If the adverb has a prefix something or postfixes - something , - or , - something , then such an adverb is called indefinite . In this case, the word must be written with a hyphen:

3. If an adverb is formed by repeating itself, its root or synonymous adverbs, it must also be hyphenated:

   • out of the blue,

   • a little,

   • little by little etc.

4. In Russian, adverbs formed from ordinal numbers with the help of prefixes to -, to - and the suffix -ih ( -ih ), are written with a hyphen:

   • first,

   • third etc.

Continuous and separate spelling of adverbs

In other cases, adverbs are usually written together. At the same time, they are similar to combinations of prepositions and nouns that are homonymous to them, for example:

• have not seen each other since the beginning of spring,

• let's talk first