Is your child struggling with Year 6 spelling words?

If your young person is approaching the Year 6 SATs exam this spring and having a hard time with their spelling, the time to start helping them work on it is now.

Knowing how to spell matters.
(Yes, even in the age of autocorrect!)

Beyond the stress of knowing there is a big assessment coming up at the end of the school year, struggling with spelling can be a real problem for students in Year 6.

Feeling like you “don’t know how to spell” can be a frustrating, discouraging experience. That feeling can make it difficult for a young person to be willing to fully engage with writing challenges down the road: after all, how will they feel confident in their writing if they’re not sure if the words are spelled correctly?

So it’s important to get a handle on the problem early, build their capabilities and their confidence. But how do you start?

There may be some usefulness to going over the year 5 and year 6 spelling list over and over and over again… but for a student who’s already frustrated by spelling, that’s actually not the best way to practise.

So…how do we help frustrated young people get better at spelling?

Spelling is a game of skill, just like any other learning challenge.

The object of the game

be able to write words out correctly so that they’re instantly recognised and understood by any reader

An arrow curling top-left to bottom-right

An arrow curling top-right to bottom-left

The moves

there are thirteen spelling themes that the year 6 spelling curriculum focuses on helping students master. If you can break down your practise at first to learn these particular rules, and the applicable words, tackling the rest of the list becomes significantly easier.

Practise the moves in combination

start building practise lists with multiple, similar rules so you can see the differences between them as you practise! Eventually, you’ll be able to go through the whole list and all the words you have learned at once.

Play the game

take practise tests. Come up with them yourself, or ask your teacher or…you know…some friendly local outside educator to see if they can create some for you!

Some children who are already really discouraged might have trouble engaging with spelling. Here’s how to help them get back on track.

Give them permission to play badly at first. It’s okay to make mistakes early on! In fact, you need to, in order to learn anything. But a lot of kids think if they’re not good at something right away, there’s something wrong with them.
(Read more about playing badly at first here!)
Focus more on the process than the outcome. Thinking about the scores of practise tests takes away from their actual point—the learning! Letting go of outcomes is important on test days, too, but it’s absolutely vital to getting the most out of your practise.
(Read more about letting go of outcomes here!)
Don’t let them assume they’ll do poorly just because of past poor performances. No one knows how good they can get at anything before they get there. We have plenty of examples of students improving massively from their initial ability level. The trick is not to assume you can’t do it!
(Read more: "You Don't Know Your Limits!")

For more help with Year 6 spelling, you can get in touch with us here or sign up for a 30 day free trial of MuchSmarter Games to help your child start practising on your own!

We help students become more capable, confident learners—and help them make the most of their minds—by teaching them to treat learning like a game.