Commonly Misspelt Words

There are words that teachers know children struggle with and however good a spelling programme they go through these are the words where most mistakes are made. We have a long list of words that fall into that category and here’s a sample of 20 of them. Why don’t you read them out to your child and see how well they do.

As a tip for parents preparing for the 11 Plus, there’s a common mistake nearly every parent makes and that is to test too much and learn too little. That may sound strange but here’s what we mean. If you give your child this test and they make five mistakes what would you normally do?  In many families they may let them know which ones they got wrong and why but by morning the child has probably forgotten.  This is the problem with most books, they give pages of tests but at no point do they tend to suggest making a personal list of words a child didn’t know or couldn’t spell and to focus on that list every week as a specific activity.

As an activity making lists and frequently coming back to them really boosts a child’s spelling and vocabulary skills, without it or, something like it, little progress is made.  Words need to be seen and written out( in and out of context) frequently for them to sink in properly and difficult spelling must be tested quite frequently to ensure it sinks in, with periods of learning/refreshment/revision in-between.

Now have a go at the words and please do ask yourself the following question – If we get some wrong, how can we learn them without keeping some form of record of those we have got wrong and going through some form of learning exercise with them ?…….. Remember in the 11 Plus core skills are only properly developed through learning activities not doing fresh tests.

List of commonly misspelt words in the 11 Plus

Bicycle

Business

Colleague

Conscience

Desperately

Exhilarate

Fluorescent

Guarantee

Loneliness

Mischievous

Nuisance

Persevere

Phenomenon

Receive

Rhythm

Scissors

Surprise

Unfortunately

Weird

Yacht

For those parents wanting to help their children prepare for 11 plus exams we have produced free guides and recommended resource lists.  Just use the links below:

English Preparation Year 3

English Preparation Year 4

English Preparation Year 5