Years 5-6 Statutory Words Set 4

MISCHIEVOUS is a word children love to over-spell. They hear an extra syllable that is not there and write “mis-chiev-i-ous”, adding an I that does not belong. The correct word is simpler than it sounds — and that gap between sound and spelling is the lesson of this set.

This fourth set of Years 5-6 statutory words from the DfE leans on prefixes and silent letters: the INTER words that share a beginning, the silent N of GOVERNMENT, and a cluster of words where the spoken form misleads. Understanding the building blocks — the prefixes and roots — turns several of these from memory tasks into logical ones. The word search gathers all fifteen for focused practice.

FREQUENTLY · GOVERNMENT · GUARANTEE · HARASS · HINDRANCE · IDENTITY · IMMEDIATE · INDIVIDUAL · INTERFERE · INTERRUPT · LANGUAGE · LEISURE · LIGHTNING · MARVELLOUS · MISCHIEVOUS

Building words from their parts

Three INTER- words sit in this set: INTERFERE (interfere between), INTERRUPT (break in between — from S61 plus the RUPT root from S59), and IMMEDIATE has a near-relative beginning IM-. The same INTER- from S61 explains the spelling instantly. INTERRUPT and INTERFERE both double their inner consonant for the same reason — the prefix INTER- meets a base starting with another consonant, and English keeps both letters visible.

GOVERNMENT and IMMEDIATE both hide silent letters — the N in GOVERNMENT (most people say “GOV-er-ment”, dropping the N entirely), and the M-M of IMMEDIATE doing double duty. MARVELLOUS uses the -ous suffix from S49 again — this is its fourth appearance across Years 5-6 spelling, and S49’s rule keeps predicting it correctly. MISCHIEVOUS uses the same suffix but children frequently add an extra I — the trap is hearing “mis-chee-vi-us” when the spelling is mis-chee-vous (just three syllables, no extra I). Tell your child plainly: this is the only version that is correct, no matter how often they hear the wrong one.

Five to examine carefully

1. INTERRUPT is INTER + RUPT. Find it. Ask your child what each part means — INTER (between, from S61) plus RUPT (break, from S59) equals “break between”. The whole word is two pieces children already own. Year 6 vocabulary, Year 5 toolkit.
2. MISCHIEVOUS is three syllables, not four. Say it slowly: MIS-CHIE-VOUS. Three. If your child hears four, they will write a wrong word. Mouth fix again: clean three syllables, no extra I.
3. GOVERNMENT keeps its N. Cover the second N and read GOVERMENT — which is how most people say it. The N must be written, even if it disappears in speech. Tell your child: the spelling is the careful version of what we say.
4. LANGUAGE has UA in the middle. Look at the spelling letter by letter — L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E. Two vowels in a row in two places. Most children write LANGAUGE or LANGAGE. Ask your child to point at each vowel one at a time.
5. LIGHTNING has GH that says nothing. Cover the GH and read LITNING. Same silent GH as the EIGHT family from B10, the HEIGHT from B12, the STRAIGHT from B14. A ghost letter spanning the entire UK statutory list, in word after word. Year 6 children should now recognise it on sight.

Bringing it into the classroom

As a prefix-and-root recap starter. Write INTERRUPT on the board with a vertical line: INTER | RUPT. Then ask the class: what does each piece mean, and where did we meet them? INTER from S61 (between), RUPT from S59 (break). The starter rebuilds the Series A system on a Year 6 word — and proves that the building blocks taught in Stage 5 are still doing the work two years later.

As a silent-letter taxonomy pair task. Pairs sort silent letters in the grid into three columns: “silent because of history” (the N in GOVERNMENT, the GH in LIGHTNING), “silent because of doubling” (the second M in IMMEDIATE), “letters that mislead in pronunciation but aren’t silent” (the U in LANGUAGE, the EI in LEISURE). A taxonomy of silences makes the trap landscape feel structured rather than random.

One-to-one at home. For homeschooling families, the news headline trick from B11 works particularly well here: GOVERNMENT, INDIVIDUAL, IMMEDIATE and FREQUENTLY all turn up in news bulletins constantly. This week, your child watches a five-minute news clip and tallies every appearance of any grid word. Then they write down the sentence each word appeared in. News vocabulary is exactly Year 6 vocabulary — and watching grown-up writing for spelling targets is what reading-for-editing actually is.

What comes next

• Years 5-6 Statutory Words Set 5 — silent letters and the longest queue in the language
• Years 5-6 Statutory Words Set 3 — the previous set
• All spelling word searches — the full Series A, B and C collection

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